They say that the hardest battles are fought in the mind. And this game illustrates that wonderfully.

You play as Senua, a Celtic warrior on a perilous journey to Helheim to save the soul of her lover Dillion. And on her quest, she has to face various mythical beasts if she is to bargain with Hela, ruler of Helheim. But not only does she have to fight physical beats, she also has to contend with the demons in her mind.

This is not just a game, this is a full-on experience of what it's like to deal with psychosis, and goes to show that dealing with it is not cool or edgy in any way. It's very respectful in this sense and the fact that the dev team took great care with this shows through.

But not just that. Senua herself is a wonderful protagonist, strong and resilient even as she descends further into darkness on her quest. Her story is not explicitly told, rather through flashes that you have to piece together to get a full picture. And it is done well. As you get further into it, you begin to understand more about Senua, her story and the things she has endured to get to where she is now.

The sound design is excellent, very atmospheric and really gives you a sense of the environment, as well as the various voices you hear among your travels. Graphically it looks amazing, even on the lowest settings.

The combat feels good, the controls are tight, and it feels like a gritty and realistic fight, like you can feel the effort as Senua battles her foes. She also reacts to being injured, moving more slowly and taking longer to attack and dodge the more injured she is.

The puzzles are interesting, such as having to find the shapes of runes in the environments. However, there aren't that many puzzles and finding the runes can get a little repetitive after a while, but that is literally the only (albeit very nitpicky) negative I have.

All in all this is not just a game, this is an experience and one well worth playing through, just to experience Senua's journey as she is seeing it in her mind.

Bayonetta may be a relatively old game but it's still damn good fun to play. Who'd have thought it would be fun to beat up groups of angelic eldritch horrors as a witch who can literally summon demons with her hair?

While the plot of the game is pretty serious, Bayonetta herself looks like she's having fun while taking down various creatures with different weapons and combos. And this game is ridiculous fun. There is a lot of charm and charisma and all the characters are well-written.

Graphics wise, it's very well-rendered and the usually muted background colours help to make the foreground colour (where all the action is happening) pop out but they're also not too distracting. Character models are well rendered and wonderfully animated, especially Bayonetta herself. Nothing particularly negative to point out here.

Sound wise, the soundtrack is very well put together. Atmospheric in places but also oozes a lot of charm and charisma when it needs to. Very well crafted and puts the tension in the right places. The only complaint I really have is that the battle music can get a tad repetitive but that's me being incredibly nitpicky.

Now onto the meat: the gameplay. I did play the original console version before this and the combos feel very fluid, although some of the more important mechanics (such as Dodge Offset) aren't very well explained. However, combat does feel very satisfying and the various weapons you can get all pack their own punch. The addition of auto-aiming on lower difficulty settings, as well as assistance with the trickier combos, is very good and doesn't take away from the overall skill too much (some skill is still required to get big combos even on lower difficulties but it still works). The torture attacks were fun and the end of boss fights (Climaxes) were well done. Only complaint is that some cutscenes did have a few too many QTEs but aside from that, all very good.

Controls felt okay if you're using a keyboard and mouse, but I ended up havign to put the sensitivity quite far up. However, using a controller make everything feel like a dream. It is playable on keyboard/mouse but I highly recommend using a controller to play. Much more fun.

I had such fun with this game and I cannot recommend it enough. Definitely on my must-play list.