Vahagnmk

Hellblade shows that in a sea of video game prose, there is place for some real poetry. Loved every second of the game. Simple yet enjoyable combat, surprisingly challenging puzzles, memorable soundtrack, great story, tons of dark, scary, paranoid atmosphere and the most alive video game character I have ever seen. Thanks Ninja Theory for the an epic journey. May the heart in your sword never stop beating!

The game is like an unimaginative hard-working student. It knows how to earn its A marks but doesn’t bring any ideas of its own. There is arguably nothing that the game does better than some of previous games in the series or other games that it heavily copies from. It's clearly a game created mainly for the fans. What I liked the most is that it’s certainly a horror game. It’s not Silent Hill or Fatal Frame, but the tone of the game is even creepier and darker than most of the previous games in RE series. Instead of trained special agents who can destroy entire villages of monsters you are controlling the victims in a saw-type setting. The main characters (Claire and Moira at least) are presented as survivors in the game’s story and on higher difficulties it really feels like it. On many occasions I had very little ammo left and was desperately searching for some more and hoping I would not meet an enemy. There is nothing really out of ordinary for someone who has become immune to horror games, but for most of the players the horror component is still pretty solid. I hope the future episodes will have some longer horror oriented sections of playing only as Moira or Natalia. The enemy variety is good. In the short run of the first episode there were enough newer enemies that require you to rethink your tactics. I especially liked the enemies with weak points in Barry’s story that make you quickly swap between Barry and Natalia not to waste too much bullets. The stealth is nothing remarkable and a very insignificant gameplay mechanic here. There were a couple of occasions where the enemies are facing the opposite direction to provide you with an easy kill but it just feels to be forced by the developers. Nothing like Last of Us where you could take out most of the enemies in the game stealthily and the mechanic was enjoyable to master. The first episode is very short: 40 minutes with Claire and about the same with Barry. I started with survivor mode and the total playtime was little longer due to retries. The environments are small and narrow. There is some backtracking and light puzzle solving, nothing really imaginative and complicated like in the Remake. More like the stuff that you could find in just any shooter game. Just some closed doors that you open in a 5 minutes time after finding the keys. Half of Barry’s game was repeared in the same environment that Claire and Moira were in. As a result the whole package felt even smaller. There is however some replayability due to the chapter ranking system like in other Capcom games, collectibles that are needed to upgrade the skills of the characters and medals that are given for some extra conditions to meet when during play. The raid mode is fun. Even more with a friend. If you like to play infinite time killing mobile games like Temple Run, it is certainly more enjoyable to do the same with a solid third person shooter at its core. The infinite unlocking loop is as enjoyable and addictive as it should be. The mission variety is good. After some hours of playing with Claire, no mission felt the same. There are plenty of different environments and mixes of extra conditions thrown in each mission to try to make the process less repetitive. All in all pretty decent purchase if you are a RE fan and expect something that is not really innovative but well made.

It is strange that this game did not get much attention from gamers and critics. First of all it looks great for a handheld game. Although a litttle repetitive the backgrounds are very bright and colorful. You control a little kid with a huge gun and by using the powerful recoil of the gun you make big leaps around. While in air you can aim again in slow motion and make a second jump. There;s not much more to the gameplay. However this core mechanic of jumping around is incredibly fun and addictive and the game makes as much use of it as it can by offering plenty of complicated platforming and puzzle sections. The game is divided into many short levels where you can just clear the level or clear the level by collecting all of the gear scattered around and earn perfect rating.