Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 Review

[Music] watching senoa emerge from a shipwreck onto the shoreline bruised bloodied and struggling to breathe immediately drags us back into the depths of desperation and despair of senis Saga hellblade 2 psychosis affected lead from the outset what follows is a supremely taught 6-hour tour across the human realm of midgard that's conveyed through staggeringly Vivid action sequences stunning NAIC inspired locations and intense ERS with towering Terrors intimidating enough to make a viking mess their Furs hellblade 2 serves up another satisfyingly brutal and consistently enthralling heroin's Journey even if it streamlines sword fighting favors cinematic spectacle over substantial gameplay death although it's been some seven years since hell blade Center was sacrifice the events of hellblade 2 take place shortly after the originals vengeful highway to helheim with hell's Bell now feeling empowered by her psychosis rather than encumbered with it however after the Icelandic slave ship she stows away on is wrecked During a severe storm survivors guilt sees her prior struggles with self-doubt reemerge to clash with her own stoic sense of justice setting her down another gripping and tortured path towards battling both her own inner demons and the bloodthirst monsters roaming midgard as they take human and mythical forms why did you come back senoa is joined along the way by a handful of human companions including a Shackled slave master who begrudgingly accompanies her on her path and a settler she saves from a sacrificial altar what is your name zen I've been waiting for you do it none of these supporting characters are given enough screen time to really develop much of a personality beyond the surface but I appreciated having them along for various parts of the quest since their incidental conversation felt like a far more organic method to process Exposition than the superimposed liveaction vignettes of the first game I wish you had drowned like the others just wait till I get free it's the battle scard senoa herself who is the star though portrayed to stirring effect by Molina Jurgens returning from the still gorgeous original game now in near photo realistic form Jurgens is a truly courageous and compassionate presence and I completely bought into her determination to battle through the fear and self-loathing from moments where she's Paralyzed by anxiety through to shocking outward bursts of blood boiling Rage hellblade 2 once again takes senoa to some dark and disturbing places but the sequels environments have been painted from a broader color palette than the mostly Bleak backdrops of the original sure you're still forced to hold your breath during crawls through heinous pits of blood and gristle and infiltrate Marauder camps decorated with gruesome B made out of human bones but these darker moments are contrasted with picturesque Mountain tracks beneath beautiful coral colored skies and jaw dropping glimpses of aurora borealis so vivid you can almost smell the steamed hams cooking in principal Skinner's kitchen good Lord what is happening in there Aurora Borealis the impressive lighting and fog effects employed throughout bring added depth to each Des ation making for a journey that feels grounded even as it shifts between reality and The Haunting Altered States that spill out of senoa psyche you failed again the trade-off is that hellblade 2 runs capped at 30 frames per second on Xbox series X but I felt that its visual design was jaw-dropping enough to justify that limit these Immaculate visuals are once again reinforced by first class binaural audio design and playing with headphones on is an absolute must in order to really app appreciate the detailed environmental touches like flies buzzing around mutilated corpses and drops of water echoing in underground Caverns more importantly the swirling voices in Seno's head seem so close you can almost feel their breath on the back of your neck you need to climb again she will fall if she does this time around not only do these disembodied back seat drivers serve as the bickering angel and devil on sena's shoulders casting confusion over every decision she makes why didn't you stop stop it too too weak but they also cleverly so suspicion about the supporting characters around her you have to keep your eyes making it tough to know who to trust along the way to the story's thoroughly cathartic conclusion I will not appease your Gods I will destroy them what are you going to do with that sword he looks ready for you he's ready to fight whereas much of sena's war in the original hellblade was waged against demonic manifestations of the Northman who raided her Village and murdered her lover in hellblade 2 the majority of her foes are flesh and Bone human Warriors this means that every attack you land feels all the more brutal with CA swords splitting surface wounds in her opponent's skin that continue to bleed for the duration of battle and enemy encounters that can be brought to a savagely abrupt End by jamming Sena blades so far down their Nordic necks that they'd need to perform a hellim lick maneuver to cough it back up again the combat camera is so tight on each conflict that every weighted blow lands with concussive force and I was acutely aware of sena's knees buckling underneath her as I blocked an incoming series of powerful slashers faster dodging feels far more physical too lurching you out of Harm's Way but leaving you open to a follow up attack in the brief moment it takes senoa to regain her footing if you don't manage to time itj just right timing is also now more key to performing successful pares relative to the original and the window in which to do so has been shorten to the point where I wasn't able to just calmly deflect each and every enemy assault with Jedi likee consistency anymore that made each fight feel a little less of a foregone conclusion that said while I remain consistently engaged in each ferocious and remarkably fluid fight to the death I do wish the team at Ninja Theory had done a little more to build upon the Fairly modern combat template established in the original hellblade with what they've served up here admittedly hellblade 2's Swift 6our run time leaves little room to cram in a skill tree to flesh out or additional attack combos to unlock but it does feel a touch familiar to play through another campaign with the same basic two button mix of light and heavy sword slashes as superbly animated as they may be if anything hellblade 2's fighting feels even further streamlined than the original where senoa also has a Guard breaking melee at attack that's been dropped entirely with nothing to replace it meanwhile her slow motion Focus ability which was unlocked Midway through the first game is made available in this sequel virtually from the outset with no further attack altering abilities to be found for the remainder of the story hellblade 2's combat encounters are consistently menacing and muscular as new enemy types like flame spitting cultists and Nimble ghouls are introduced but without any additional charged attacks or alternative weapons to wield my basic methods for overcoming each marauding mob remained mostly unchanged from start to finish one combat change that I did appreciate however is the way hellblade 2 limits each duel to one-on-one encounters with no HUD to indicate incoming attacks and The Whispers of warning from the voices in cow's head easily missed during the heat of battle in the original hellblade I often found myself getting stabbed in the back by an unseen offscreen as salent whenever found myself outnumbered thankfully that's no longer an issue here and the way hellblade 2's energetic Direction brings new opponents seamlessly barreling into frame the second another foe is violently dispatched successfully sells the illusion that sen is stuck amidst a proper Rough and Tumble freefor all rather than the carefully choreographed turn-taking brawls of a Bruce Lee movie what are they made of so strong speaking of Direction there are some exceptionally well executed sequences that revolve around murderous Giants who have crossed over into midgard from another realm and are hoovering up sacrifice slaves like their human-shaped snack bars these encounters are Urgent desperate scenarios that put senoa through rigorous physical trials and although they don't ever actually put her in head-to-head conflict with one of the man hungry monoliths they still deliver some blood pumping story Peaks to Sena Saga that fill the void left by the absence of any traditional boss battles hellblade 2 isn't all life and death fighting though and as was the case with the original game there's an equal amount of environmental puzzles to tease your brain as there are combat challenges to test your reflexes at regular Junctions the path forward will be blocked by a swirling kaleidoscopic gate made out of fractalized body parts and the only way to progress past it is by carefully lining up elements of the environment around you and resolving them into the shape of a specific symbol I was a big fan of these perspective based puzzles in the original hellblade and was happy to see them return here the signs are here in addition to a bit of midgard Magic Eye hellblade 2 sprinkles in the use of torch lit brazers and bubble switches that each transform the terrain around you and open up New Paths towards your goal they're effectively new spins on the landscape altering portals from the previous adventure and although they might not be quite as brain bending to behold they're still just as satisfying to solve none of these environmental riddles are particularly taxing though and for the most part hellblade 2's puzzles have been seemingly designed to momentarily stall sena's forward March rather than ever truly stump you but there are still some standout sequences one midgame stretch that involves sharing sen was puzzle solving torch with an unnamed spectral assistant on the opposing side of the Arena was particularly inventive and felt like something straight out of the PlayStation 2 classic Eco yes there senoa Saga hellblade 2 delivers a spellbinding adventure packed with cinematic spectacle and story surprises that maintains a surging sense of forward momentum and never wastes a second of its slender runtime its combat manages to feel consistently intimidating and immediate despite its mechanical Simplicity and its perspective based puzzles regularly scratch cerebral itches even though they largely rehash or rework Concepts from sena's previous story a journey as brutal as it is beautiful delivered with Hardware pushing visuals and persistent ly immersive audio Seno was Saga hellblade 2 is another Viking worthy Feast for the senses that meets the high bar set by its predecessor even if it never really manages to clear it for more IGN reviews check out our verdicts on animal well and little kitty big city and for everything else stick with IGN a [Music]

Channel: IGN

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Keywords: Action, Adventure, Hellblade, Horror, Microsoft, Ninja Theory, PC, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Unreal Engine 5, Xbox Series X|S, ign game reviews, ign review, hellblade 2, hellblade 2 review

Id: zKWTioa8BcY

Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2024