- 2 days ago
Haunting, confrontational, and deeply cathartic all at once, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is a breathtaking achievement in video game art. Ninja Theory dives headfirst into its heavy themes, embracing them with a finely tuned empathy and an even sharper creative edge this time around. The result is an unforgettable narrative adventure that's hard to watch but even harder to turn away from.
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GamingTranscript
00:00So Jasmine is playing Senua Saga Hellblade 2 for us and is reviewing it for us.
00:03Give me like in one sentence how you found playing it.
00:07Uhhh...
00:09I mean...
00:11That... that...
00:12Exhails loudly!
00:13It's probably the most deeply affecting game I've played in forever.
00:17Okay.
00:18You know.
00:22It's not a fun game, but it's an important game.
00:25But this one just takes what made the first one so deeply emotional and so deeply powerful
00:33and amps it up by like 10,000.
00:35It has actual story this time that makes it all feel more like a narrative experience
00:40than just a purely metaphorical...
00:42Yeah.
00:42Like, if the first Hellblade...
00:44If the first Hellblade is like a character study of Senua,
00:48then Hellblade 2 is like taking that character and giving her a story.
00:51And it's a story of humanity and of like letting go and becoming a full person.
00:57Yeah.
00:57But Hellblade 2 is her coming out the other end.
01:01She's still got these problems, but she's using them as assets.
01:04And they're actually helping her become a better fighter.
01:08It helps her understand the world and see it from this way that no one else can see it.
01:12And all of that feeds into this broader narrative that's bigger than her, much bigger than she is.
01:17Whereas before, she was like the main character in her own sort of like psychological drama.
01:25It was this horrible, again, very painful to watch, painful to play experience.
01:30But this one is still extremely confrontational, emotional, not what I would call fun,
01:38but also incredibly cathartic.
01:41Like, I cried about seven times while playing it, which tells you everything.
01:46But yeah, it's... it's wow.
01:48There's been a really big step up in this game.
01:51They've taken a lot longer to make it, they've put a lot more into it, there's a lot more mechanics.
01:55How has it changed from the previous game, people coming from the previous game?
01:58I think, of course, from the first thing that you'll notice is that the binaural audio design
02:06is just so much more... it's so much more refined.
02:19It really feels like when you close your eyes,
02:21you just feel like there are people just talking behind you all the time, the furies.
02:25It has that ASMR kind of quality.
02:28And for me, I don't really respond well to ASMR.
02:30It kind of makes my back hurt in a way. It makes my lower back really hurt.
02:35So I had to turn it down a little bit.
02:37But you really should only play this game with headphones.
02:40Because it puts you... one core tenant of it is that it really wants to immerse you in this world
02:45and in this story.
02:46And it does that in a big way through the audio design, but also through its incredible graphics.
02:52Yeah.
02:53I believe that all of the animations that we see in the game,
02:57they've been scanned from real people, real costumes, real actors.
03:01And if you look at the footage, it just looks like a movie.
03:04Yeah.
03:04And that kind of feeds into this really...
03:08You can almost feel the grit of the rocks beneath your feet.
03:12You can almost smell the blood in the air.
03:17You can... it's such a deeply visceral experience.
03:21And that's all to do with like igniting you from like a sensory level.
03:24Yeah.
03:25Not only through like being an action game.
03:27Like it's... again, it is... at times it will feel like more of like a horror walking sim.
03:32Yeah.
03:33But the horror is so much more pronounced this time around.
03:36And it feeds into like you can... again, it's something that you experience,
03:40not with your eyes, but with like your mind, with your ears.
03:43It puts chills up your spine.
03:46Yeah.
03:46So it's more of an... we're getting into that realm of experiential video games.
03:51Mm-hmm.
03:51And it is that thing of like, this is something that you have to go into eyes open.
03:55And it's not necessarily going to be a fun time, but it'll be a time that you remember.
03:59By fun, by like fun, I mean like our like...
04:01When I say fun, when you and I say fun, we're like, oh yeah, you know, like we have this power fantasy.
04:07Yeah.
04:07It's like we're feeling big and strong.
04:09We're going into this amazing world.
04:11It's escapism.
04:11Yeah.
04:12You're leaving your life behind to become a big, strong person.
04:15Yeah.
04:15You're not a big, strong person in Senua's Saga.
04:17Um, you are a strong person because you've been through stuff.
04:21You are a traumatized, deeply traumatized person.
04:24But still powerful and still strong.
04:25Yes.
04:26But it's not the same kind of power fantasy.
04:28I guess it's the power fantasy of being like, you know what, I have a lot of baggage,
04:32but that's not going to stop me going to Iceland to avenge my dead family.
04:36Yeah.
04:36Yeah.
04:36That's the power fantasy of this game.
04:38Yeah.
04:38Which is a very specific one, mind.
04:40Yeah.
04:40But again, it's, it's when I say that it's not fun.
04:43It's not like you, like you won't be there laughing away.
04:46There's not one moment in this that will make you smile, but it will make you go, oh my God,
04:53I feel that.
04:54And I, I feel like I'm being sort of, again, like almost interrogated.
05:00But there, there are these moments where like this really intense darkness gives way to the most
05:06beautiful moments of calm and peace.
05:09And, you know, like you'll have one really scary moment where you're like trapped in like a little
05:14tight, confined space in a cave and you're in, in the dark and the fury is all around you.
05:18They're like shouting at you just to leave and get out.
05:21And it's really chaotic and frenetic.
05:23And then you can just breathe and you're in this like golden field bathed with light.
05:29And you've come out the tunnel, the literal tunnel, and you're, and you just walk around.
05:33And the game is like, oh, like you can be safe here.
05:36You can relax here.
05:38It takes care of your mental health at the same time as like showing you this very deep
05:43journey through someone else's ninja theory.
05:45They really wanted to lean into the focus of mental health and to make this game.
05:51They were interviewing and they worked with people who actually experienced psychosis in real life.
05:55Again, I think that's why they've taken steps to also take care of the player.
05:59And there is this feeling of protection and aftercare.
06:03And it doesn't want to, it doesn't want to traumatize the player.
06:07It wants you to sort of understand how you might move through this, like this,
06:13again, this process.
06:14The first game was like the grief process, and this is kind of an extension of that,
06:19but also looking at how you can look after yourself even in the darkest of times and places.
06:24With that in mind, then, how much of this game, like how scary is this game?
06:28If people will recommend, if you were going to recommend it to somebody,
06:31because I understand that some people would look at this and go,
06:33that's too scary for me.
06:34That's too much.
06:34It is much scarier than the first game.
06:36Okay.
06:37I would say much scarier.
06:39That's at first blush.
06:41That's when you first see it.
06:42It's scarier.
06:42The atmosphere is a lot more gritty.
06:44It's a lot.
06:45The audio design is very harrowing.
06:47You hear people crying, people choking on their own blood.
06:50It's very, yeah, there's a lot to it that is very texturally rich and deliberately off-putting.
06:57If someone experiences extreme anxiety around that kind of thing,
07:01I wouldn't play this game.
07:02Okay.
07:03Or at least I would play it through speakers.
07:04I think, really, the headset is what makes it feel so close to the bone.
07:10Yeah, fair.
07:11When it's literally in your ears, and you can hear things just behind you,
07:15but they're not really there.
07:16Even if you're scared of horror games, I would play it because you can play it on an easy
07:20setting.
07:21There is still action, but you can adjust the difficulty level of the combat like with
07:25the first game.
07:26Okay.
07:26I think there's-
07:27So if you are in it just for the story-
07:29Yeah.
07:29And the action side of it doesn't bother you that much, you can tweak it.
07:32Yeah.
07:32And the action, like in the first game, the action is more like short and nasty is what
07:38I describe it as.
07:39Like, it comes out of nowhere.
07:41It's brutal, but it's about three minutes.
07:42And then you're walking around, you're looking at puzzles.
07:45The puzzles are a lot more refined this time around.
07:49There's a lot more variety with the puzzles and how you, it's not like only looking at
07:54illusions or sigils in the environment.
07:57But as you play it, like I said before, there are moments that are, there's peaks and troughs.
08:02It's not like a relentless emotional onslaught.
08:05Everything you've said so far has been great, positive.
08:08Is there anything that does trip it up?
08:09You know, nothing is perfect.
08:10There was one chapter that felt incredibly long compared to the other ones.
08:15Um, just in terms of pacing that kind of threw me.
08:18How long did it take you to finish?
08:19About nine hours.
08:20Right.
08:21Okay.
08:21So it's pretty, it's pretty short and sweet.
08:23Doesn't overstay its welcome too much.
08:25So with all that in mind, what score have you given it?
08:28Five out of five.
08:29Um, wow.
08:30Yeah.
08:31Yeah.
08:31Five out of five.
08:32And I'll tell you why.
08:33I think again, there is nothing that is doing what, what this game is doing.
08:37Ninja theory has broken new ground, not only in terms of its technology, but also in terms
08:42of the stories that it's able to tell with this technology.
08:46It is something that I will never forget.
08:49It's potentially, you know, going to alter how we talk about mental health in video games
08:54from now on.
08:55It's doing something that is both really, it's a massive risk to tackle something so
09:02thematically intense, but it does it with such a level of empathy and understanding,
09:07but also with creativity.
09:09It takes something that we see as a big weakness and it becomes her biggest strength.
09:14And I think both in terms of like a metaphor, but also from like a practical sense of like
09:19making a game, you can't really get much more impressive than that.
09:22And this is what perfect score games, five out of five, tens out of tens.
09:25They should be pushing the envelope.
09:27Like don't get me wrong.
09:28I love the next bullet sponge and just like shooting big glowy things or whatever.
09:31But at the end of the day, video games are an art form.
09:34And this is the kind of thing that we need more of.
09:36Precisely.
09:37So yeah, like I think this is the kind of thing where it should be absolutely recognized.
09:40And the fact that it's on Xbox games pass and whoever's got subscription to that,
09:43it's not free.
09:43You have to pay for the games pass.
09:45But like you get so many great few games, the fact that people can play this amazing genre
09:49refining, pushing the edges of what video games are, it's just fantastic.
09:52The fact that on day one, so many people can play this.
09:55And actually, if you're listening to this right now, then it'll be on game pass right now.
Recommended
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