RiseofPalpatine

There’s something I quite like about the artsy grimey nature of it. It’s hugely graphic and bleak. The sound effects, animation style and setting are pretty cool. However the gameplay loop is hugely boring. Every combat arena is the same. It feels broken in terms of design as well. Certain sections will have you pinned behind the same wall for minutes at a time because you have 12 enemies in front of you just blasting you in the face. Even on lower difficulties you lose health extremely quickly. You have very little time to manoeuvre out of cover. Some cover barriers don’t help you at all either. You’ll still get shot through walls and stuff. The AI feels broken. Guns shoot terribly. good luck trying to shoot an assault rifle further than 10 meters. Overall the game just one big mess dressed with a nice coat of paint.

This is a really good Star Wars story but the gameplay is ultimately not that great. The story definitely overshadows the gameplay. Cal is a great protagonist and the characters you meet on your journey make for great companions. However, the gameplay is rather mediocre in comparison. The combat doesn’t flow well. I never felt like a Jedi while playing this game. Even when you unlock more abilities and skills, it just never felt that satisfying. The exploration is a huge problem. The map navigation is pretty atrocious. I got lost dozens of times while playing the game. Sign posting is generally a problem. I got stumped while trying to navigate through planets like Dathomir and Zeffo. Really frustrating worlds to roam around in. While I have issues with combat and exploration, I still think think it’s a great story with good characters and a solid villain. The music is great. The cosmetics are nice. Graphics are pretty good. It’s just let down by being moments of frustrating map navigation and unfulfilling combat.

After getting 100% completion and sinking over 60 hours into the game, I think it’s an 8/10. The story is decent, the characters are decent. The world looks visually stunning but feels kinda empty. The best part of the game is definitely the gameplay. Combat and stealth is great. The duels are amazing. Side quests are pretty repetitive though. The only side missions I enjoyed were the tales involving main story characters and the mythic tales.

When it all comes down to it, what does this “remake” do to benefit the playability of this game? We look at remakes like final fantasy 7 and resident evil 2 which completely change the way their stories are composed, the actual gameplay and content and even the way characters are written. Yet this remake does nothing at all, it’s nothing but fresh coat of paint with slightly better AI coding and visuals that are (mostly) on par with the sequel. Still doesn’t warrant a $70 price tag in any reality.

When comparing it to Until Dawn, it’s a disappointment. It doesn’t have the interesting story, dialogue options and character dynamics that Until Dawn had. It’s nowhere near as scary and bone chilling as Until Dawn was. The story in this game was fairly bland and son were the characters. I don’t think it’s a bad game, but it should’ve been way better than it is. It’s okay to play once but you’re gonna forget about it not long after playing it.

The game is just not good. It looks beautiful, some of the cutscenes look really pretty and have a lot of creativity in them. The gameplay however is abhorrent. The movement is horrible in this game, Senua moves like an old grandma. Her running speed is reduced to jogging and her walking speed is reduced to plodding. The combat in this game starts off okay, but then you realise the rest of the game is going to revolve around the same attacks and defenses. It never evolves, it just stays the game which makes the combat segments super easy. The puzzles for this game are pretty boring and unbearable a lot of the time. You’ll spend like 15 minutes just trailing around looking to open a gate and it never changes. Just run around using your focus ability to find the right pieces to open a gate, how clever. As for the story, well it’s fine. It’s not even that great and I don’t understand why it’s getting so much praise. Senua is a really bland protagonist who was never likeable or interesting. The story was quite interesting, especially in the first hour of the game. I think it mostly comes down to good voice acting and really great visuals and set pieces. I think it kind if misses the mark on it’s premise to befin with. I never really understood what the story was going for. I never felt like I was eye opened to mental illness at any point. It was so deeply convoluted that it didn’t make much sense. There’s a lot of exposition which isn’t ever good, when your protagonist is almost silent with little dialogue. I don’t think Hellblade is bad but it’s nothing short of mediocre. It’s just an okay game with really bad gameplay in my opinion. 5/10

Bioware nail what they’re good at which are deep RPG world and character building games, with an in-depth view in the story. If you like star wars, play this. If you like Mass effect, play this.