Premise: Hellblade is about a girl named Senua on a quest to resurrect her dead lover by walking into the Norse version of Hell.
Psychosis.
Hellblade purports to portray general psychosis through Senua. Though, in my layman's understanding of mental health, I would further suspect some level of paranoid schizophrenia due to her hearing voices as well as some level of disassociation.
I am not a mental health professional, nor an expert in the field. Everything I say is from my own experience in therapy and from casual internet research.
Narratively, these voices sound like they are inside her head, or that's what the game wants you to think. She occasionally will look directly into the camera as if mad at the voices. Giving the feeling that the player is causing her psychosis or that maybe perhaps it is the player's actions that impede Senua.
The voices seem to act as a method of player validation and exposition. Rather than depict psychosis from Senua's perspective one hundred percent of the time. Although, occasionally the voices do make fun of Senua — which, from my understanding of schizophrenia, is much more common. Often times the voices will both accurately depict psychosis and inform the player of her status. For instance: In battle, if Senua becomes low in health, the voices will say things like “Don't let them see you as weak!” — while another voice will just laugh.
Combat and gameplay loop:
You'll control Senua as she cautiously examines the world of Helheim. This will be performed in general by examining a door with runes on, then finding those runes within the environment. These are perception puzzles, in that they're solved by viewing things from certain locations at certain angles. Which in and of themselves feel like an analogy... from my perspective.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2473738656
Senua's default movement is egregiously slow, it's okay for story moments, but during puzzles it's obnoxious. There's an option to turn run into a toggle that I highly recommend using. The slow pace of movement creates a lot tension in the atmosphere. But when going back and forth and running around doing perspective puzzles trying to figure out what, if anything, has changed in the environment it's nice to not have to hold run down all the time.
Combat:
It's relatively standard — you've got quick and strong attacks plus evade and block. A well timed block will parry/counter. There's also a melee attack to knock shielded enemies off balance. It vaguely reminded me of “Ryse: Son of Rome”. Although thematically it's probably closer to God of War. The combat is more compelling than I originally perceived before playing. You can also combine some things such as sprinting and then doing a lunge attack.
As mentioned, the voices help in battle — they'll call out attacks when enemies are behind her and have her surrounded or inform her when enemies have low health. Almost like an evolution of how Dead Space tried to integrate the HUD into in-game elements.
The combat can feel shallow. However, because the game has permadeath (with some retries) — juxtaposed to something like another Ninja Theory game in DMC where you're encouraged to try different fighting styles to increase your score. Hellblade's combat feels like it has more drive behind it. You don't want to try something new because it could result in your much more real death.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2473768912
Senua also has a mirror on her belt that acts as a gauge for her focus. Out of combat, focused is used to examine things. However, in combat it's used to slow enemies down.
My take:
Part of what irks me about religious or mythological tales is that they often involve characters that are fighting their own god or gods — they often tell a story with the idea of feeling abandoned by them in some way. Possibly betrayed. As an atheist, the concept of a god never enters into my framework of what is necessary for our own existence. The existence of a god would actually make things even more convoluted because you'd need to further provide reason and evidence for its own existence. In Hellblade, once again, it's difficult to to determine if Senua is exclusively dealing with her psychosis or if there are actual gods she's dealing with. As in, it's not really clear to me if this game is a very archaic but elaborate exposure therapy session to try and deal with her own grief or if narratively, she is literally fighting gods in an attempt to resurrect her lover. It could also just be an allegory for the struggle of dealing with loss and I'm just overthinking again.
Technical issues:
I died a few times because the camera got stuck behind a wall during combat and was unable to defend myself. I died another time during a chase sequence when I got stuck on the geometry of small vine in a tunnel.
The Gist:
I think Hellblade is worth a playthrough. Though, it's far from a masterpiece. I do think it's the main reason why Microsoft wanted to acquire Ninja Theory. But for me, I feel the game would have been better suited without the meandering emotional guilt of a mentally unstable teenager while the perplexing question of — “is Senua even lucid throughout this? — is never really addressed. I'm not a fan of poetic imagery because it fails to provide a succinct message. Confusion or conveying the abstract is certainly a valid course for story-telling but I feel it's a bit overdone in this. I think it would have fared better if Senua was simply a warrior in a very difficult battle or war and struggled to cope after failing. In my eyes, that would have made a better, more cohesive tale.
[spoiler]For me, the message that I pulled out of this game is one that I discovered in my own life already — the real harm of religion is that it utterly robs people of the ability to cope with the actuality of death. Regardless of one's mental state.[/spoiler]
Zitat:
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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2473906143
