Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (PS4) Review

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a game that I had no idea what to expect going into it.
With a gameplay trailer with virtually no gameplay in it and a sort of God Of War look
a like and yet, with a lot of talk about psychosis and mental health issues- was it a horror?
Was it action?
Well, kind of both actually.
Senua is a Celtic warrior on a quest to try and bring back from the dead, her husband-
whose head she carrys around with her in a bag.
He was killed in particularly a brutal fashion, which I'm sure historians would have heard
of, called the Blood Eagle.
Now it should be pointed out that Senua isn't just your normal, generic warrior hero like
Kratos.
She actually suffers from a mental health issue, known as psychosis.
Now, what does this mean?
Well, it means that she sees things that aren't really there.
She hears these voices in her head that both encourage her and put her down.
It's like having a running commentary of all these different conflicting thoughts going
on in her head.
The sensitive issue of mental health is treated with a lot of care by the developers and if
you watch the bonus documentary included with the game, then you can see that they went
to extensive lengths to talk to people who know about this kind of stuff.
They consulted professors of Psychosis and spoke to actual people suffering from the
condition to make sure that Senua's portrayal was accurate.
Anyway, the sight of seeing her dead husband's body, sends her deeper into her condition
meaning that as a player, I'm never quite sure what's real and what's in her head.
It does get pretty dark at times and some of these situations would be bad enough, let
alone for someone in a vulnerable state.
The combat in the game is a mix of light, heavy and melee attacks as well as an essential
dodge mechanic.
It's all pretty simple stuff and yet it just works.
It's got this weighty feel to it, where I could feel the impact of every strike.
I looked forward to every encounter, because they always provided this great cinematic
spectacle.
Senua has a focus mechanic, which would slow down time and provide these awesome slomotion
moments.
And if she's hit hard, then she falls to her knees before mustering up the strength to
get back up again, just like it would happen in a movie.
When there's multiple enemies, it's all about trying to line the enemies up, so that Shenua
only has to fight one of them at a time, or at the very least, try and keep them all in
view so that they can't get in a sneak attack from behind.
As well as fighting though, there's also plenty of opportunity to solve some puzzles, which
would come in a handful of different forms.
Sometimes it involved switching between a light and a dark world.
It could be having to use these archways that alter the environment, or, most commonly these
symbol, door lock, scavenger hunts.
I did like the idea of these, where I had to try and find particular symbols in my surroundings,
by say lining up a couple of trees to create a letter.
But in practise, this puzzle mechanic did kind of slow the pace of the game down, when
I knew roughly where you were meant to be looking , but just couldn't find a particular
symbol.
And speaking of slowing down the pace, there's a particular section in the middle of the
game when Senua loses her sword and so the game tries to mix things up a bit by providing
a couple of different stealth challenges.
These sections were all done fine, with a nice mix of puzzle solving and sneaking around
in the darkness- the only problem is, I enjoyed the combat too much!
So it felt like a long period of me just thinking, come on when's the next fight?
Thankfully the ending more than makes up for it.
Obviously I won't go into any spoilers, but the game ends on a real high and provides
a deep, emotional conclusion.
One thing that seemed to piss a lot of people off about this game is the fact that if you
die too many times, the game threatens you with deleting your save file.
There's this mechanic called the dark rot, where every time Senua dies, this black stuff
moves up her arm, a little bit further until it reaches her head, in which case it's game
over.
From what I've heard, this is pretty unlikely to happen- I died a fair few number of times,
but managed to complete it without having to start again, so if perma-death is a factor
putting you off this game, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
It adds this artificial tension in every encounter, to make you really try and avoid death, but
in the long run, I don't think it has too much of an impact.
Overall, I really, really liked this game.
It had the presentation, including some excellent performances, that I'd expect from a first
party studio, let alone an independent.
And yet by being independent, it can deal with some pretty heavy issues, like mental
health, that you just wouldn't find in mainstream triple A games.
Until next time, thanks for watching.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (PS4) Review - A's GAMING moments

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