Punished Miku
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Completely blown away on this part near the end. No game is doing anything quite like that.
Yeah I forgot to mention in my own post how the original was more creative. Your remark about the game being mostly caves is correct. There's nothing that comes close to this hellspace in the original:Completed the SS HB II in one sitting. Took me 5.5 hours on PC via Steam, so I'm out of the refund window. I'm kinda frustrated. Pure IMO, but...
The game is pretty, there are some mind-blowing visuals for sure. But the scope is very limited. HB2 is filled with invisible walls and very outdated movement blockers. Usually you see some rocks, quixel megascans on the background and very, very few buildings around. There are some beatiful locations, but you can really count them with one hand of a drunken tailor. Honestly, first game somehow felt way more epic with towering Hell sctuctures, forests and Celtic architecture all around you. 70% of the game are just... Well, caves, mountains and desolated landscapes took out of Death Stranding. It is stunning for an hour or so but visals are getting tedious very quickly. It doesn't help that the palette is very limited (I hope you love blue, green and orange) and needlessly muted.
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Story-wise... Oh boy, it's a mess and a prime example of a word salad instead of dialogues. From every character. You can't even follow up the plot because of a pretentious over-the-head writing here, and I speak here as a big Disco Elysium fan.
Overall pacing felt poor and for a game that was developed for 5 years story is frustratingly incomplete. Plot is full of empty spaces, absolutley stupid teleportations between the locations and absolutley unresolved hooks. Its is also... Well, unfocused. Without delving deep into the spoiler territory, Senua's mental illness is not playing any part in the mess of a story about giants, slavers and god knows what. It's just a gimmick here to justify the ASMR voices. Frankly, I can't even figure out what the story is even about, it lacks some sort of motives that badly. Ending is... What was that, really? It as random as it gets. You know what? I have a feeling that NT created a set of very impressive tech demos across the years to bring them to MS HQ at random. But one year prior to the release date they forgot to weave them into at least some sort of coherent story. That's why characters, themes and locations are jumping like crazy without any rhyme or reason.
Some setpieces are visually jaw-dropping, but they too far and between. 90% of the game is slow walking, frustratingly stupid puzzles and a drag of a combat with literally 3 actions avaliable for Senua. Somehow combat is even more slow and tedious than in HB1, but now you need to overcome 5+ enemies with block, attack and slow-mo. What a joy. Final boss is a huge letdown too, especially since the game never changes the moveset or mechanics even for a final stertch.
In the end I really think that HB2 could've been even shorter. The more or less worthy meat of the game is 3 hours tops, 2.5 hours are pure boredom and tedium that was clearly added for the sake of extend the timer.
I dunno, I wanted this game to work for me badly. But in the end, it's a personal 6/10. Yeah, it's very pretty (though very claustrophobic) at times, but you cannot step into the same river twice. Ecpecially when you don't know why you are doing in this river in the first place. Hellblade still works best as a standalone adventure and the whole sequel idea really felt like a very unwarranted sidequest to me.
no kidding. I was holding forward with one hand and doing something else for work with the other.Horrendously slow start, but the graphics are incredible. That fog on the beach and the lapping waves!
This is you after you finished the game.Completely blown away on this part near the end. No game is doing anything quite like that.
It has some issues but some amazing stuff too.This is you after you finished the game.
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It's an Unreal Engine 5 thing. Seems to be the most expensive of them all, judging by how the framerate monitor changes when I flip through them. I've no idea how to turn that shit off completely.In the upscaler menu.. WTF is TSR? I'm just using FSR 3.0 because it looks best, and also, does native AA mean zero upscale?
It's an Unreal Engine 5 thing. Seems to be the most expensive of them all, judging by how the framerate monitor changes when I flip through them. I've no idea how to turn that shit off completely.
In the upscaler menu.. WTF is TSR? I'm just using FSR 3.0 because it looks best, and also, does native AA mean zero upscale?
Collectibles seem harder to find in this one than the original. I had no problem getting all 40-whatever lorestones in the original but I am already missing some here and whatever those trees are.
I'm about to start the game now. Headphones or surroundsound?
I think that option is exclusive to the AMD upscaler. There are different options for each upscaler but no obvious way of having no upscaler at all. Maybe it doesn't really make a difference with all the post-processing in this game.Native AA results in a solid FPS drop for me so I'm assuming that's "off"
I don't appreciate how photo mode disregards my inverted Y axis settings. Same as in the first game.Am digging the photomode, love how you can place lights and the controls you have over everything.
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I'm getting a cinematic ~45.3080 max settings 4k with dlss quality going to net me 60fps you think when I try this tomorrow night?
Not sure if you wanted the answer:Played the first little bit after dicking around in the settings. I've killed the first two guys and now I don't know where to go. I'm already stuck.
Anyway back to dicking around in the settings.
RTX 4070 more than enough for all these graphics.
I've had my PC stats chilling in the letter box black bars. It's maxing out my GPU Processor but not using much video memory even with 4k settings.
I am playing on my home theater atmos setup and I was only getting a little bit of ocean sound in the back channels. All voices have been up front so far.
I remember the last game the voices were coming from all over.
Yeah that's the feeling I get. If you're not into the voices in her head, there's little to take in from everything else.The game look great but feel lifeless so far…![]()
Right? It's one of the best I've seen and unlike in many other games where it blurs the fuck out of the image during camera movement, in Hellblade II you can't even notice it. Absolutely superb motion blur implementation and I'm sure it looks even better at high framerates.the 30 fps feels very good imo, and the motion blur implementation is great as well which makes the overall experience feels smooth even on a OLED TV
Finished. Going to start new game+. Loved the game.
GOTY
My god, have sex with me Ninja Theory.
GOTY
My god, have sex with me Ninja Theory.
There is substance, it's just not really game substance. It's kinda weird because it wouldn't work as a movie, it has to be a game, but then it lacks a lot of what makes a game a game, but if you added that stuff it wouldn't be as good.All flash no substance. At all.
I agree, I normally find 30fps really distracting, but in this they've really made it work to the point I didn't even think about it.the 30 fps feels very good imo, and the motion blur implementation is great as well which makes the overall experience feels smooth even on a OLED TV
I agree, I normally find 30fps really distracting, but in this they've really made it work to the point I didn't even think about it.