Senua's Mental Health Struggles Barely Matter In Hellblade 2

Summary

Senua's psychosis had a major impact on the first Hellblade, but it feels like set dressing here.
As a result, the story is weaker and the gameplay is unable to cover for it.
Hellblade 2 leans into being a 'video game' more, but can't justify this change in direction.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hellblade 2 doesn't feel like a sequel to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hellblade. It feels closer to a reboot, like a new studio has come in and reimagined the game in triple-A clothing. The first game impressed on a shoestring, but rather than using the injection of cash from being backed by Xbox to build upwards, exploring the team's vision in depth, developer 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ninja Theory instead builds outwards, adding needless gamey busywork that detracts from the narrative. Where the first game was a very insular journey for Senua, one of self-discovery and often self-cꦿonfrontation, the sequel offers a more basic call to adventure. She, like most video game heroes, must simply Do A Thing.

This saps a lot of the intrigue out of Hellblade. Senua suffers from psychosis, and the first game examined this expertly, making you as the player wonder exactly what was real, just as Senua did. When she saw fantastical monsters and giants, were they really there? Did she live in a magical reality where myths walked the earth? Or was she simply seeing things that weren't there, her own doubts and fears manifesting as something physical as she overcame the odds through sheer strength of will?

The Voices In Senua's Head Barely Matter In Hellblade 2

The sequel gets rid of that, and with it, my interest in Hellblade. The voices are still there, but rather than offering anything thematic or purposeful, they will just tell you where to go ("over there!" "a cave!") or offer bland statements on Senua's state of mind, announcing to the player that Senua is angry or scared or any other fairly basic emotion.

It takes away this inner conflict, because the game is no longer propelled by it. Instead, many of the other characters witness the mythological beings too, interacting with them as Senua does. It is no longer a blurring of the lines between what is fact and what is fiction. Everything is fact. And in which case, why does it matter? It feels more important when it isn't real, when 🔜it means something deeper to Senua. It also makes her more noteworthy as a protagonist. But here, th🌌e fact she has mental health issues is barely a factor at all.

While Senua does go off on her own and the visions continue, the characters never question what is happening. At one point, Senua solves a very basic puzzle and a lake drains, revealing a cave. Clearly, this could not have 'happened'. But when she reaches the end of the cave, the characters and story are waiting for her to pick up where she left off. They have no interest in where she went or how she went there, and rather than wondering what is real as we do in the first game, we instead wonder why any of it matters.

Hellblade's Mental Health Depiction Is Sensitive But Feels Pointless

There is some success here - the mental health is still 'well done' in that many video𒁃 games would be heavy handed and insensitive. Hellblade's failures are more thematic than literal. Though I'm not an expert on the presentation of psychosis, Senua never feels like a caricature. You might say, then, why do the mental health elements need to impact the story? Can't Senua just be a character with these struggles?

And of course, she can. But the game is six hours long and that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:feels too 🎶long with how dragged out it is. She is not a typical action-adventure hero. The game is special because it explores these issues, because it wraps them around challenges and questions that are engaging representations of these struggles. The sequel takes a lot of that depth away in favour of Senua just doing hero things, and she's bad at hero things. Her puzzles are dated and simple, her combat is repetitive. Her story is what makes her special, and here, it falls short.

Hellblade 2 review card with Senua swinging her sword

Read our review here

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 Review - A Walking Contradiction

Senua's Saga adds a bigger scope to Hellblade's world, but new characters and extr♒a combat dilute what could make this series so special.

Posts 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 🐲

In the first game, Senua found 'sigils' floating in the world, through stray branches or what have you, that unlocked doors. The idea was that these weren't really there, but Senua was putting together symbols that gave her strength to go on. The doors they unlocked were not real either, but mental barriers of fear. In the sequel, these return without the coinciding fear and drag out, as do puzzles where Senua looks at glowing orbs to change pathways - there is no serious interpretation for why Senua is able to transform the world like this, or thinks she can.

A collectible includes finding rocks that look like faces, and these are the✱ closest to being puzzles with thematic purpose, but these never impact the game or offer much reward.

It doesn't necessarily feel like Senua has made personal progress with her psychosis so much as the game just doesn't want it to be as much of a factor. It moves from being a core part of what the game has to say into being a unique selling point - the game doesn't tell much of a story through Senua's struggles and her mental health is a non-factor apart from constant whispering that acts as a little more than Hellblade's calling card. It doesn't do mental health 'wrong', as other games do. But it doesn't really do it 'right' either.