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Senua's Saga: Hellblade II | Preview Thread

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
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Polygon
The playable results of this fully mo-capped fighting system are quite unique. Combat in Hellblade 2 is one on one only, slow-paced, and very brutal. In the fight scenes of the demo I played — which also featured pattern-spotting puzzles and some atmospheric, grueling traversal — there's a heightened sense of threat as Senua faces hulking and aggressive opponents, and the characters loom large in the unusually tight camera angles. This might not be the over-the-top combat of DmC: Devil May Cry, but it's still very effective
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Gamesradar
Whether Senua is slowly exploring oppressively atmospheric environments or weaving her way through heavy one-on-one combat encounters, Ninja Theory has pushed to make movement natural and responsive. It contributes to this sense of realism that is pervasive throughout Hellblade 2 – blurring the separation between you, sitting on a couch controlling Senua with a controller, and the dangerous, disorienting world she inhabits.
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IGN
Its ambitious narrative and accomplished cinematic framing far outweigh whatever shortcomings may be hidden underneath, and the incredible technology powering its beautifully ugly world is a sight to behold. It’s all shaping up to be another riveting, haunting, and uncompromisingly immersive nightmare of both Senua’s and Ninja Theory’s creation, and one I can’t wait to both enter, and escape, later this year.
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Gamespot
Unlike the first game, which saw Senua, a Pict warrior with psychosis, struggling to fight her way through Helheim, Hellblade II grounds Senua in Iceland. From what I saw, this change pulls the focus away from the tantalizing mythology brought to life through Senua's delusions in the first game, and instead centers her conflicts in a more recognizable world. In response, Senua's movements in combat look and feel more realistic, prioritizing the heft of her sword, felt through her tired desperation during lengthier fights. Whenever Senua clashes swords with someone, Hellblade II makes it feel tense, as if life itself is challenging Senua to earn her right to exist in this world.
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Summary of Senua's Saga: Hellblade II previews via Klobrille:
  • Unreal Engine 5 visual benchmark, possibly one of the best-looking games ever
  • Fully mo-capped fighting system
  • Combat is one on one only, slow-paced, and very brutal
  • Swinging your sword always feels heavy and impactful
  • "A true next-gen experience"
  • 30 FPS on Xbox Series X|S
  • Features industry-leading binaural audio
  • Overall a narrative, linear action experience with very high production values, focus on story and cinematic craft, impactful combat, and puzzles





 
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shubik

shubik

Member
Looks incredible and I hope it will land on SONY hardware somewhere down the road. No 60fps performance mode is a bummer though
 
Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I finally played through the 1st one last month. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The camera is much closer to the character than I wanted, but what I didnt take into account is how much the sound design is used to. It ends up adding to the claustrophobic feel of being stuck in your own head with the voices. I was also surprised how good the combat was. Senua never feels strong until close to the end, but it works. Even some of the bosses were way better than I would have expected, like Fenrir. Puzzles were a mix of average with a couple great perspective trick ones.

I'm a lot more excited for this now. Even if its mostly more of the same, I'd be shocked if its not in my short list for best of the year. I didnt expect the art elements for the visual hallucination stuff to be that good.
 
vaibhavpisal

vaibhavpisal

Member
Punished Miku said:
I finally played through the 1st one last month. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The camera is much closer to the character than I wanted, but what I didnt take into account is how much the sound design is used to. It ends up adding to the claustrophobic feel of being stuck in your own head with the voices. I was also surprised how good the combat was. Senua never feels strong until close to the end, but it works. Even some of the bosses were way better than I would have expected, like Fenrir. Puzzles were a mix of average with a couple great perspective trick ones.

I'm a lot more excited for this now. Even if its mostly more of the same, I'd be shocked if its not in my short list for best of the year. I didnt expect the art elements for the visual hallucination stuff to be that good.
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Combat and bosses were very intense for me. Game tells you at beginning that if darkness reaches her head, its over. I believed that.

When I reached Fenrir I mustve died 20 times so I thought maybe game has made an exception cause the fight is so tough.
 
Mr Reasonable

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
vaibhavpisal said:
Graphics look good. Rest looks like same miserable experience as first part.

Will check it out ….. cause …… gamepass.
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I didn't watch the videos (I'll give it a go no matter what so going for no spoilers) but your post sums up my greatest fear for this game - that Ninja Theory think the last game played well, or even well enough to make the sequel play the same.
 
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Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Mr Reasonable said:
I didn't watch the videos (I'll give it a go no matter what so going for no spoilers) but your post sums up my greatest fear for this game - that Ninja Theory think the last game played well, or even well enough to make the sequel play the same.
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Main thing I hope they address is just improved traversal. There's a lot of invisible walls in the 1st one or small ledges she couldnt climb over. The combat is simple, but was actually pretty solid and responsive for me. Hoping for more puzzle variety also.
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
The fight scene is so dark that i can't even tell if the game has real time scars and cuts when you hit the enemies.

Ign praising the crazy bitch game but hating on stellar blade is par for the course, even if sb is probably gonna play 10x times better.
 
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fallingdove

fallingdove

Member
No thanks. Gameplay looks about as basic and uninteresting as the first game. I see why this is a discounted title.

(Did anyone else find the previews as laughable as I did? Like Microsoft’s marketing team straight up wrote a script for these so-called journalists and played their audio files over top of what are the most uninteresting gameplay videos I’ve seen in a long while.

I actually checked once to make sure I hadn't scrubbed backwards a few seconds to the same footage of slow, boring, Senua sword swings, followed by some slow, boring absorbed damage, followed by a dodge, followed by slow, boring sword swings.)

I'm actually kind of shocked that this is what a 1st party Xbox team is capable of with 5+ years and loads of Microsoft cash. This still feels indie-AF. Ninja Theory sucks.
 
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Mr Reasonable

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Punished Miku said:
Main thing I hope they address is just improved traversal. There's a lot of invisible walls in the 1st one or small ledges she couldnt climb over. The combat is simple, but was actually pretty solid and responsive for me. Hoping for more puzzle variety also.
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It's the puzzles that I hated most, finding rune shapes in rooftops, etc. felt like filler in the first game that I assumed was added to extend the length of the game. I can't imagine planning to make a game that played in that way at least.
 
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Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Mr Reasonable said:
It's the puzzles that I hated most, finding rune shapes in rooftops, etc. felt like filler that in the first game that I assumed was added to extend the length of the game. I can't imagine planning to make a game that played in that way at least.
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I dont think its filler because excessive pattern recognition is kind of one of the main elements of psychosis they were trying to find a way to replicate in an interactive way.

Some of them were a little lame and others were actually really cool like the few shard ones including the bridge near the end. Or the illusion level with the doors appearing and disappearing.

It definitely could be improved though. So hopefully it is.
 
Perrott

Perrott

Member
I'm surprised to see these people calling it the best looking videogame they've ever seen when image quality isn't really that great, featuring noticeable artifacts and temporal unstability throughout all of the footage. Very much a far cry from the announcement trailer.
 
nemiroff

nemiroff

Gold Member
Mr Reasonable said:
I didn't watch the videos (I'll give it a go no matter what so going for no spoilers) but your post sums up my greatest fear for this game - that Ninja Theory think the last game played well, or even well enough to make the sequel play the same.
Click to expand...
Well, I did watch the videos, and from what it's worth, to me it looks greatly improved. And that's also exactly what the developer promised to do. They've acknowledged the critique from players of the first game in multiple interviews: They aimed to improve combat and puzzles in HB2.

I can already tell most of this thread is going to center around the usual suspects hate boner.
 
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YOU PC BRO?!

YOU PC BRO?!

Gold Member
Remember when Microsoft purchased Ninja Theory because they were able to make a successful, low budget, unique action adventure game featuring cutting edge visuals - made quickly with a small development team? Now, once Phil got his hands on them, the budget is multiple times the original, the team size has increased and the sequel has taken years longer to make. All for a franchise that, outside the visual splendour, is just not that appealing. I can think of multiple other IPs I’d rather have Ninja Theory pursuing, this is exactly the kind of poor management that is causing Phil and Xbox to fail.
 
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ShaiKhulud1989

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
From the previews I get The Order 1886 vibes.

Terrific visuals (though heavily filtered), fluid animations and very, very basic and formulaic gameplay. 1 on 1 combat is a huge dissapointment. Seems like NT really think that first game was gameplay-sound. It was not.

I will keep my PC pre-order, but honestly, my expectations are a bit dampened.
 
Clear

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Mr Reasonable said:
I didn't watch the videos (I'll give it a go no matter what so going for no spoilers) but your post sums up my greatest fear for this game - that Ninja Theory think the last game played well, or even well enough to make the sequel play the same.
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Not missing anything. Footage is barely more than what's been shown already. Very high detail characters and environments, but truthfully very little going on with/in them. To be honest level of interactivity seems on par with a mobile game, a very pretty one admittedly, but almost entirely on-rails.
 
S

Schmendrick

Member
eh...still doesn`t look like much of a game.
The first had some great atmosphere, with gameplay ranging from boring to bad and this seems to be the same, but with better graphics. Looks like something you`d want to go through on the easiest difficulty there is to experience it as what it really seems to be, a movie with interaction sprinkled in as padding or immersion enhancer of sorts.
 
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Ghostage

Ghostage

Member
The game looks incredible but I really didnt like the first game and this looks like more of the same but better. The improved combat looks interesting so I might give it a try.
 
vaibhavpisal

vaibhavpisal

Member
Mr Reasonable said:
It's the puzzles that I hated most, finding rune shapes in rooftops, etc. felt like filler in the first game that I assumed was added to extend the length of the game. I can't imagine planning to make a game that played in that way at least.
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I was fine with puzzles. Mainly cause they were obscure and kinda hard to figure out.

It was Senuas craziness and constant voices in my head that made it miserable for me.
 
T

Trunim

Member
We keep waiting and waiting for the xbox games that'll save the day. Sadly this looks too experimental and niche, but cool.
 
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Killjoy-NL

Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
Punished Miku said:
Main thing I hope they address is just improved traversal. There's a lot of invisible walls in the 1st one or small ledges she couldnt climb over. The combat is simple, but was actually pretty solid and responsive for me. Hoping for more puzzle variety also.
Click to expand...
Hellblade 1 has one of the most realistic combat in any game.

If they streamlined it, this will probably be a solid game as well. Everything else sounds like what was to be expected from this game.

Looking forward to playing it on PS5.
 
BigLee74

BigLee74

Member
I liked the puzzles in the first game, so happy with more of that.

The combat needs to be more involved though - that was the weakest point of the original for me. I don’t mind the one on one, just as long as there is a little bit of skill involved.
 
djjinx2

djjinx2

Member
nemiroff said:
Well, I did watch the videos, and from what it's worth, to me it looks greatly improved. And that's also exactly what the developer promised to do. They've acknowledged the critique from players of the first game in multiple interviews: They aimed to improve combat and puzzles in HB2.

I can already tell most of this thread is going to center around the usual suspects hate boner.
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It's Xbox so of course the narrative builds.
 
Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
BigLee74 said:
I liked the puzzles in the first game, so happy with more of that.

The combat needs to be more involved though - that was the weakest point of the original for me. I don’t mind the one on one, just as long as there is a little bit of skill involved.
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I didn't actually mind the combat in the first game as much as others did; it at least felt meaty and impactful. So if they have more of that, I'm okay with it. My bigger problem was the awful puzzles, which disturbed the flow of the game.

For combat, my wish for the sequel was to have multiple enemies at the same time and more combos against multiple enemies. That'd have looked and felt cool.
 
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