Hellblade 2

Glad to hear the pills worked.

I’m only an hour or two in but, yeah, also really digging this. I am a fan of walking sims though, so…

I was going to hang off trying this as I have an S not an X. But EG suggest it is still very good on the S. So maybe I’ll give it a go despite canning off the first one.

Trailer at the cinema before Furiosa also moistened me up.

I’m a fickle beast you never know 😜

I'm two hours in and don't think I've seen one bit of actual UI or prompting. It's very nicely done.

I didn't know you could move faster until the bit where you are meant to run away and I died to it twice 😂

Just finished the sea chapter, and still there's more now. This game actually seems quite a bit longer than people say.

No, it never felt like too much to me.

Only thing I found was it seemed the female voices spoke a lot more this time? But annoying when speaking over the characters as I don't have subtitles on.

Just finished. A shade over 8 hours for me too. Loved it. I’m delighted that a walking sim was made with this sort of budget, and to use the same word as a lot of you did: “memorable.”

What they did with the combat was smart. It just wasn’t good enough in the first game to make it worth the hassle. By going all in on the cinematic spectacle and just stage-managing it they squashed my largest gripe with the first game. It basically turned into Infinity Blade, which I also loved.

The transitions though. The drone moments where it zoomed over the landscapes. Damn! Proper LotR levels of epic.

I’d play another if they made one.

I can’t say I played through it myself, but I watched my partners entire play through recently. I have little to add that hasn’t been said here already, but I do wish they’d gone heavy on the puzzling elements of this game at the very least. I get that’s not what they were going for, but it really is a lot of walking. It felt more laborious than the first game, as best I remember that one.

I did enjoy the narrative, however. The witch in particular was quite sad and my partner had to stop playing to have a good cry (I did not cry). But from that point onward the game became rather predictable and it felt like a lot of walking.

Still, an absolutely stunning looking game. I’d even go as far as to say something ridiculous like 30fps actually being a benefit to this game as it aids the cinematic look of the visuals. If genuinely felt like watching a film at times (as a spectator to the game, rather than player). Honesty, the extra frames would more likely detract from the game than add anything. It would immediately feel more like a game, which goes against everything I’d normally want, but it just looks better this way.

Not sure I’ll actually play it myself now unless I get an itch to hunt for achievements, but I do like how they’ve set the game up for a potential sequel. I’d just ask them to do more with the game. Go open world or remove the linearity to some degree, at the very least. Go harder on the puzzle mechanics, which have promise, but rarely involve you having to think about anything. You probably wouldn’t have to focus on visual polish anymore because this game looks so good already.