Game tells you about that feature, more or less. Happens around 10-15 Minutes in the game.
@Hektor
It makes sense when you look at the narrative, yes. Thats why I dont want to have it out of this game, just handled a little different.
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Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Review Thread
- Thread starter Savantcore
- Start date
@Hektor
It makes sense when you look at the narrative, yes. Thats why I dont want to have it out of this game, just handled a little different.
MrS
Banned
The combat and boss fights are definitely intense and have extra weight because of the possibility of permadeath. To assert anything other than that without having played the game is pure guesswork on your part.
When the "blackmail" is over fixing game breaking bugs then I don't see how it's a bad thing. Sounds pretty great as a consumer actually lol.
Anyways, I think Jim's original review is probably more valuable than any of the others. Now if someone read his review and were playing late in the game they would know to be extra careful.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Ok, so I just watched Jim's video where he clarifies that 1/10.
It's good that he's going to re-review the game and has asked Metacritic to pull it but it also falls on the game a bit that it auto saved his progress to a point he couldn't backtrack to get the item he needed to solve the puzzle.
It's good that he's going to re-review the game and has asked Metacritic to pull it but it also falls on the game a bit that it auto saved his progress to a point he couldn't backtrack to get the item he needed to solve the puzzle.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
PS4 users can upload your save file to the cloud. Not sure if the X1 has that.
So do that every hour or so if you are dying a lot.
i actually think it's a great idea that makes you play a lot more cautiously than you normally. it will the kinda dread every big battle in GoT has... no matter how cool the spectacle, you just know deep down inside not everyone is going to make it out alive.
So do that every hour or so if you are dying a lot.
i actually think it's a great idea that makes you play a lot more cautiously than you normally. it will the kinda dread every big battle in GoT has... no matter how cool the spectacle, you just know deep down inside not everyone is going to make it out alive.
"I haven't heard too much about this game. Guess I'l check out the review thread..."
Oh Jim Sterling, you scamp. I shall continue to not take your reviews into consideration when making my purchasing decisions.
Game looks great though; had no idea it had themes of mental illness. A decently big budget game exploring that is really intriguing. I'll get this sometime later when I have some more money.
Oh Jim Sterling, you scamp. I shall continue to not take your reviews into consideration when making my purchasing decisions.
Game looks great though; had no idea it had themes of mental illness. A decently big budget game exploring that is really intriguing. I'll get this sometime later when I have some more money.
Couldn't they have just made the combat more complex, varied, and challenging (according to some reviews the encounters are on the lackluster side) like so many other games?
I get trying something new, but it's a question of whether they could've (and should've) executed it in a better way. Yes, I know it's mostly subjective.
GuitarAtomik
Member
Good scores overall. Definitely picking it up today.
Savantcore
Unconfirmed Member
Absolutely, but it also looks bad on Jim that he's just thrown out this 1/10 without much thought. Might make some people pause in his future reviews, as well as sour Hellblade's otherwise impressive launch. Just a messy situation all round.
Of course I cannot judge the quality of its implementation yet, however there is arguably a difference between thinking that the mechanic does not play its intended role well and being unwilling to suffer the negative experiences a game wants to convey to begin with.
The former is entirely understandable, the latter however strikes me as rather weird given that these feelings are what the game wants to express.
Theres room for videogames to convey negative experiences and ideally that's done by making the player actually experience them, unlike a movie in which you can only watch others experiencing them.
If those experiences are not something you want to have why is it that you would want to play this game still instead of any of the others that are about harmless fun and nothing more?
But i suppose i just read too much into the user I quoted.
Savantcore
Unconfirmed Member
OpenCritic have now joined Metacritic in removing Jim Sterling's review, and the overall score now sits at 82 (up from 79).
e: beaten by seconds, bah
e: beaten by seconds, bah
What was wrong with Jim's review? The game was unplayable for him, that's just as valid of a review as any of the others. The whole point of reviews is to inform the consumer and provide criticism /feedback to the developers. Jim's review checked both those boxes. As for his score, it's completely subjective and I don't see how it's any more criminal than the so called average 7/10 dished out by other outlets regularly. If anything it highlights how dumb aggregating review scores is
I'm of the opinion that repeatable gamebreaking bugs and significant performance issues (like frequent, uncontrolled crashes) should hurt a game's score/review... with an addendum if the issues are fixed within a reasonable amount of time via patches.
It does, in big BOLD letters.
Savantcore
Unconfirmed Member
Everyone agrees that it's important to bring these issues to light but calling it a 'broken, unplayable mess. 1/10' seemed like an incredibly knee-jerk reaction and flew in the face of the overwhelmingly positive reception the game was getting elsewhere.
There was a better way to handle it, which he himself has admitted. The game didn't even crash or corrupt data or anything. While it should have been picked up on in QA, it wasn't nearly as bad as he made it seem.
Yes, especially with the amount of patches games receive after launch, more reviewers should be encouraged to update their reviews to reflect the state the game is in.
Indeed. It highlights how stupid are review scores as well... And sometimes reviews in general.
But it wasn't unplayable for him. That's a blatant lie. He was thoroughly enjoying the game by his own admission until he encountered the "bug", which was actually a mix of user error and a saving system that could have been tweaked more, sure.
He dropped the score to 1/10 out of spite an anger, by his own admission. If you're telling me that's an honest, thoroughly weighted review... nah, I can't believe it. It was a "hot take" akin to rage quitting or throwing your controller in anger. He did it because he could, since the number he arbitrarily assigns to a game does carry a certain weight.
Also that puzzle that Jim Sterling had a bug on. That kind of thing is just not fun to me. I find it frustrating and boring. Everything else looks pretty good as well.
Spieler Eins
Member
Playing it for 8 hours without issues is literally the opposite of unplayable. And the score/conclusion in this case felt like a kid giving a kneejerk "review" for an online title one second after ragequitting a match because of poor internet. You should certainly factor in this glitch, but it clearly wasn't a very reflective way of doing criticism.
paperspace
Member
Last edited:
mhayes86
Member
Oddly, I never heard of this game until just this weekend. I watched some review videos and am really interested in checking it out!
Same here. I recall an IGN reviewer gave a low score to a well received game a few months ago due to a game breaking glitch he encountered. He got a lot of backlash for it and ended up changing his score.
But I'm also of the opinion that scores need to go. Jim's review could have gone much smoother and less reactionary with "I was loving this game, until it autosaved at a point where I was unable to progress or backtrack.", instead of a 1/10. His followup video was much better.
Same here. I recall an IGN reviewer gave a low score to a well received game a few months ago due to a game breaking glitch he encountered. He got a lot of backlash for it and ended up changing his score.
But I'm also of the opinion that scores need to go. Jim's review could have gone much smoother and less reactionary with "I was loving this game, until it autosaved at a point where I was unable to progress or backtrack.", instead of a 1/10. His followup video was much better.
"I haven't heard too much about this game. Guess I'l check out the review thread..."
Oh Jim Sterling, you scamp. I shall continue to not take your reviews into consideration when making my purchasing decisions.
Game looks great though; had no idea it had themes of mental illness. A decently big budget game exploring that is really intriguing. I'll get this sometime later when I have some more money.
Jim Sterling is the biggest troll in gaming. Ive no idea why he continues to get paid any attention.
A game making you angry isn't a honest experience? Reviewers are just a microchosm of the experiences players can have, and if 'this will make you want to throw your controller in anger' is a reviewer's takeaway it should be represented. If a game-breaking bug reduces a person's experience to a 1/10 it isn't 'arbitrarily assigned', it's valid, same as if DRM rendered you unable to progress in a game.
A review isn't an emotionless assessment of pros and cons. It's "here's my experience, as a critic". It represents a single perspective that could be relevant to a player.
So I don't think there's anything implicitly wrong with a game angering you to the point of giving it a 1/10, any more than there's a problem with falling in love with a game enough to award it a perfect score.
jim2point0
Banned
Exactly.
You can integrate game mechanics into the narrative experience in clever ways, but this is not clever. I experience "fear of loss or failure" everytime I play a Souls game. The difference is, you aren't booted back to the beginning and you have a chance to retrieve what you lost. But the fear and the stress is still there.
Permadeath, however, means you could have trouble with a particular enemy near the end of the game only to be forced to play through the entire game again (watching the same cutscenes, hearing the same dialogue) just to get another crack at the thing that killed you so many times.
With my limited gaming time, I wouldn't want to risk that. Even if I'm confident it wouldn't happen to me because I'm usually pretty good at video games. I'd want to see the game to the end mostly because of its strong narrative focus. Though I suppose if I'm ever having trouble, I could just hack in God Mode and push through the rest of the game.
Their games have always gotten kind treatment from reviewers. Even a title with limited gameplay like Enslaved averaged 80.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
But you're not forced to play through the game again. You can leave it and walk away in a failure state, which is itself an interesting experience, thematically pertinent, and something that other games don't offer.
Spartancarver
Member
Pleasantly surprised at the scores and the fact that they approached mental health in a truly mature, respectful, and effective way.
My PS4 has this downloaded and waiting for me tonight ^_^
Edit: oh there's Jim Sterling controversy too? Now I'm doubly glad I bought it lol.
My PS4 has this downloaded and waiting for me tonight ^_^
Edit: oh there's Jim Sterling controversy too? Now I'm doubly glad I bought it lol.
We're talking about him aren't we which creates traffic to his site and YouTube.
Wait, really!? I mean that's not the worst but it should be its own mode
Download a trainer 🤣
jim2point0
Banned
Or watch the game on Youtube.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
or .. you know .. put the difficulty on easy.
I could see your point if throughout the 7 hours Jim Sterling had been playing the game before encountering the "bug" he had been feeling mad at it. But he wasn't. He was actually enjoying it a lot. He chose to completely disregard everything positive about the game up until that point and demote it to "broken crap" because he got what he thought was a game-breaking bug. He didn't even "present a single perspective that could be relevant to the player". He just said "unplayable PoS 1/10". Don't tell me a review is "my experience, as a critic" if you are going to pick and choose your experience as a critic because you're frustrated at the game.
I wonder how many people have played the game so extensively that they have been affected by this design decision. By the way you put it, the vast majority of players are being cut short in their playthroughs because the game keeps deleting their saves.
Unless, of course, by "people" you mean "the hot takes made in this thread by users who are just now hearing about this game".
UpDownLeftRight
Banned
Really? I was thinking of getting this too so that saved me some money
Alpha Centauri
Member
Did you ever play The Stanley Parable? While this game isn't as 4th wall breaking
although it does break it
while on a conveyer belt getting ready to be crushed
to live
Kind of a tangent, I know... but what I'm trying to get at is that in Hellblade, like the Stanley Parable takes the metasystems and incorporates it into the game itself with commentary. It's pretty cool when you think about it. If her ending is death for you, then so be it. It's a fitting ending.
From what I'm hearing anyway, it's pretty hard to actually get to the point where the game deletes your save. You almost have to purposefully try. I'm 2 hours in, and have not been defeated once *light spoilers*
through my own gameplay
Personally, I find the permadeath mechanic incredibly interesting and exciting, and the kind of thing they can only experiment with because of being self published. Going by many of the reactions to it in this thread, I'd imagine no publisher would be ok with that.
I'll probably play it on Hard.
I'll probably play it on Hard.
Yeah, that seems a little much.
Is this an option for people to choose, or is it just a feature of the game that everyone has to put up with?
jim2point0
Banned
According to ACG, it's a tough game even on easy. Fact is, it shouldn't be an issue to begin with. It's not a good mechanic in this style of game.
I'd hack in god mode long before I let that happen just because I know I wouldn't have the time to replay it, but I would want to see the ending as well.
It should be an option that you choose when you start the game.
And that's why you make it an option. For the people that like it, let them play with it. But for everyone else, the option is to just not buy the game. Which sucks, because it seems like an interesting game otherwise.