Okay, I've been avoiding writing a review for this game for a while, after all this game has been out for a while, has great reviews, and most importantly, a sequel is coming out in a few months, which should be more horror, more atmospheric, and most importantly, there should be more action, but let's say, if this game had not been created, would any of us know Ninja Theory ? I think only people who played DmC: Devil May Cry, but that doesn't really matter now, because Ninja Theory got all the attention with this game. However, what is it like and how is it played ?

Story

Senua is a Celtic warrior from the Pict clan. She ran away from home after her father, the clan druid, Zynbel, wanted to remove the darkness from her through torture and abuse. The game begins with returning to your home.
her father, Zynbel, did not understand that Senua and her mother, Galena, suffered from a mental illness that was passed down from mother to daughter. Zymbel thought locking them in a hole or beating the darkness out of them would rid them of their disease. Of course he failed and so Zynbel burned Galena at the stake after failing to remove the darkness from her. Senua being present at this caused a blackout of memory and mind. Everything started to come back after another trauma when her lover Dilion was sacrificed in a bloody ritual by the northern riders.
After Senua witnessed this event as well, the voices in her head that she had heard throughout her childhood began to awaken, forcing her to create a quest in her mind that she must save Dilion's soul. And spare her from damnation at the hands of Hel. She takes her lover's severed head and sets out on a mission to eradicate her Dillion's soul, guided by the voices in her head. Senua meets Druth on her way, who has been captured by the Northmen. He witnessed, as their slave, terrible crimes and committed terrible crimes himself, because he thought that such a life was better than death. Along the way, he tells Senue Norse fables and mythology to occupy her mind and the voices were not so strong that Senue didn't go crazy with them. Druth also gives Senua two missions, to kill Surt and Valran two leaders of the Northmen clans. After killing them, he gains access to Helheim, where he believes he will meet Dillion again.
Druth, after completing the tasks, leaves Senua's mind, leaving her in the hands of the Shadow, a new untrustworthy voice representing her father Zynbel. Shadow guides Sena through Helheim and voices try to confuse and haunt Sena. In the midst of this chaos, Dilion voices in her head, comforting her. Senua remembers practicing with the sword as a little girl and remembers meeting Dillion. Who made her a warrior and fell in love with her. He didn't let her take her own life after a plague hit her village and her father told her it was because of her because her illness was a curse. Dillion advised her to use her votes as an advantage to complete her journey. This helped Senua in the trials of Odin where the reward is a legendary sword that can defeat the darkness. Senua takes the sword from the Pain Tree and travels deep into the mountain to slay the Beast. Then He goes to face the Shadow, that is, her father. Senua realizes that her father could not deal with her mother's psychosis and thought that the only solution was death.
Senua defeats the darkness by realizing Dillion's death. He begins to overcome his fear of the dark and the darkness gradually begins to fade away with the voices. Senua leaves, leaving behind voices, darkness, suffering and the lovers' fate.

Gameplay

To be honest, I'm happy when a game combines several things together and creates a really Unique Gameplay, but again, these things must not be repeated too much, and this game really doesn't have to hide much, because here you only do 3 things over and over, and those things are: Combat, Exploration, and solving riddles or various puzzles, yes, you have a dark and interesting atmosphere for each challenge, but what I really dislike about games is when I get stuck somewhere and have to press Esc and turn on YouTube in order to move at all , I'm not saying that I did it all the time, but if you spend 30 straight minutes on one puzzle, I have the impression that your patience will say "Enough!" and it just won't let you and you have to watch the video, well, and then you have another passage where there is a fight or an exploration and again puzzles and on and on like that. After about 2 hours of playing, you start to get tired of it and then you say to yourself that this Gameplay is really not particularly unique. So you practically do the same thing over and over again, but not to be negative all the time, I also have to say that the Combat system that the developers put into this game seems quite easy, but in the end you will find out that only one human factor matters in the combat, and these are Reflexes (respectively perception), if you have slow reflexes it is most likely that you will die a lot in the game, just because the "Deflection" or "Parry" you give allows you to hurt the enemy a lot, and if you miss this chance, you can either miss a great chance to hurt the enemy or it can cost you a life, which isn't great either, with typical enemies it's not that much of a problem, but when you have a Boss against you, then every action you take will cost you really great timing, not to mention that when Senua gets hurt, your screen will become more darker and darker, so when you know that you have a really dark screen, there is a possibility that you will start to panic, but it probably depends on the concentration of each person.

Graphics and Optimization

I have to admit that I have never seen a game from 2017 with such amazing and realistic graphics, the game has quite high requirements back in the day, but in 2024 it is probably not such a big problem and I have the impression that 90% of players play the game in 4K on more than 60FPS, so I have the impression that the question of whether the game is well Optimized is more of a question for people with a Mid-End PC, however, with my components (see the end of the review) I play the game at Very High 60FPS+, so I think that the game has really great Optimization and the game had it even before they added the new Update, which added Scailing and the new DirectX interface, so I think that nowadays almost no one will have a problem with Optimization or with starting the game in general.

Conclusion

Nowadays, games like this are practically not made anymore, yes, there are a few factors that drag the game down, but overall I think it's a very good title and I only hope that in a few months we will see an even better performance in the form of Hellblade 2 which is in development for a long time and I'm just looking forward to playing the game and writing a (hopefully) positive review, however if you're interested in a fairly dark action game with horror elements or would like to immerse yourself in the world of Hellblade I have the impression that you can't with this game make a mistake, at least give it a chance and if you enjoy it, it won't hurt to look forward to the continuation of the story, for me, I think that this game was really successful and the developers really put their heart into it and worked on it so that everyone who buys the game had the best experience they can have, however, in the end, I want to recommend that if you play the game, you better put on headphones, because you will have a much better experience from the game.

Played on:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (6-Core)
GeForce GTX 1660 Super (GDDR6 | 6GB VRAM)
Corsair Kit 2x8GB 2666MHz
Windows 11

Pros and cons

✔ Great Audio
✔ Realistic Graphics
✔ Great Combat System
✔ Great optimization

✘ Repetetive gameplay
✘ Close details are pixelized

[code]MY RATING: ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ 9 / 10[/code] Okay, I've been avoiding writing a review for this game for a while, after all this game has been out for a while, has great reviews, and most importantly, a sequel is coming out in a few months, which should be more horror, more atmospheric, and most importantly, there should be more action, but let's say, if this game had not been created, would any of us know Ninja Theory ? I think only people who played DmC: Devil May Cry, but that doesn't really matter now, because Ninja Theory got all the attention with this game. However, what is it like and how is it played ? [b]Story[/b] Senua is a Celtic warrior from the Pict clan. She ran away from home after her father, the clan druid, Zynbel, wanted to remove the darkness from her through torture and abuse. The game begins with returning to your home. her father, Zynbel, did not understand that Senua and her mother, Galena, suffered from a mental illness that was passed down from mother to daughter. Zymbel thought locking them in a hole or beating the darkness out of them would rid them of their disease. Of course he failed and so Zynbel burned Galena at the stake after failing to remove the darkness from her. Senua being present at this caused a blackout of memory and mind. Everything started to come back after another trauma when her lover Dilion was sacrificed in a bloody ritual by the northern riders. After Senua witnessed this event as well, the voices in her head that she had heard throughout her childhood began to awaken, forcing her to create a quest in her mind that she must save Dilion's soul. And spare her from damnation at the hands of Hel. She takes her lover's severed head and sets out on a mission to eradicate her Dillion's soul, guided by the voices in her head. Senua meets Druth on her way, who has been captured by the Northmen. He witnessed, as their slave, terrible crimes and committed terrible crimes himself, because he thought that such a life was better than death. Along the way, he tells Senue Norse fables and mythology to occupy her mind and the voices were not so strong that Senue didn't go crazy with them. Druth also gives Senua two missions, to kill Surt and Valran two leaders of the Northmen clans. After killing them, he gains access to Helheim, where he believes he will meet Dillion again. Druth, after completing the tasks, leaves Senua's mind, leaving her in the hands of the Shadow, a new untrustworthy voice representing her father Zynbel. Shadow guides Sena through Helheim and voices try to confuse and haunt Sena. In the midst of this chaos, Dilion voices in her head, comforting her. Senua remembers practicing with the sword as a little girl and remembers meeting Dillion. Who made her a warrior and fell in love with her. He didn't let her take her own life after a plague hit her village and her father told her it was because of her because her illness was a curse. Dillion advised her to use her votes as an advantage to complete her journey. This helped Senua in the trials of Odin where the reward is a legendary sword that can defeat the darkness. Senua takes the sword from the Pain Tree and travels deep into the mountain to slay the Beast. Then He goes to face the Shadow, that is, her father. Senua realizes that her father could not deal with her mother's psychosis and thought that the only solution was death. Senua defeats the darkness by realizing Dillion's death. He begins to overcome his fear of the dark and the darkness gradually begins to fade away with the voices. Senua leaves, leaving behind voices, darkness, suffering and the lovers' fate. [b]Gameplay[/b] To be honest, I'm happy when a game combines several things together and creates a really Unique Gameplay, but again, these things must not be repeated too much, and this game really doesn't have to hide much, because here you only do 3 things over and over, and those things are: Combat, Exploration, and solving riddles or various puzzles, yes, you have a dark and interesting atmosphere for each challenge, but what I really dislike about games is when I get stuck somewhere and have to press Esc and turn on YouTube in order to move at all , I'm not saying that I did it all the time, but if you spend 30 straight minutes on one puzzle, I have the impression that your patience will say "Enough!" and it just won't let you and you have to watch the video, well, and then you have another passage where there is a fight or an exploration and again puzzles and on and on like that. After about 2 hours of playing, you start to get tired of it and then you say to yourself that this Gameplay is really not particularly unique. So you practically do the same thing over and over again, but not to be negative all the time, I also have to say that the Combat system that the developers put into this game seems quite easy, but in the end you will find out that only one human factor matters in the combat, and these are Reflexes (respectively perception), if you have slow reflexes it is most likely that you will die a lot in the game, just because the "Deflection" or "Parry" you give allows you to hurt the enemy a lot, and if you miss this chance, you can either miss a great chance to hurt the enemy or it can cost you a life, which isn't great either, with typical enemies it's not that much of a problem, but when you have a Boss against you, then every action you take will cost you really great timing, not to mention that when Senua gets hurt, your screen will become more darker and darker, so when you know that you have a really dark screen, there is a possibility that you will start to panic, but it probably depends on the concentration of each person. [b]Graphics and Optimization[/b] I have to admit that I have never seen a game from 2017 with such amazing and realistic graphics, the game has quite high requirements back in the day, but in 2024 it is probably not such a big problem and I have the impression that 90% of players play the game in 4K on more than 60FPS, so I have the impression that the question of whether the game is well Optimized is more of a question for people with a Mid-End PC, however, with my components (see the end of the review) I play the game at Very High 60FPS+, so I think that the game has really great Optimization and the game had it even before they added the new Update, which added Scailing and the new DirectX interface, so I think that nowadays almost no one will have a problem with Optimization or with starting the game in general. [b]Conclusion[/b] Nowadays, games like this are practically not made anymore, yes, there are a few factors that drag the game down, but overall I think it's a very good title and I only hope that in a few months we will see an even better performance in the form of Hellblade 2 which is in development for a long time and I'm just looking forward to playing the game and writing a (hopefully) positive review, however if you're interested in a fairly dark action game with horror elements or would like to immerse yourself in the world of Hellblade I have the impression that you can't with this game make a mistake, at least give it a chance and if you enjoy it, it won't hurt to look forward to the continuation of the story, for me, I think that this game was really successful and the developers really put their heart into it and worked on it so that everyone who buys the game had the best experience they can have, however, in the end, I want to recommend that if you play the game, you better put on headphones, because you will have a much better experience from the game. Played on: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (6-Core) GeForce GTX 1660 Super (GDDR6 | 6GB VRAM) Corsair Kit 2x8GB 2666MHz Windows 11 Pros and cons ✔ Great Audio ✔ Realistic Graphics ✔ Great Combat System ✔ Great optimization ✘ Repetetive gameplay ✘ Close details are pixelized