Well, after watching some other people playing Hellblade I found out that you can actually combo light and heavy attacks together, and the heavy ones seem to really enhance your focus generation, compared to just light attacks. I had tried heavies at one point, but found them very slow and always got hit so I disregarded them. So I was basically spamming light attacks only. And then I was wondering why my fights took forever.
So with this newfound knowledge I went back and also actually played through the last hour of the game instead of just watching it on youtube, and I have to say it hit very differently emotionally. Especially the final fight, which ties into a main theme of the story. I had missed that completely. (just as an aside, since I had so many issues with combat taking forever, since I was only using light attacks, I had also turned the difficulty down to easy; because of this, in the very final fight I actually managed to survive for around 10-15 min I would guess. But you're supposed to die in that fight, to tie into the motif of Senua needing to learn the lesson that she cannot defeat the darkness, and just needs to accept it; But because of the easier difficulty, and also now getting much more effective due to no longer just using light attacks, I survived that fight for way way longer than I was supposed to
)
Anyway, I updated my review. I still left the original, since it's no use just wiping it off; maybe other people are having those same issue.
In short, I absolutely loved it and gained newfound appreciation for it, having actually played it. Some of the stuff I mentioned as negatives (first of all, are not as big a negative anymore) are actually positives since it ties into the narrative theme. Which I completely missed having only watched the video. And maybe I also wasn't completely glued to the screen during the combat encounters.
I even went back and 100%-ed it.
I'm now all the more excited for Hellblade 2.
Updated review:
Well, it seems a lot of my issues with my the combat system were resolved upon realizing that you could combine attacks of different types for more enhanced damage and faster focus generation (which leads to the focused attack mode that drastically enhances your combat effectiveness). Not sure if this is due to the game not highlighting this enough, but truth be told I tried heavy attacks at one point and seeing how slow they were, I kind of disregarded them. But in the right moment they seem to drastically enhance how fast you accumulate focus.
I also went back and actually played the last hour of the game, which I had previously only looked at through youtube. And I have to say it significantly makes the experience better. Especially since the final combat encounter and how you finish it ties directly into one of the main themes of the story and what Senua was supposed to learn.
I can absolutely say I saw it with fresh eyes and it enjoyed it all the more. A beautiful bitter-sweet end to this story. I also got more narrative context since apparently the devs have hidden a secret Druth conversation behind unlocking all the lorestones. So I went back and checked off the last few ones I missed. And while not exactly earth-shattering, it does suggest an interesting twist to what started/contributed this whole drama. I wonder if they'll touch on it in the sequel.
The puzzles on the other hand, are still a slight issue. Though the issue, now that my combat issues are more-or-less fixed and also due to the new appreciation I found on the ending of the story, is considerably less noticeable.
My new score: 9/10.
I was going to say that had this all been told as a walking-simulator, with pure story and puzzle, it would've been a 10. But I'm not so sure that would work as well, in getting the point across; especially with the ending and how it is tied with how you wrap it up in the final combat encounter.
