Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Video Game Review

Video games have come a long ways. Almost 50 years ago Pong was released to the world. Close to 30 years ago we got the original Doom. Now it's 2020 and video games have grown in many ways, both positive and negative. They've become a huge form of media, with some of them telling deep stories or incorporating deep themes to them. This week's game did that as well as entertain me a lot and teach me some new things. But more than that it left me shaken in more ways than one... this game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. It tells the story of viking woman named Senua and journey into Hellheim (Norse mythology version of Hell) to rescue the soul of her lover, Dillion. And it's no walk in the park as she has to fight monsters and demons, both physically and in her mind.

When I first booted up the game there were two things presented to me: First, the game was best played with headphones on, something I never saw before in any game introduction. Second, it warned that people with psychosis should be wary when playing the game and that if you wanted to know more about psychosis that you could go to a few websites to find out more. For those who don't know, psychosis is an abnormal condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real, which can cause delusions and hallucinations. It's a rare condition, but it can have serious effects on peoples' healths. I wondered what that would mean for me, but just after I started the game it became very obvious why I got such suggestions: I started hearing voices in my head. Well, more Senua's head.

You see, the game has a lot of dialogue from these random voices and the way the audio for these work is that each side of your headphones only play certain audio lines from these mysterious voices. If the lines are heard from both sides then one side will be slightly louder than the other. And it wasn't occasional, I was continually barraged by these phantom voices. It wasn't annoying, but it kept me on edge because some of these voices would give me advice, some would tell me to stop and give up, some would laugh mockingly at me, some would be continually panicked, and I felt like I was a little crazy hearing them all come at me. I got jumpy at some moments, at times I wanted to tell the voices to go away, and other times they kept making me paranoid. This is such a unique and brilliant idea, especially when it comes to Senua and her own case of psychosis. She's lost the love of her life, the shining light in her horrible, miserable world, and she's breaking apart. These voices, along with some horrifying imagery, makes the game really scary to play. The developers really wanted to get psychosis right for the game and went to multiple people and organizations that specialize in studying such diagnoses/ mental conditions.

That's not all though when it comes to this unsettling game. With the location being in/ near Hellheim we see a lot of dark, demonic elements. For example, there's a point in the game where you reach an area where you got to stay in the light. Your sword is useless and you can grab a torch to keep the light with you, but there are times where all light is removed and you're force to run for your life. Sounds basic enough, but when you add in all those voices in your/ Senua's head screaming at her to run away and some horrifying images that come about from Senua's psychosis I personally was so damn scared that I had to take big pauses after reaching an area of light. A lot of times if you need to make something scary you shouldn't show it outright. That rule is what makes Jaws such a scary movie because they imply the shark is about while not fully showing it, keeping it somewhat unknown as to where it is while still keeping it about so the characters are on their guard. While the big monsters can be seen every now and then they're often kept in the dark or out of site, hunting the player with no way for Senua to fight back until a certain point (AKA the boss fights). But when we do see them they look terrifying, like a bunch of twisted abominations. Even the normal enemies you fight look eerie, with goat skulls for heads, covered in rags, wielding huge weapons, and towering over Senua, making them all dangerous in their own ways.

But when these enemies come out you're not entirely powerless as Senua does have a sword on hand and she's pretty damn good with it. The combat in Senua's Sacrifice is awesome! The game as a whole isn't intended to be easy and the combat can get nuts in some fights because often you got to fight multiple enemies at once. You got your swift, normal strikes, your strong and slow strikes, and your counters and you got to be able to dodge and block multiple enemies at once. Eventually you unlock the ability to "slow down time" and charge your attacks for more power and those skilled saved me life multiple times in the game. It was so exhilarating and while I lost a few fights, even on "easy" difficulty, I kept getting up and going back in with gusto because it was just so fun! It reminded me of the old Assassin's Creed combat, but much better balanced out and simpler in design.

There is another feature to this game though that amps up the game's difficulty: A life counter. Except you don't know how many lives you have. Early on in the game you receive a curse on her arm and every time you die the curse spreads further up her arm. When it reaches her head the game is over and all your progress is lost. While that is an old game mechanic, going back to some of the earliest video games ever made, by not showing how many "lives" you have left and only implying how many attempts yo have left through the curse on your arm makes the whole game more unsettling. After being told of this danger I made sure I wasn't goofing around during my fights, that I fought like my life/ Senua's life depended on it (which for Senua it absolutely did).

Now I really got to talk about Senua as a character because she is incredible in multiple ways. First off her voice actor, Melina Juergens, was fantastic! She wasn't a professional voice actor before the game and only voiced the character at first as a stand in while the studio was looking for somebody more professional. They were so impressed by her though that they wanted to keep her, even though she herself said somebody else could do it better. I'm very happy she did stay on to voice Senua because she was so emotional and put in so much effort into her lines. It was amazing! Second, her journey throughout the game is just... perfection. She goes through so much struggle, so much pain and suffer, and with much will to get her lover back that I really fucking felt for her. This is exactly what I want out of a main character, especially a female main character. No hand holding, no fucking cheats or plot armor, she gets hurt so much, but keeps getting back up to reach her goal and I have no words to describe how much I idolize that kind of determination. I won't spoil it, but her backstory really makes it crystal clear why she's so willing to go into Hellheim to get Dillion, possibly suffering a fate worse than death for herself.

Through my experience though I did have one big problem with the game and that's a lack of a tutorial. Or really explaining how to play the game. Now for story I'm fine with not much explanations at first, but when it comes to gameplay this game doesn't tell you anything. I had to find a video as to how the first puzzle worked and before that the game told me none of the controls. It's important to at least explain the basics of how to play your game and let players evolve those teachings as the game went on. Some challenges the game gave me later on also fought against me, with one particular one involving a labyrinth and a being of fire chasing me all about it. I love quite a few lives from that and, because I didn't want to lose all my progress, used a tutorial to win that challenge. Don't hate me guys, I just... I wish they told me a little more about how things worked in the game. Maybe for other people this lack of gameplay explanations was okay, but not for me.

Saying that however I find that the difficulty of the game to be great! It was harder than most games with its vague life counter and combat, but there was also some excellent puzzles throughout the game. Most of them were about finding mysterious Norse symbols through the environments around Senua. Examples can include shadows, light, and objects overlapping each other to create said symbols. Some of them were very clever and used the environments very well. One particular area was all about illusions and the developers had some neat tricks to changing the level about for said puzzles. The game is mostly a puzzle game with some fights and lot of horror throughout it. To me though that was perfect, especially with how it all blended together smoothly!

Lastly, I got to talk about the physical features like the textures and animations. Both were mostly good, though I did notice some objects with textures that looked bad (some rocks looked so blurry I cringed a bit). There were also some moments of animation in which some objects were shaking up out of place like this small little mirror on Senua's belt and this one skull that was shaking some and made my face contort into that of pain. I feel that a majority of the budget for textures and animations went to Senua and the creatures she fought because those were really damn good! Senua especially looked fucking awesome, her skin looks incredibly real and her hair was beautiful (though it too had an occasional twitch-fest). Overall I'm mostly pleased with how the game looked, especially with some of the motion capture work done for Senua by Melina Juergens. Additionally, all the cutscenes were no different from the graphics in the gameplay, so it all felt very smooth in transitions and keeping me stuck in the story.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was so dark and depressing, but it also filled me with a lot of will to see this lone, regular woman succeed in getting the man she loved back out of the depths of Hell. If she can go through that type of journey for what she wants, I can fight hard for what I want as well. I was invested in this game and I feel very bad I never completed this game sooner. It took me less than 10 hours to beat and it was so damn fun and challenging. Additionally its depiction of psychosis was very great and I loved how they were trying to properly portray that and the effects it can have on people. And all of this game was done by a team of about twenty people. Twenty people! That's a small team and they did a lot of work! This game eye-opening, challenging, and a dark, yet exciting journey into Norse mythology.

Tentative Score: 8.75/10

Definitive Score: 8.75/10

I am so excited for the sequel. I am just over the moon to see what Ninja Theory has next for this world.