Hellblade (Off-Topic)

by cheapLEY , Wednesday, May 01, 2019, 21:42 (2031 days ago) @ Korny

I'm likely going to do one more run on Xbox to get that 100% I accidentally missed. Eager to see how Cheap feels when he finishes.

I really liked it! Honestly, it's right up there with The Last of Us, in terms of games I really feel are "art."

The Garm section was incredible. It really is amazing to me that I can know the game is designed so that I'll always make it to the next section of light before Garm gets me, but it's still terrifying every time.

I mostly liked the last section. Fighting on those platforms, surrounded, with the great music felt truly epic. The very last fight, however, feel really flat. Obviously you're supposed to die, but the game just spawns enemies immediately behind you. It felt cheap. But worse, it also wasn't hard. I guess it fits with the theme, in that I wasn't defeated--I had to willingly let go and die voluntarily. But it still just feels bad.

I still don't like the Surtr area. In the grand scheme of things, it's fine, but it's still a bummer, and, honestly, it might be enough to prevent me from playing through the game again. Maybe not, though. We'll see in a year.

I really loved this game, but part of me would still really like to see what a real AAA $60 version of it would be like. Expand the combat mechanics a bit (although, I did really end up enjoying the combat in the game), expand on some of the areas for reforging Gramr. I'm not really sure the game would benefit from that, though. As it is, just about everything is compelling without overstaying its welcome. I'm not sure it would work as a 30 or even 20 hour game quite as well.