xaosyn

I found the first Act of Hell Is Us engrossing. The game starts with an interesting mystery, areas full of danger and collectibles, and a clear goal (to find my father) pushing me forward. The combat was basic, but I felt confident that it would grow in complexity as I forged ahead. The game began to sour for me when I started Act 2. Certain sidequests began to fail as I forged ahead with main quests because it was unclear that completing these main quests was going to trigger a change in the world-state. I'd already grown weary of backtracking and walking in circles in the first three areas of the game, never sure if I was missing something or if I was meant to forge ahead, and then five or six more areas open up where you have to keep doing this song and dance, fighting the same five enemy types over. By this point, I'd realized I'd seen everything that combat had to offer. The different “spheres” for your weapons have no meaningful difference except which abilities you can equip and I personally found Terror and Grief useless; it would have made more sense for the spheres to be a rock-paper-scissors weakness triangle. The backtracking would have been more rewarding if I felt like I was always growing stronger by doing so. In retrospect, this is a game that you should play with a notebook, because there are just too many mysteries to keep track of in the back of your mind, and too many areas to return to. There are far too many NPCs who offer nothing but dialogue, but they all have the “Trade” option so you never know who may offer a quest or be wanting something. It necessitates talking to everyone, even though 80% of the NPCs are meaningless.