Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga

[h1] 地狱之刃2:将意识流与一镜到底贯彻到极致的电影化艺术 [/h1] 地狱之刃这个系列的游戏想必很多朋友都不陌生吧，这部作品是由忍者理论制作的，没错，就是曾经那个做出惊艳众人的《DMC:鬼泣》的忍者理论工作室，自系列前作《地狱之刃:塞娜的献祭》开始，该系列游戏给人的印象一直就与优秀的画面以及演出效果挂钩，而这一部作品也贯彻了游戏在这方面的优点。 系列点第二部《地狱之刃:塞娜的史诗》依旧延续了前作优秀的画面水准以及演出效果，游戏也是比较早使用UE5引擎制作的游戏，发布之初便是当时画面最好的游戏之一，并且延续了一镜到底的特点，游戏性方面虽然不是完美，但从电影鉴赏角度来看还是很不错的，与其说是玩游戏，倒不如说是看电影。 [h2] 塞娜的精神世界 [/h2] 游戏的剧情承接前作，《地狱之刃:塞娜的献祭》，虽然说本作有剧情回顾但我还是建议大家玩前作，剧情回顾讲的太云里雾里了，打折我记得就几十块钱，也不贵。 女主角名叫塞娜，她是一个凯尔特战士，由于悲剧的发生，她失去了爱人。因为这种打击，此后便受到自身的精神问题所影响，常常听到耳边传来讨厌的未知言语，被恐惧困扰而产生不安。她为了赎回爱人的灵魂，前往北方一个由死亡女神海拉统治的海姆冥界。但在这些过程中，伴随她同行的还有神秘力量。 本作剧情承接前作之后，塞娜不再只是被动承受痛苦，而是主动进入敌人的世界。她让自己落入北方奴隶贩子之手，目的是追到冰岛，拯救同样被掳走的人。开场的沉船、海岸、奴隶主、荒原，都在告诉玩家：塞娜已经不再只是和自己的精神创伤战斗，她开始面对一个同样疯狂的外部世界。 这一代剧情最重要的变化主要是塞娜的心境，是敌人从塞娜内心的阴影，扩展成了共同制造的恐惧。游戏表面上讲的是塞娜猎杀巨人。火山中的巨人、海边的巨人、最终笼罩人群的暴政巨人，看似都属于北欧神话式的怪物。但随着剧情推进，我们会发现这些巨人并不只是实体敌人，而是灾难、饥荒、背叛、权力操控和集体恐惧的化身。 这也是本作剧情最值得解读的地方：当一个村庄经历饥荒，人们需要一个解释；当统治者需要维持权力，他需要一个敌人；当普通人无法理解灾难，他们会把恐惧包装成神话。巨人于是就诞生了。它们既是塞娜眼中的幻象，也是人群心中的集体阴影。 因此，塞娜每一次击败巨人，真正完成的并不是武力上的胜利，而是认知上的揭露。她要找到巨人的真名，理解它背后曾经作为人的痛苦、罪孽或恐惧。换句话说，游戏里的解谜、战斗和剧情真相其实是一回事：看见隐藏在神话背后的人性。 而本作最终真正的反派也不是某个超自然存在，而是利用恐惧统治他人的人。这个设计让本作的主题从前作的自我救赎，转向了更大的问题：当一个人终于学会与自己的黑暗共处，她是否也能带别人走出被恐惧操控的世界？ 塞娜的成长也因此更清晰。前作里，她要证明自己没有被黑暗吞噬；这一作里，她要证明自己不会把黑暗变成新的权力。而游戏的结尾最有力量的地方，不在于她是否杀死了敌人，而在于她意识到了，自己不能成为另一个用恐惧保护他人的统治者。 [h2] 游戏玩法 [/h2] 本作主要还是以解密的玩法为主，一般来讲是解密与战斗轮着来，但实话实说游戏的战斗确实一眼能看到底，和前作一样就是武器的轻重攻击以及闪避，很容易理解。 游戏内常见的谜题就是寻找特定符文形状。我们需要在岩石、树枝、阴影、建筑残片、光线之间调整角度，让看似混乱的场景在某一个视角下组合成正确图案。这种设计继承了前作的核心逻辑：谜题不是外部机关，而是塞娜精神感知的一部分。 这种谜题的优点是氛围很强，增加代入感，但问题也很明显：谜题类型太少，重复感偏强。 大多数谜题的基本流程都是：走进封闭区域，听见声音提示，寻找符号，调整视角，打开道路。中后期虽然加入了隐藏民、光影变化、场景转换等设计，但底层逻辑仍然相似。不过好在本作美术表现很高级，心理氛围也足够独特，因此玩起来还不会特别方感。 本作没有开放世界，没有装备收集，没有复杂技能树，也没有大量支线任务。流程推进非常电影化，玩家大多数时候是在沿着导演安排好的路线前进。 这样带来的好处就是沉浸感极强。游戏几乎没有多余界面，也很少打断情绪。镜头贴近塞娜，视野狭窄，声音不断压迫玩家，整段体验像被锁进一条黑暗隧道。你不会频繁打开地图，也不会被分散注意力，从代入感来讲，游戏在电影化方面还是做的很棒的。 [h2] 结语 [/h2] 我个人对于这类游戏电影化的游戏还是比较持正面态度的，虽然确实太过于意识流，哪怕在线性游戏里也是算比较窄面的，注重剧情与表达思想，而玩法上除了基础操作几乎也没别的了。 [h1][quote=] [table] [tr] [th] 欢迎关注 [b][u][i]U_U鉴赏家培养计划[/i][/u][/b][/th] [/tr] [tr] [th] 关注U_U鉴赏家，开启精彩游戏之旅。 [/th] [/tr] [/table] [/quote][/h1] 游戏的优化还算是不错的，估计这些年优化了不少，哪怕我的渣机稍微调一调也能稳60，目前游戏打折也不贵，感兴趣的朋友可以看看嗷

Hellblade 1 is a haunting and startlingly compassionate tale of life with a mental illness in cruel times, and of how the worst of it comes from people (often, well-meaning people!) around you. Hellblade 2 is a vikingcore fantasy lever-puzzle game with elements of jumpscare horror that reads like it was written by AI that someone had fed Hellblade 1 to. the Furies are now just mindlessly repeating the same words one after another, instead of narrating Senua's life and reminiscing about her past in areas that bring up her memories. they are no longer useful as a combat HUD, and instead became loadscreen tips. they went from cheering her on and tearing her down in equal measure, and escalating with how scared they sound with every next area that puts Senua herself under greater stress than the last one, to just a multitude of chatty narrators. the sense that Senua is an experienced, capable warrior is completely gone: every fight is now ONLY a series of 1v1 duels, she goes to the ground between enemies, she forgot how to punch (attack options are now fast/heavy, not fast/heavy/melee): contrast the time in 1 just before she goes into the water, when I was keeping two enemies in front of me, then a fury barked "behind you!" and I slammed the block key on a reflex, then watched Senua flawlessly parry a strike from a third that I hadn't realized had spawned in the first place. you're never going to get that in 2, and she's supposed to be older, more confident, and more experienced now. I'm watching the girl who once upon a time charged at something like fifty times her size while screaming "I have a sword here that can kill a god" and she is eating ♥♥♥♥ while the mooks politely queue up for her to be slaughtered. I keep having a persistent, underlying feeling, through the whole of Hellblade 2, that it tries to be clever about "aha! this part was real! gotcha! this part was not!" and sometimes it can't decide whether the suffering of outcasts and lonely desperates is a human thing, or a metaphysical cataclysm, like it expects brownie points for being 'clever' about this ambiguity. the sense of "the question of 'so was it real' comes with an in-built flaw, because ALL of it is real to her; this is how she has to live" has been completely obliterated. this feeling only compounds with the "congrats you beat the game!" reward becoming Now A Side Character Is A Fury. this betrays a complete lack of interest in and understanding of who and what the Furies ARE, from whoever's bright idea it was to write that in. in Hellblade 1, ALL of the greater challenges were built from things Senua was afraid of. in Valravn, she fights her fear of the dark and of being alone and helpless in it. in Surt, she fights her fear of fire, after what happened when she was five years old. in the dark rot, she fights her fear of the plague that took so many of her village neighbours, and the things she was told about being "cursed", that's where the meta-timer comes from. in the Beast, she faces more of the things she was told, and the person who said those things to her and that she then internalized to become the Shadow's voice. in Hela, she fights her inability to let go, and her need to do something when there is nothing left to be done. now she's in Iceland, zombies are real, and jotnar are either real or a metaphor for the consequences of hurting people. both the zombies and the jotnar are physical threats that everyone around her can also see and fight against. also, the fae or something are real, for some godforsaken reason. there is nothing in this game I liked better. some things are okay. I counted exactly three occurences when the Furies felt like they used to. ("you need him alive!" / "I don't want to go in the darkness again :/" / "changed? changed how? what does that mean." -> aloud "changed how?") they gave her a coat! she's still very kind! the game is a massive disappointment, even at half-price, but it was impossible to expect a good game after Microsoft bought out the studio. art dies at the hands of corporate cash grabs again. The best part of this game is the soundtrack. I'm glad they hired Heilung and STFUR for it.

---{Graphics}--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ Free Fire ---{Gameplay}--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It‘s just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{Audio}--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{Audience}--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ All ---{PC Requirements}--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☑ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{Difficulty}--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Significant brain usage ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{Grind}--- ☑ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding ---{Story}--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It‘ll replace your life ---{Game Time}--- ☐ Really short ( 0 - 2 hours) ☑ Short ( 2 - 8 hours) ☐ Few hours ( 8 - 12 hours) ☐ Not bad duration ( 12 - 20 hours) ☐ Long ( 20 - 50 hours) ☐ Too long ( 50 - 100 hours) ☐ Endless ---{Price}--- ☐ It’s free! ☐ Worth the price ☑ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{Bugs}--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{75/100}---

Played this with headphones on and honestly, the audio alone is worth experiencing. The graphics are ridiculous and some scenes look better than actual movies. Don't go in expecting deep combat or a long game. Hellblade II is all about the atmosphere, Senua's struggle, and the way it gets inside your head. It's one of those games that sticks with you after you're done. Short, unique, and absolutely worth playing.

everything good about the first one turned up to 11 wrapped in the most gorgeous visual/audio experience I've ever had playing a game, absolutely incredible

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but Hellblade II was a huge letdown for me. The game looks incredible, and the sound design is top-tier. But once you get past the presentation, there's not much that worked for me. The story never grabbed me the way the first game did, the combat felt awkward, and the gameplay was so minimal that it barely felt like a game at times. What makes it worse is that the whole experience is over in less than 8 hours. For something that short, I expected a much stronger story or more engaging gameplay, but neither delivered. I loved Hellblade 1 because it felt unique and memorable. Hellblade II felt more like a showcase for graphics technology than a worthy sequel. Beautiful to look at, but even on sale, I regret buying it.

Quite possibly the most unnecessary sequel to what I consider one of the most perfect games. The visuals have become more realistic than ever, the vocal and motion performances are still as outstanding and music still elevates every fight and breathtaking sprint through a madness inducing setting. So what gives? The combat actually got way worse. While it has become quite a bit more cinematic and diegetic, since the game takes away your control all the time it's difficult to tell whether something has happened because you did something or it's just a very integrated cutscene. There is a very real disconnect from the inputs and it will lead to your death. A lot. Exploration is a chore. There is about the same amount of things to find and discover in the nooks and crannies of the setpieces, but with the run speed being slowed, any time you are not walking in a straight path to your destination feels like a punishment. Sure, I could go off and find a collectible by walking to this side, but what if I don't find anything? That's five seconds of backtracking that feel weirdly like an eternity. With all the visual fidelity the only environments you really encounter are a variation on dark cave or generic Icelandic landscape. There is very little to catch your eyes on. The massive mountains and eruption plumes are impressive, but melt into the background and landmarks fail to provide you any sense of progression. Not that there is any progression. The narrative fails to define any real goals and as such Senua doesn't really experience any real growth. The only points the game actually makes have already been made in the previous game, but it doesn't feel clever enough to be cyclical in a postmodernist sense. The puzzles are actually exactly the same. Instead of gateways it's braziers, but they do exactly the same thing to the environment. There are fewer of them, replaced by more walking. The voices in your head do not break out into a panicked crescendo interrupting each other and dragging you deeper into Senua's condition to the point of making you question if it is you or your character hearing them. They now patiently wait for their turn or a convenient trigger. That's not mental illness, that's just superfluous narration. It's difficult to imagine what could make a deserving followup after playing the first game and it is quite possible that this one is the best case scenario. But if it is, maybe there should have been just the one game. Microsoft is the worst thing to have happened to Ninja Theory.

You're better off watching a playthrough unless you have a computer capable of remotely launching extra terrestrial space craft located in another galaxy. Furthermore, the gameplay has gotten worse since the first Hellblade which I didn't think was possible. I thought the right stick targeting in the first one was terrible, they've completely removed any control in this one. It's entirely a series of cutscenes with you pressing a few buttons here and there. The puzzles, if you can even call them that, are significantly easier with the voices whispering every instruction on what to do before your brain even has time to think for itself. They should just be making movies.

Bu oyun aksiyondan çok atmosfer ve hikâye anlatımına odaklanıyor. Eğer sürekli savaş, kombo veya hızlı bir tempo bekliyorsanız sıkılabilirsiniz. Oyunun asıl gücü, yaşattığı ağır ve etkileyici deneyim. Görsellik ve ses tasarımı gerçekten inanılmaz. Özellikle kulaklıkla oynamanızı tavsiye ederim. Senua'nın zihnindeki fısıltılar atmosferi inanılmaz güçlendiriyor ve sizi onun yaşadığı psikolojik yolculuğun içine çekiyor. Dövüşler son derece sinematik ve sert hissettiriyor ancak mekanik olarak çok derin değil. Bulmacalar da oldukça basit tutulmuş. Bana göre en büyük eksisi, oyunun kısa sürmesi ve oynanış tarafında ilk oyunun üzerine çok büyük yenilikler eklememiş olması. Buna rağmen yaşattığı deneyim benim için her şeye değdi. Herkese hitap edecek bir oyun değil ama doğru beklentiyle başlarsanız uzun süre aklınızdan çıkmayacak bir başyapıt. Oyunu hem PC'de hem de Steam Deck'te oynadım. Görsellik ve atmosferi tam anlamıyla yaşayabilmek için mümkünse PC'de oynamanızı öneririm. Steam Deck'te oynanabiliyor ancak görsel kalite ister istemez geride kalıyor. Ayrıca oyunu bitirmeme rağmen Steam Cloud senkronizasyonu nedeniyle başarımlarımın bir kısmı sonradan ve parça parça işlendi. Keyifli oyunlar.

Long story short, there is nothing in this world that can justify the price tag. The game should have been 30-40€ on launch and like 5-10€ on sale after two years. I loved the first game and I couldn't wait until I will play the sequel. I finally had a solid PC and money for it, so I got it on sale. The game is a visual org*sm the whole time. I don't remember playing a game with such beautiful details or a game that delivers the story like this one. In these two ways, the game is nothing less than a masterpiece and I really enjoyed it. But I'm afraid, this is where the positives end... So if you don't mind the price tag and you liked the first game, you will love this one. At least I do love the game, but I also regret paying 15€ during the sale. If I paid the full price, I'd be mad as hell. There are many games that deserve this kind of money so much more. But let's deep dive why I don't recommend buying the game even when I enjoyed it from the visual and story perspective: - The game was supposed to be a launch title with the Xbox Series in 2020, but has oficially launched in 2024 - that's about 3,5 more years of development for a linear game that was playable in 2020 with no choices and it still turned out like this. - Gameplay is extremely short for a 50€ game - sorry, but 6-7 hours of mostly cinematic content is simply not good enough and the game would be even 1-2 hours shorter if the devs wouldn't artificially extend the game by boring hold-the-walk-forward-button sections or with takes-forever-to-focus-and-progress puzzles. On top of that if Senua ran slower, she would run backwards. I mean... my grandma with both knees broken would beat her in a race that would go upstairs. And I didn't even get to the fighting mechanisms... So the reality is like 3-4 hours of (mostly visually) entertaining gameplay - The game has no open world and is basically only one extremely big tunnel heading forward - this would be completely fine if they didn't put a ton of invisible walls and non-walkable ledges to places where it looks completely walkable. I suspect that the devs wanted to drag the gameplay even more - Fighting mechanisms are wonky as hell - you have light and heavy attack and you can press a button to dodge even while you're attacking, but that cancells your attack. That would be nice, if that worked all the time. Sometimes you can press the button to dodge, but you get hit multiple times in a row anyway. And there are enemies that can set you on fire and you can do literally nothing against it, if you're not close enough to hit them. You will just catch on fire and unalive yourself, which is very frustrating. Some enemies slide away from you to get some distance like they're in a duelling club in the Harry Potter 2 PC game or NHL 2002 - This game is a crown jewel of motion capture in games, but some NPCs sometimes have movements like some default Skyrim characters, meaning they're extremely unnatural and are sometimes sliding on the floor with the steps not matching the pace of their movement. It's still a minor issue, but... Why? - I already kind of mentioned that this game is partially a walking simulator, but I have not mentioned that the game is made so it has no loading screens. At least the direct ones. This unfortunately resulted in countless scenes where you crawl through tight spaces as the game loads. - As a last point I can mention that some levels remind me of Donkey Kong... Seriously, you run, hide/dodge and repeat like 10 times... I have to ask again. Why? After like 2,5 hours (when I couldn't refund the game anymore), I kept asking myself, when it will end. But I couldn't stop playing, because the story is so unique and the visuals so attractive, that I wanted to finish the game. But there were parts so boring, that I wanted to turn the Subway Surfers on the second screen to entertain myself a bit more. If the game was 5-10€ on sale, I would happily recommend it, but not like this