Hellblade: Senua's Saga (II) is a downgrade from it's predecessor. (Contains certain Spoilers)

Im a big Fan of the Hellblade Video Game Franchise created by Ninja Theory and ever since i played the First installment of the Series, i felt understood and in love with it.

I have replayed the First game countless times, with each time getting to see different bits, but with the game also encouraging you as the player, to get immersed and maybe even on a personal level, follow the same Route as the Main Character, "Senua" herself. (If you have similiar experiences to her.)

So then, in the 21st of May, we got a second Installment that however, simply downgraded itself from it's predecessor drastically.

To give an introduction to what the game is about:

You play as Senua. A Celctic Warrior in the late 8th Century that had her Village destroyed, Lover named "Dillion" brutally killed and suffers under Schizophrenic Psychosis.

She then in the first game embarks on a Journey with his Skull to retrieve his Soul in Hellheim from the Godess Hela, because he was killed by the Northmen via a Ritual that was led to believe to send the Soul of said person, to Hellheim.

On your journey, you then encounter lots of challenges but most prominently, you always hear the Voices Senua hears in her head, that she adresses as: "The Furies" due to her Schizophrenia.

They comment on a lot of things, insult Senua, encourage her, laugh about her, fear for her, Panic, basically everything you can think about.

Which was a prime Factor of the game and made it so interesting because you got a glimpse of what it's like for an actual person suffering under Schizophrenia to deal with those voices they hear.

Additionally, she has lots of hallucinations caused by her Schizophrenia and Psychosis, fights some combat battles via a Sword to Sword fight against some enemys she faces along the way and during the game tries to deal with a lot of things.

Her Grief from her lover, her horrible past with her abusive Father and in the way she goes to Hellheim she deals with those things one by one, re-lives them and overcomes them.

We are also then heavily introduced to Senua's waypoint of how sometimes, what you saw just now, wasn't always reality and how, it was all connected to her Schizophrenia and the battles we fought or things you just saw, weren't real.

During the end, she then finally faces "Hela", lets go of her Grief and we are teased right off the bat with a Second Story comming.

I highly encourage you to try the Story for yourself as it is aviliable on all plattforms for a cheap price. Especially if you love patient Puzzle games mixed with some light combat, filled with some Horror Elements and Traumatic experiences in the Story.

So then, we get to the Second game that came out in May on the 21st this year and then, we get to see some bits that simply, give us it's issues.

For a Short introduction to what Hellblade: Senau's Saga (II) is about:

After dealing with the events of the First game, Senua wants to track down the people that destroyed her Village and put a Stop to their doings.

She wants to make them pay for what they did to her Lover and keep them from hurting other innocent people.

She then lets herself get captued by them on a raid to take herself to their Lands via a boat, that then crashes, flooding everything and landing us at Safety before almost drowning.

Then the Story begins and we are introduced to new Threats of the Land, find out who was responsible for the destruction of the Villages and also that they have a problem with gigantic creatures known as "Giants" and Creatures known as "Draugr's" raiding the villages, destroying them and killing their people.

Senua then via an unknown Secret tribe of some kind, named as "The Hiddenfolk" finds a way to Kill the Giants or rather finds out that they are tortured Souls transformed by a Godess at their lowest points and brings them to peace via a ritual.

She then strives along, makes herself some Allies and Enemies before ultimately going to the place she looked for all along.

The first issue, i have with the game is simply that it's lenght, is laughable.
When the game initially came out this was also one of it's crucial criticisms.

The game is about 5 Hours long when you play through it, but 7 if you struggle with the Puzzles or certain Areas.

The First game took about 7 Hours, but with 9-10 Hours total of playtime due to it's more challenging Puzzles.

Now, why is this an issue you may ask? Simple.
Because the Story of the game starts to feel rushed at certain points. You don't get properly introduced to Characters from time to time and sometimes, the game wants you to feel loss towards a Character, you haven't even had that many heartfelt moments with.

Additionally, during it's ending, the game showed it's Massive Flaw with giving a very Rushed out ending that does not properly end the Story of the game, leaves more questions than Awnsers, is pretty unapeasing and doesn't set up a Third game.

Which is odd because Microsoft already ordered Ninja Theory to work on a Third game.

The Second issue i had**,** was that the game ignored it's previous Story bits and started allowing in fictional elements which heavily confused you as a player of the previous game.

Instead of most things being explained by hallucinations they are suddendly real. The Giants, the Draugr, the ritual sequences that Senua goes through are all actually happening which just completely elimenates the immersion and message of the first game.

The Focus is no longer on Senua's hallucinations and how sometimes, things aren't as they seem, but rather on how the things are actually real which then in point makes some Sequences very confusing because you simply can't tell: "Is this a Hallucination or is this reality?" and not in a good way.

Additionally, the first Trailers seemed to tackle a more Serious, Darker and Revengfull tone which Hellblade II doesn't bring up a lot. Senua makes friends, spares a prime Slave taker, defeats the giants with healing their inner torments.

I don't particularly hate the Story direction for that, but it just seems out of place? I almost felt like i was playing A Plague Tale: Requim all over again. Which, is somewhat similiar to this game, except for some various bits.

The Third issue that was present to me**,** were the Combat Sequences.

In the First game, the Combat made you feel agile, free and you could perform various different moves to take your Enemys down.

You could make them stumble back with a kick that broke their balance, use a wide space to completely fall back, run towards them to deal a Fast Run-Blow, and you had a "Special Ability" that charged up over time that allowed you to stop time and deal damage for a longer duration.

As for better Visualization: It's similiar to the Combat of God of War (2018) and Ragnarok if you have seen or played those games before.

In Hellblade II, this is almost nowhere present. The Lead Director of the game said he wanted a more "Game-Of-Thrones" Combat approach which he pickeed up after watching the show, which then resulted in a very similiar principle getting into this game, however, with also removing all the Fun the combat had to offer.

You no longer feel agile and free. You feel grounded and sluggish. You can't make your Enemy tumble like in the first game and getting hit is almost guranteed even when blocking. You no longer have this wide Arena like range where you can dodge, fall back and what not,
but are constantly trapped within the same territory which just removes all the fun the combat has to offer.

A lot of people had the exact same thought after playing the game and expressing the issue.

The Fourth issue that was annoying to me**,** was the marketing and Commentary.

The marketing for this game was present, but not very high like Diablo 4 or Starfield.
The game was also mismarketed as an Triple-A Title which it wasn't which people then believed however, bought the game and then left negative reviews due to it not being what it was promised.

The comments the game made rampaged on News Forums sides such as IGN with statements from the Lead Director with comments such as: "People love shorter games."

And much more issues the game withheld.

Those were all issues that heavily downgraded this experience for me and were unfortunatly making me feel somewhat dissapointed about it.

The game isn't extremely bad by any means and still delivers an interesting Story with some very breah taking Visuals and some nieche bits, but as a proper Sequel it personally failed me as a player.