Set in an 8th-century intersection of Celtic and Norse “relations”, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a painstakingly authentic picture of mental illness through a literal journey into Hell. As Senua, a lone Pict survivor, you’ll traverse the depths of Norse mythology and her conflicted mind for clarity and the soul of her beloved. While Senua’s unsettling psychological descent is the game’s focus, gameplay combines environmental puzzles and combat spurts with visceral swordplay.
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Developer Ninja Theory’s action savvy backcatalog includes 2007’s underappreciated Heavenly Sword, the divisive DMC: Devil May Cry of the Devil May Cry series, and recent multiplayer brawler Bleeding Edge. This action pedigree grafts onto Senua’s story of suffering while fighting off fiendish Norse caricatures and the malevolent deities of their mythos. As the early threat of permadeath looms, surviving the brutish mobs requires strategy, quick reactions, and keen audio and visual acuity. Here are some tips to help you out.
10 Methodically or Mid-Panic, Parry With Precision
Blocking vs. parrying is gaming’s quintessential risk-reward, a moment of pause for those still weighing the investment they’re committing to a title. Is the perfect parry a strategy preference or a minimum requirement? We assess the learning curve for timing, the precision of the game’s hit-detection, and how much mindlessness we can cling to when button-mashing.
Hellblade splits the difference on parrying. Fights remain in your favor with a full deck of defenses, though using evade interchangeably works for the willfully uninitiated. A wide parrying window precedes exaggerative windups from the oafish horde. Follow the generous stun period with a heavy counter, and if the coast is clear, a 3-piece combo. Senua’s periphery-observation voice will often cue the exact moment to parry enemies at your flank, saving your hide countless times if you’re quick to catch it.
9 When All Else Fails, Heed Your (Her) Own Advice
Hellblade weaves the influence of Senua’s illness into more than just the narrative, as voices of doubt and overanalysis pervade all gameplay aspects. Revealing more than simply the stigma of mental illness, Hellblade highlights the effect of specific symptoms on functioning and reasoning.
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For Senua, the slew of voices can be critical or hyper-observant, utilized in gameplay as hints or cues. Initially, the incessant chatter feels like a stylistic addition, though it quickly becomes clear that the keys to victory are quite literally whispered in your ear. Make life easier by listening for warnings of incoming attacks or cues to trigger the focus mechanic when most useful.
8 Senua’s Swiftness: Victory By Evasion
What Senua lacks in strength and stature she trades for spritely movement. Utilizing the evade command is your safety net, granting a reprieve for strategy-formation or to panic-spam away from the midst of a Northmen moshpit.
While evading you are impervious to most damage, allowing you to flit from attack zones without the foresight or precision of parrying. With the base command, Senua evades backward, while directional evading is helpful based on the orientation of enemies or yourself within the fight arena. Better still, double-tapping evade allows you to cover a greater distance for desperate low-health escapes or resetting to reassess.
7 Observe and Retort: Using Visual Cues
Common among walking-sims, HUD-less games enthrall with less distraction, making them the most immersive in gaming. Unlike the art gallery stillness of puzzlers Gone Home or The Witness, Hellblade’s minimalism is the grotesque painting that punches back.
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Without health bars or prompts it’s hard to know how close death is, deliberately driving player stress. Sharp eyes are critical as a blurring screen or labored character movement are signals of fading life. Once Senua doubles over and the camera frames her visible dread, button-mash to your feet and retreat or tighten your defenses posthaste. Visual cues reveal enemy tells as well, prompting a parry or evade appropriately. Lastly, keep an eye on the mirror near Senua’s hip. The blue glow indicates up to three focus charges, your survival lifeline and facilitator of offensive onslaughts.
6 Melee’s A Must: Unarmed Attacks Make Unshielded Enemies
When shielded Norsem*n appear, Senua-sized mace in hand, your first headlong offensive will find you on your back. These baddies and their red shields will block most unfocused frontal attacks and leave you stunned with their shield bash.
What Hellblade fails to explicitly mention, is that while angling toward an enemy’s flank is effective, a melee strike is doubly so. Whether it’s a kick or a flying knee mid-sprint, using your melee attack will open up shielded enemies to follow up attacks with the blade. Start with an unarmed melee on an enemy and continue the combo immediately, mixing in another kick after several strikes to reopen his guard.
5 Keep Calm and Stay FOCUS-ed
Remedy introduced Max Payne to the world in 2001. The hard-boiled shooter did gritty noir decently, but its legacy is its introduction of “bullet-time”. The stylish slow-down of John Woo flicks and Keanu’s Matrix ascension has been a staple of gaming since. While Superhot has a bullet-time all-the-time design, Hellblade calls it focus, and it functions as more of a blade-time.
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Focus’ obvious benefit is the slowing effect that gives Senua enhanced reaction and speed to wail on already-plodding behemoths. It can be useful in a panicked pinch as a last resort, restoring health upon activation and allowing you to trim the crowd for a more manageable situation. Additionally, focus will reveal enemies that have shadowed themselves (making them invincible) and is essential in several boss fights.
4 Key To Combat: Keeping It All In Perspective
While the Romans lauded ancient Scots and Celts for their savage military might, Senua’s design is not that of an ultimate barbarian warrior. She is commonly vulnerable: a lone woman carrying a weighty blade into foreign lands. Senua is often set upon by overwhelming odds, Norsem*n in waves that will increase to eight or more.
Early on these relative giants can swamp you with simultaneous attacks from all angles. The key to most encounters is keeping enemies in front of you. With a few exceptions, enemies lumber rather slowly, aligning multiple enemies through movement is critical to survival and will allow for more precise parrying.
3 Thin The Herd, Divide And Conquer
As players travel deeper into the Norse underworld eager to unearth all of its secrets, Senua will encounter more dangerous enemies in greater numbers. With shielded enemies rebuffing your attacks and others whose charge outpaces your reaction, strategies must evolve quickly. These timing-disruptors add lethality to even standard fare swordsmen, as you’re inundated with impatient attackers in moments.
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Through deft evasion and area control Senua can survey the field, identifying enemies requiring special strategies or those with quick-strike abilities. Whether it means focusing on the most dangerous threats or knocking down the weakest, thinning the herd and narrowing attack lines increases survival odds in late-game battles.
2 Patience And Pattern Recognition Like A Boss, Against A Boss
Few character designs rival the hideousness of Hellblade’s baddies, that is until its bosses arrive. Complemented by their psychological terror, these gatekeepers belong among the scariest mythological beasts in gaming. Beating them is no easy feat, requiring more than mindless hacking to overcome.
Requiring evasiveness and patience, studying boss attack patterns is Gaming 101. Observing standard strikes, ranged attacks and when to anticipate a charge will make each fight seem more manageable without health bars to gauge progress. Sifting through the doubtful chatter of Senua’s voices will also reveal keys to overcoming bosses.
1 Make Time For Combo R&D, The Earlier The Better
Though simple by comparison, Hellblade parallels From Software’s pre-Sekiro omission of tutorials. With a nonexistent UI and an unwavering commitment to immersion, the most instruction you’ll find is button assignments on the pause screen. Combinations and special attacks are discovered (or not) through experimentation, best practiced during the forgiving odds of early battles.
Combos are varied by light and heavy strikes, limited only by knockback on staggered enemies and their ability to disrupt light attacks. Mixing in melee attacks extends combos as well, particularly shielded enemies or those winding up to strike. Some combos are better suited for dealing efficient damage and retreating while others are best for walloping slowed swordsmen mid-focus. Attacking post-dodge and during a sprint also adds variety to attacks at different angles and distances.
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