Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Discussion - Spoiler Free

Welcome back to another TA Playlist month. Use this thread to ask questions about Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, report in as you make your way through the game for the first time, and otherwise keep it all spoiler-free in here.

It may be important to know what you are getting into if starting this game.
There is a lot of walking around and not really doing anything. Overall it's more so an interactive film than a game.
This isn't a bad thing though, it's absolutely phenomenal at what it is. But just know if you're not big into slower paced story heavy stuff or didn't enjoy the first one, this may just not be for you.

You could probably finish all 3 of the other playlist games before you reach the 1st checkpoint in this one. Senua moves at 0.5 mph.

And the first game was slightly better on mute for what that's worth.

Mostly finished the first game out of spite.

Some of the most impressive graphics you'll see anywhere but it's nowhere near as good to play as it is to look at. Slow-paced and featuring some truly shocking combat that you can fortunately turn off to basically make it a video of Senua having a fight. Not a terrible game but certainly not an excellent one

Okay, so I haven't really started this one yet (just one achievement for the Bean Dive), but I must say I've been struck by the difference in the tone of the discussion of this game compared to the original.

I didn't know anything about Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice when it was chosen as the TA Playlist game back in December 2018, but it had very positive reviews, with an 80 Metacritic score and a lot of awards buzz. There were knocks about the "bland" combat back then, but the general vibe was that it succeeded so well at the cinematic storytelling and the depiction of Senua as a character that the combat wasn't really a factor.

The critic reviews for Senua's Saga: Hellblade II are similar to the original, and even the TA user score is pretty close (4.14 for the original, 4.07 for the sequel), so by all accounts I'd expect people who liked the first game would also like the sequel, and people who didn't, won't. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Comments seem to be overwhelmingly negative about Hellblade II, even though many of them also state that it's very similar to the first, and I don't remember seeing this much criticism of the original.

So, a little food for thought as we kick off this month's discussion... what changed? Is there some substantive difference in terms of plot or quality that makes this one worse than the original? Are our standards just that much higher now, and if the original Hellblade were released today, it wouldn't get the high praise and awards it got back then? Or did our expectations about Ninja Theory change, given that they were a relatively low-budget indie studio back in 2017, and now as a subsidiary of Microsoft, they have to clear a much higher bar to impress us? Is it just a case of been there, done that... they just didn't do enough to move the ball forward and change the formula? Or is there something in particular that did change that hurt the sequel in some way?

I guess what I'm getting at is, is the reception to Hellblade II worse because the game is in some way worse, or is the reception worse simply because we expected it to be better than it is, for whatever reason? Or am I off base in my assessment about the reception, and it's just a case of a few loud voices drowning out the silent majority, who like (or dislike) both games equally?

No spoilers here, obviously, but I'm interested in your general thoughts... I plan to start a full playthrough this week.

Best game I've played this year! Absolutely loved the first one. Wish I could experience them again. Have fun!

Been putting it off... time to start. The first was great.

The story/lore dumps were compelling and the visuals were vivid. If you skipped listening, it's a not very enticing walking sim. The puzzles were fairly simple and combat was lacking as well. There was not much to explore.

Overall, I am expecting the same with this one. Looking forward to beautiful animations with more story and lore!

Just here for the badge for this disappointing, mediocre game!

I had the pleasure of playing this game on a beastly desktop PC and it looked fantastic! I didn't play it on my Series X, but I heard it still looked great there, too.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. It has an impactful story and presentation if you let yourself get immersed in its world.

Not as good as the first Hellblade IMO but it is still a quick game to get through and it's a good thing it's on game pass cause I don't think it's worth its price.

Fun challenge to go back and begin these games from the backlog. Loved the September & October's playlist chosen games.

Badge!

(Really ought to go back and pick it back up again. I stalled after a couple of chapters....)

It's a good game, not as good as the first but I'm assuming those that hated on it just expected something different than what they got.

Started it and got side-tracked by other games. Loved the first one and will definitely finish this at some point in time.

Started this one when it came out. I liked it but got distracted and never came back. I'd love to be able to finish it this month, but I'm swamped with things outside of gaming. Maybe soon.

Honestly i was so surprised with the graphical and visual appearance of this game made it so immersive for me and honestly one of the more enjoyable game released this year, generally very pleased with this completion with no downsides just very straight forward with good story telling and great visuals.

Loved Melina's acting all throughout!

Nice Game

I personally really enjoyed this game for what it is.

And that is a visually stunning, compelling narrative driven game!

Without a doubt one of the best games I've played this year. Sit back, calm down, listen and live Hellblade. Amazing visuals, immersive soundtrack, massive and brutal story.