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amazon Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice reviews
Hellblade – “The harshest struggles take place in the human mind.”
Darkness is a harsh companion; it buries our minds with doubts and uncertainties. It scratches our skin with fear within the never-forgiving nature of every soul. It lingers before my eyes with lies, and it turns human love into suffering.
However, if there is no darkness, what will surround us when we crouch in hidden corners, filling the vague images in our heads with silence and unknown space?
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice emerges as a small but powerful spark amid an eternal night when opening with the message “we are all imprisoned inside our minds.”
No glory, no laurels, no nuance of contentment, what Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice achieves is more than that.
The journey of female warrior Senua down to the northern underworld of Helheim to find her beloved begins with the bold scene of “Heart of Darkness”: a fog fills the entire surrounding scenery and the sound of darkness. The gloom of death only exists once Senua is near.
Senua’s psychological expression begins from the first moments: two voices hovering in Senua’s head (called The Furies) play the role of expressing the player’s perspective and showing the state of action and Senua’s thoughts in all circumstances.
Sometimes The Furies try to bring down their “host” with taunts, at other times with skepticism and self-doubt. Still, there is no shortage of forced encouragement, but even though The Furies’ temperament has turned, No matter how sudden the transition, they all exist with one main purpose – to keep Senua alive.
The way The Furies warns Senua of danger in each swordfight can be seen as depicting the game’s first-person perspective.
There’s a reason why the player’s perspective is so close to Senua’s back.
One of the most emphasized elements in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is perception; it affects many senses and intuitions of the player. Still, Senua’s psychology is ultimately expressed most clearly in perception through eyes.
The perspective close to the main character is not designed for players to enjoy spectacular, eye-catching battles. It creates a sense of insecurity in the player about things lurking behind his vision, causing make every match more personal even when players lose in numbers.
The player’s fear of losing, unexpectedly, creates a bright spot in the combat mechanics of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
Remember, this is a completely “clean” game in terms of looks; no button icons appear right before the interactive things. Even the game doesn’t have any user interface, nothing but a single menu on the Start button, making the combat in the game entirely self-explored.
You can completely complete Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice with just basic attacks and counter/dodge mechanics, and it’s not the most complicated combat mechanics in the third-person action game genre, either. However, the responsiveness in each slash is weighty enough for the player to feel powerful, and the moves that the game does not specifically list force players to tinker with, creating a variety hidden under the simple at first glance.
Cognitive flexibility is also cleverly emphasized in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice’s visual puzzles.
Although it is a bit repetitive with finding traces of symbols in the environment, the game constantly makes players skeptical about what is happening before their eyes with an insecure attitude, especially when combining with a narrow field of view. However, there is almost no punishment if the player makes a mistake: from the “gates,” that changes reality. To the monsters that hover in the distance and then suddenly disappear for a while, your vision is obscured.
Even sound plays an “invisible” role in promoting perception; the voices of The Furies make Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice a “one face, a thousand voices” experience with very little pauses. And once that silence occurs, it becomes terrifying to the extreme.
Sudden dangers that happen instantly triggered by sight are almost just small dots exposed by fear woven into Senua’s psyche, but its impact on the player must be completely different is not small.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a linear game; it is not intended to give players prestigious rewards, much less aimed at the so-called “entertainment value” in video games.
Its aim is similar to what Spec Ops: The Line did five years ago: it offers an experience of a hard to swallow, hard-to-reach subject belonging to a field close to the vast majority of the public in a familiar yet creative way.
And that topic is
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is not the only game this year that deals with the subject of human psychology, and until now, the writer still maintains that too many people still underestimate the problem of depression and expression psychosis, was partially featured in Night In The Woods, and that’s alarming.
It’s not something worth romanticizing or seeing as the positive “power” that video games often suffer.
Rise and fall, loneliness and stalemate, voices in your head, suggestive hallucinations that may be mistaken for Hollywood-stylized images, but they’re all real and terrifying; they are very “close” to those who have similar symptoms to Senua.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a game about challenging pain, both physical and psychological.
Senua’s journey begins when Senua receives a “rotten” black screen on his arm, marking the number of deaths and etching in the player’s head a fear of losing.
The feeling of self-doubt began to arise, making a journey with the main purpose of finding the loved one become infatuated and lead to a breakdown in trust, causing the second blade of the “knife” of love to explode.
Senua’s mind continues to descend into the abyss, and coincidentally – this also matches the places you pass in Helheim during your journey; at some point, the branch must Breaking and giving up is inevitable.
Despite such a stalemate, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice never makes players feel confused or lost because every struggle, no matter how difficult it is, must end, no matter what you do, satisfied with its results.
Contributing to the tragic yet captivating narrative is the ingenious performance of Ninja Theory mo-cap actress and video editor Melina Juergens, and of course, the enchanting voices of The Furies contribute to the atmosphere in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
The metaphor of the fall is also cleverly depicted through the ancient Norse hieroglyphs led by Senua’s old friend Druth.
The stories Druth narrates are not new, but they follow the original perfectly and are cleverly presented in parallel with the progression of Senua’s story.
From the formation of the Five Precepts and the ice giants to a part of the Volsunga epic about Sigmund, sword Gram was crafted to destroy the gods.
Senua’s sacrificial journey bears many similarities to Odin himself, as he sacrificed his eyes in exchange for wisdom. The love between Senua and Dillion is almost a variant of the tragedy in the story. Baldr’s death and Nanna’s mourning.
And that’s what makes Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice special. The game respects the original Norse mythology (which many modern games do), respects people with psychological problems, and describes mental illness from a different perspective. The game respects the players themselves when they trust that they can enjoy an experience that the Ninja Theory developer painstakingly created with all their efforts, unlike anything else. AAA games today bring but with the same level of investment, and the most special thing is that Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice “lights up,” an issue that video games rarely touch.
That’s why I recommend that you consider including Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice on your list of games to play.
It is not a game made for entertainment purposes; the value of the game lies in the specification of a painful problem in today’s society that millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of people who are suffering.
Depression and mental illness are no joke. They can be more destructive to people than anything physically harmful. They are most likely going on within the people you meet remove daily.
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Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (PS4): Buy it now
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – Xbox One: Buy it now
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – Xbox One [Digital Code]: Buy it now
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – PS4 [Digital Code]: Buy it now