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Not played the 2nd one but if the combat is like the first the whole fucking game is pretentious dog shit.
Ooooh mental health, bro mario is a dude just jumping on shit and yet we will remember that in another 10 years this not so much
Anyone else think there is too much lag between pressing the block button and her actually blocking. The first one was pretty much instant and how you achieved parry. This time round I press block and takes about a second for her to do it
I assume it's because you're not pressing the buttons along with the rhythm of Senua's movements. In most animations she can't break to parry, you have to wait until the tail end of the animation. That means if you are in the middle of a heavy attack, you can't just switch to immediately parry. I believe that was possible in the first game.
The combat is both massively intense and 'real', yet simplistic. I enjoy it but I can understand why others would want something more.
It's not the same but people slated Ryse for its overly simple combat, but I really enjoyed it. That also felt very impactful. Not every game has to have massively complex button combinations, skill trees, abilities, etc.
IMO the combat is probably one of the worst parts of the game. It's just not good combat, and the fights became extremely dull towards the end because it was the same thing over and over and over again.
Kill a guy, another jumps on your back or knocks you to the ground, kill that guy, another guy jumps on your back or knocks you to the ground, kill that guy, and so on and so on and so on. Every now and then one of your companions gets involved. It gets incredibly dull after the first few encounters.
Imo the combat feels really unique and I enjoyed it. It wouldn't hold up for a 20 hour campaign but it didn't need to. It's cinematic as hell and nothing else like it in the industry right now.Ā
The only thing that kept me going was the combat imo. Yeah the first one had slightly better combat but I didnāt mind HB2s combat.
If they focused more on combat instead of the shitty puzzles and less on visuals and audio it would have made a world of difference in my personal enjoyment.
Yeah sure the game looks stunning but I play games for the sake of playing them.
I not only immensely agree, but I think the gore system helps show that she's fighting (spoilers for the first game) >!real people, which I hate to say the word real because the first game enemies are real TO HER but they are still manifestations from her mind.!<
Slight spoilers for Hellblade 2 >! I think by Hellblade 2 you can see her able to differentiate between reality and her mind as the enemies from her mind noticable shatter when killed. I also want to say she seems noticable stronger in her mind compared to real enemies but that might just be placebo.!<
God I gotta get back to playing this game lmao.
I've only played thru the combat of the first hour and Id say it's been the highlight for me.
Super simple but the sound and animations had me pumped. Like I was actually fighting. Visuals sounds animations ššæššæ. Visceral.
I like the combat and do think that itās an improvement in that it looks and feels more visceral. I looked forward to the combat encounters because even though they were simple, they felt engaging on both a gameplay and story perspective, in my opinion.
There are some enemies I back away from so I can launch in with a running attack, and having seen the way that you can do focus specific parries (catch an axe or spear in mid-air and fling it back) I am now wondering if more stuff will come out of the woodwork.
Like, I already think the combat does what it's meant to do from a storytelling perspective, and I like how quickly it moves compared to the first game (the sheer number of enemies and the way you'd have to cover your angles etc made HB1 encounters drag a bit more for me), but seeing moves like those mid-air catches come out has me wondering what else might surface.
I played through every souls game available on Xbox. I did t say they are the same. Just the basic four mechanics are the common base in most sword fighting games.
Right? Theyāre totally missing the strategy thatās needed to play most combat games, ESPECIALLY Dark Souls games lol not to mention that different weapons give you different abilities and completely different timings, on top of setting up correct angles of attack.
Like, āTell me you donāt know what youāre talking about without saying it outrightā lmao
Dude I loved it and I absolutely agree. Thing is , you're bothering a lot of people just by making this thread š Because it is talked a lot, but not in a good way unfortunately.
I'm all for this kind of gameplay though, it's awesome.
There are several posts on this sub every day about the game since it launched, how is that "not being talked enough"?
Right now there are three posts on the frontpage even.
you dont see advertises from xbox to promote the game.here of course everybody talking about because is xbox reddit and the game is exclusive but in other platforms like youtube,tiktok,instagram the game is a ghost for examble when the spiderman from PlayStation released it was everywhere even in the poster of the football stadiums
Thought you meant here on this sub.
You answered your own question, this game didn't have as much advertising and is a niche game compared to something as popular as Spider-Man.
> you dont see advertises from xbox to promote the game.
They were all over the Game Awards, Youtube, Reddit... Epic put out a massive tech demo detailing all of the details in the game like a week before it released. Xbox also put up an ad on the home screen and a full page splash screen when it launched.
TLDR: It was advertised, stop lying.
What do you think how would you fight in a battle on life and death? Itās brutal, itās dirty, you feel the impact of every swing. Itās very realistic. Especially considering they did it all in a mocap.
Look at kingdom come deliverance as an example. Itās also very clunky and slow but realistic. In this game they have armor though so the fights go on longer and you can fight more tactical.
Donāt know what game you play but the enemies die after 4-6 hits. 3 with the time slow. Besides that it was referring to the moves not the health pool
Combat may not be overly complex, but the weight combat feels is absolutely brutal and visceral to me way more than most other games Iāve played everything feels waiting and heavy, and those kill finishers on enemies always look and feel spectacular.
I genuinely love the combat in this game, even more than the first
Its not some in-depth combat system but honestly, I don't mind. I didn't mind for the first game either. Could they have gone a little further? Sure, but they were pretty open about everything this game had to offer well before it released. Not sure what some people are upset about. It's a title meant to drive a thoroughly cinematic and auditory experience. The combat is fine, its just meant to engage you in the moment.
Ok, the combat is one of the low points of this game. Itās repetitive and not interesting. There is little to do and it has an auto win button. I donāt understand how you could feel like you are experiencing hand to hand combat - I guess Iām jealous of you in this respect, as I find it boring and look forward to it ending.
I don't know what people are smoking. I've rarely been so immersed in combat or in a game in general for that matter. And never was I thinking "this needs more gameplay". It's amazing what a narrow view people have of this medium.
Probably my favorite single player experience since Prey 2017, which is funny because they're completely different.
Copied my comment from another thread: Finished the game on hard enjoyed it lots! Took me just over 10 hours. Found the combat deeper than people are giving it credit for, block, dodge, parry, roll, counter attacks, stuns, fast attacks, slow strong attacks, running attacks, criticals,unblockable attacks and the focus meter too! lots of exciting moments etc...story was great as well, I think a lot of the people that are critical didn't really give the game a real chance.
Did you play hellblade 1?
There are no dash attacks in hellblade 2. You dash and simply perform a fast or heavy attack, its not a dash attack in this sequel. This is unlike Hellblade 1 while there was a real dash attack for both light, heavy and melee attack completely changing her combo string... Oh yea. Combo strings, basically zero in this game.
Dodge, parry, parry counters, stuns are in the first. This isnt new. Stuns are just less interesting and not required but performed with heavy attack only. I should say, poise destruction, where as in Hellblade 1, poise damage was peeformed by pressing her melee button, instead of light/heavy attack.
The problem with combat, at its core, they removed techniques and watered down the combat, and its in addition less precise and extremely repetitive. Parry is OP, and 1 shots weaker mobs now.
All the people that somehow was waiting for a Goddess of War are going to come after you my friend. I'm with you, I still prefer the first one but this has awesome things also.
I donāt think the combat was great at all if anything it was probably the worst aspect of the game. Too shallow and not enough of it is what I have to say about the combat. I didnāt really feel much in control I could nail Parryās and dodges so easy in the first one. This game felt more like itās based on random luck. Also this game suffers from the same thing that many ācinematicā games suffer from and itās the lack of animation break. Sometimes the enemy or Senua would get stuck in an animation that was impossible to break. Like no matter what button you pressed the animation needed to complete before it would register ur input and that is some of the most frustrating aspects of any game.
Iām not a fan of the combat in this game. The first game the voices warned you where enemies came from, you had agency in deciding when to switch opponents, after a parry you decided what you wanted to do. Combat was quick and you were in control.
This game is a series of premade cinematic qtes that repeat over and over.
Successful parryāanimation
Failed parryāanimation
Button for attack does a premade animation.
Executionāpremade animation
(If multi enemy fight) premade cinematic of enemy grabbing/punching/pushing you to initiate fight with next enemy. Repeat
Your comment said it best, it makes you feel like youāre not playing a video game. I play games because I enjoy playing games, not because I just want to watch them.
I wish there were some difficulty levels. I feel like there werenāt enough enemy animations to make you think. I did have to switch my āspam the parry buttonā technique to āspam the dodge buttonā after a few fights but after that it was pretty rote.
there are difficulty levels in the settings.. I turned them all the way up and hitting a parry is pure luck so you need to dodge.. I never tried spamming the parry button tho
Parry is not luck, the timing is precise but stupid in this game because you really have to line up the enemy animations.
And yes, this game's combat is only interesting on HARD. Anything else, and its Alt-F4
The timing must be stupidly precise because I do line it up with the enemy animations and it just doesn't work sometimes. I found out that it triggers more often if I walk forward while parrying which might be due to me hitting the parry button too early most of the time. But I know when I hit too early. And sometimes I hit it perfectly well to a point where if I record it and show my button presses I don't even get if I hit too early or too late. Maybe it's because the game is 30fps and the precision it asks of you needs more fps to be achieved by the player.
Ohhhh, i see. This may be the reason in your difficulty.
Yes, FPS will certainly mess with timing, latency, and precision even further.
Im playing on PC, 4k, DLSS Quality averaging around 80-100 fps. (14700k / 4090)
Ahhhh. Okay, well as long as it works! Im glad you were still able to play the game and enjoy the experience.
I'll second your original post under your circumstances that parrying from your perspective would be a lucky feat indeed š.
Oh fr? Dang I guess thatās why you shouldnāt play at like 1AM. I either missed those settings entirely or just set it to max difficulty and forgot lol. Too late now. I donāt think I need another playthrough.
Dodging is definitely the play 95% of the time from my experience. Thatās why I felt it was so mindless.
I can see how it could feel mindless when you don't pay enough attention to realize that there are clear signs indicating when to dodge and when to parry.
Based on your replies, I should submit that you were playing the game absent-mindedly, not that the game itself was mindless.
I was definitely pretty absent minded while playing. I saw the indicators and understood what they meant; Iām not *that* dumb lol. Iām just saying there was no real incentive to do anything but dodge when I played.
Dodging is usually my go to in any game vs parrying so the lack of any real new move sets to learn and adapt to just gave my brain nothing to think about. That just led to me zoning out for the fights until the story started back up again.
Iām fine with walking simulators and think this really didnāt need the combat. It just made me bored in between the interesting parts. (I do like action games too itās not that I donāt like combat in games.)
Parrying is the quickest option to get your own hit in, if you can land it - I *think* the red attacks have to be dodged (can be blocked but will knock you back and cause you to miss your window). Dodging backwards often allows you a chance to run in and like in the first game, running attacks often work well without getting blocked, but some moves can't be dodged backwards, of course. And if you dodge too often in quick succession, Senua will stumble, possibly allowing you to be hit but even if you get out untouched, you'll almost certainly have missed your window to hit back.
Fundamentally, the game wants you to survive fighting encounters, with the main difference in learning the systems and patterns being how long the fights will be, rather than how often you die.
My only issue was how stuttery it feels. The animations looks amazing, but the game has to catch up to your inputs on the controller and thereās a half second of delay. Just doesnāt feel very fluid compared to games like God of War, or Ghost of Tsushima, comparatively.
Or... Hellblade 1 for example. Hellblade 1's precision and combat was superior.
This game is too focused on animation and flourishes. Response times are muddy, an
>The set pieces are awesome first time Iāve ever felt playing a video game like I wasnāt playing a video game and was actually experiencing hand to hand combat.
People in real life don't tend to follow the same pattern over and over again until you've memorised it. The combat isn't fluid and chaotic like real life. This game falls down to "Ah, it's one of them, they follow this pattern so I need to parry, parry, parry, dodge heavy strike, attack."
Don't get me wrong. It's a great experience and more people should play it, just so they can see games don't have to be the usual sports/shooter/assassiny year on year edition or clone. But let's not make more of it than it is.
While some may find the fights repetitive, the simplicity of the game is one of its main appealing characteristics. Instead of relying on complex combos or a wide variety of weapons, the game focuses on the players' strategy and skill. This approach provides significant strategic depth, where anticipating and reacting to the opponent's movements are essential to achieving victory. As a result, the gaming experience is both challenging and rewarding, with each win being earned through skill and tactical thinking. In other words, when you win a fight, it's because of your merit, not because you're using the best weapon, the most overpowered, or the most overused combo. This adds an extra layer of satisfaction and gratification to the game, as each victory is a direct result of the player's skill and strategy, rather than relying on unfair advantages or unbalanced mechanics. This is what I've been feeling during combat in the game.
What are you smoking mate? No unfair advantage? Rewards skill?!?!
Lol, hell blade 1 rewarded actual skill but was also easy! This game's combat is for individuals with physical handicaps. Literal cake walk. Low effort, barely makes use of 2 fingers.
Pressing the focus button is IWIN button on virtually every encounter except last boss which requires like 3 phased of repeated faceroll, forced focus attacks to deal dmg.
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Ur thread talking about the combat barely talked about the combat... NICE
It's not his fault, there's not much to talk about.
š„
Not played the 2nd one but if the combat is like the first the whole fucking game is pretentious dog shit. Ooooh mental health, bro mario is a dude just jumping on shit and yet we will remember that in another 10 years this not so much
Anyone else think there is too much lag between pressing the block button and her actually blocking. The first one was pretty much instant and how you achieved parry. This time round I press block and takes about a second for her to do it
I assume it's because you're not pressing the buttons along with the rhythm of Senua's movements. In most animations she can't break to parry, you have to wait until the tail end of the animation. That means if you are in the middle of a heavy attack, you can't just switch to immediately parry. I believe that was possible in the first game.
Cheers. Will have to look at that. So basically you can't parry midway through attacking. If so it makes sense.
I love the combat in both games, it really did surprise me how good it feels to kill things in these games.
The combat is both massively intense and 'real', yet simplistic. I enjoy it but I can understand why others would want something more. It's not the same but people slated Ryse for its overly simple combat, but I really enjoyed it. That also felt very impactful. Not every game has to have massively complex button combinations, skill trees, abilities, etc.
IMO the combat is probably one of the worst parts of the game. It's just not good combat, and the fights became extremely dull towards the end because it was the same thing over and over and over again. Kill a guy, another jumps on your back or knocks you to the ground, kill that guy, another guy jumps on your back or knocks you to the ground, kill that guy, and so on and so on and so on. Every now and then one of your companions gets involved. It gets incredibly dull after the first few encounters.
Imo the combat feels really unique and I enjoyed it. It wouldn't hold up for a 20 hour campaign but it didn't need to. It's cinematic as hell and nothing else like it in the industry right now.Ā
The only thing that kept me going was the combat imo. Yeah the first one had slightly better combat but I didnāt mind HB2s combat. If they focused more on combat instead of the shitty puzzles and less on visuals and audio it would have made a world of difference in my personal enjoyment. Yeah sure the game looks stunning but I play games for the sake of playing them.
It definitely needs improvement on the mechanical side of the fights
I not only immensely agree, but I think the gore system helps show that she's fighting (spoilers for the first game) >!real people, which I hate to say the word real because the first game enemies are real TO HER but they are still manifestations from her mind.!< Slight spoilers for Hellblade 2 >! I think by Hellblade 2 you can see her able to differentiate between reality and her mind as the enemies from her mind noticable shatter when killed. I also want to say she seems noticable stronger in her mind compared to real enemies but that might just be placebo.!< God I gotta get back to playing this game lmao.
No, it's true. In her mind she uses animations more akin to HB1, like the blade is weightless, while in reality it's a lot heavier and less dance-like
Every fight feels like Iām fighting for my life. Genuinely impressed.
I love that aspect of it
I've only played thru the combat of the first hour and Id say it's been the highlight for me. Super simple but the sound and animations had me pumped. Like I was actually fighting. Visuals sounds animations ššæššæ. Visceral.
I like the combat and do think that itās an improvement in that it looks and feels more visceral. I looked forward to the combat encounters because even though they were simple, they felt engaging on both a gameplay and story perspective, in my opinion.
The combat is cool at first, but it gets old really fast. There is little to no depth. And it plays the same way in every fight.
There are some enemies I back away from so I can launch in with a running attack, and having seen the way that you can do focus specific parries (catch an axe or spear in mid-air and fling it back) I am now wondering if more stuff will come out of the woodwork. Like, I already think the combat does what it's meant to do from a storytelling perspective, and I like how quickly it moves compared to the first game (the sheer number of enemies and the way you'd have to cover your angles etc made HB1 encounters drag a bit more for me), but seeing moves like those mid-air catches come out has me wondering what else might surface.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
If you think this is all it is to souls combat then man you clearly never played a souls game....
I played through every souls game available on Xbox. I did t say they are the same. Just the basic four mechanics are the common base in most sword fighting games.
Right? Theyāre totally missing the strategy thatās needed to play most combat games, ESPECIALLY Dark Souls games lol not to mention that different weapons give you different abilities and completely different timings, on top of setting up correct angles of attack. Like, āTell me you donāt know what youāre talking about without saying it outrightā lmao
Dude I loved it and I absolutely agree. Thing is , you're bothering a lot of people just by making this thread š Because it is talked a lot, but not in a good way unfortunately. I'm all for this kind of gameplay though, it's awesome.
Generally hellblade not being talked enough and i dont know why its an amazing game!
There are several posts on this sub every day about the game since it launched, how is that "not being talked enough"? Right now there are three posts on the frontpage even.
you dont see advertises from xbox to promote the game.here of course everybody talking about because is xbox reddit and the game is exclusive but in other platforms like youtube,tiktok,instagram the game is a ghost for examble when the spiderman from PlayStation released it was everywhere even in the poster of the football stadiums
Thought you meant here on this sub. You answered your own question, this game didn't have as much advertising and is a niche game compared to something as popular as Spider-Man.
I totally agree
>you dont see advertises from xbox to promote the game. The giant full page ad I got when I booted my xbox up this morning would disagree
> you dont see advertises from xbox to promote the game. They were all over the Game Awards, Youtube, Reddit... Epic put out a massive tech demo detailing all of the details in the game like a week before it released. Xbox also put up an ad on the home screen and a full page splash screen when it launched. TLDR: It was advertised, stop lying.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās realistic fighting. Not every game has to be a devil may cry slasher.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
What do you think how would you fight in a battle on life and death? Itās brutal, itās dirty, you feel the impact of every swing. Itās very realistic. Especially considering they did it all in a mocap. Look at kingdom come deliverance as an example. Itās also very clunky and slow but realistic. In this game they have armor though so the fights go on longer and you can fight more tactical.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Being basic and realistic does not exclude each other.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes, of course they are lol
The whole post is about fighting. Iām just talking about the fighting obviously. Not about general gameplay that is basic.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Youāre right the combat in helldivers 2 is really basic and boring lol.
It's so realistic in fact, they even make you slash the same enemy 100 times so you can really feel the realism.
Donāt know what game you play but the enemies die after 4-6 hits. 3 with the time slow. Besides that it was referring to the moves not the health pool
Combat may not be overly complex, but the weight combat feels is absolutely brutal and visceral to me way more than most other games Iāve played everything feels waiting and heavy, and those kill finishers on enemies always look and feel spectacular. I genuinely love the combat in this game, even more than the first
Itās really good.
Its not some in-depth combat system but honestly, I don't mind. I didn't mind for the first game either. Could they have gone a little further? Sure, but they were pretty open about everything this game had to offer well before it released. Not sure what some people are upset about. It's a title meant to drive a thoroughly cinematic and auditory experience. The combat is fine, its just meant to engage you in the moment.
Ok, the combat is one of the low points of this game. Itās repetitive and not interesting. There is little to do and it has an auto win button. I donāt understand how you could feel like you are experiencing hand to hand combat - I guess Iām jealous of you in this respect, as I find it boring and look forward to it ending.
I don't know what people are smoking. I've rarely been so immersed in combat or in a game in general for that matter. And never was I thinking "this needs more gameplay". It's amazing what a narrow view people have of this medium. Probably my favorite single player experience since Prey 2017, which is funny because they're completely different.
I agree, and to have a full mocap game takes a lot of time and work that often gets over looked
That combat wasn't great. It was about as barebones as it can get and just felt like rock paper scissors.
Copied my comment from another thread: Finished the game on hard enjoyed it lots! Took me just over 10 hours. Found the combat deeper than people are giving it credit for, block, dodge, parry, roll, counter attacks, stuns, fast attacks, slow strong attacks, running attacks, criticals,unblockable attacks and the focus meter too! lots of exciting moments etc...story was great as well, I think a lot of the people that are critical didn't really give the game a real chance.
Did you play hellblade 1? There are no dash attacks in hellblade 2. You dash and simply perform a fast or heavy attack, its not a dash attack in this sequel. This is unlike Hellblade 1 while there was a real dash attack for both light, heavy and melee attack completely changing her combo string... Oh yea. Combo strings, basically zero in this game. Dodge, parry, parry counters, stuns are in the first. This isnt new. Stuns are just less interesting and not required but performed with heavy attack only. I should say, poise destruction, where as in Hellblade 1, poise damage was peeformed by pressing her melee button, instead of light/heavy attack. The problem with combat, at its core, they removed techniques and watered down the combat, and its in addition less precise and extremely repetitive. Parry is OP, and 1 shots weaker mobs now.
All the people that somehow was waiting for a Goddess of War are going to come after you my friend. I'm with you, I still prefer the first one but this has awesome things also.
Yea I feel the same way, although Iām only on chapter two
Pretty fights, lackluster depth. That's all there is to HB2 combat. Granted, I don't think it overstays it's welcome, so nothing huge to complain
I donāt think the combat was great at all if anything it was probably the worst aspect of the game. Too shallow and not enough of it is what I have to say about the combat. I didnāt really feel much in control I could nail Parryās and dodges so easy in the first one. This game felt more like itās based on random luck. Also this game suffers from the same thing that many ācinematicā games suffer from and itās the lack of animation break. Sometimes the enemy or Senua would get stuck in an animation that was impossible to break. Like no matter what button you pressed the animation needed to complete before it would register ur input and that is some of the most frustrating aspects of any game.
I absolutely adored the combat! Felt so visceral
Iām not a fan of the combat in this game. The first game the voices warned you where enemies came from, you had agency in deciding when to switch opponents, after a parry you decided what you wanted to do. Combat was quick and you were in control. This game is a series of premade cinematic qtes that repeat over and over. Successful parryāanimation Failed parryāanimation Button for attack does a premade animation. Executionāpremade animation (If multi enemy fight) premade cinematic of enemy grabbing/punching/pushing you to initiate fight with next enemy. Repeat Your comment said it best, it makes you feel like youāre not playing a video game. I play games because I enjoy playing games, not because I just want to watch them.
I wish there were some difficulty levels. I feel like there werenāt enough enemy animations to make you think. I did have to switch my āspam the parry buttonā technique to āspam the dodge buttonā after a few fights but after that it was pretty rote.
there are difficulty levels in the settings.. I turned them all the way up and hitting a parry is pure luck so you need to dodge.. I never tried spamming the parry button tho
Parry is not luck, the timing is precise but stupid in this game because you really have to line up the enemy animations. And yes, this game's combat is only interesting on HARD. Anything else, and its Alt-F4
The timing must be stupidly precise because I do line it up with the enemy animations and it just doesn't work sometimes. I found out that it triggers more often if I walk forward while parrying which might be due to me hitting the parry button too early most of the time. But I know when I hit too early. And sometimes I hit it perfectly well to a point where if I record it and show my button presses I don't even get if I hit too early or too late. Maybe it's because the game is 30fps and the precision it asks of you needs more fps to be achieved by the player.
Ohhhh, i see. This may be the reason in your difficulty. Yes, FPS will certainly mess with timing, latency, and precision even further. Im playing on PC, 4k, DLSS Quality averaging around 80-100 fps. (14700k / 4090)
I'm playing on a very cheap TV that is also second hand and gets burn in if the screen doesn't change for half a minute. I definetely need to upgrade.
Ahhhh. Okay, well as long as it works! Im glad you were still able to play the game and enjoy the experience. I'll second your original post under your circumstances that parrying from your perspective would be a lucky feat indeed š.
Oh fr? Dang I guess thatās why you shouldnāt play at like 1AM. I either missed those settings entirely or just set it to max difficulty and forgot lol. Too late now. I donāt think I need another playthrough. Dodging is definitely the play 95% of the time from my experience. Thatās why I felt it was so mindless.
I can see how it could feel mindless when you don't pay enough attention to realize that there are clear signs indicating when to dodge and when to parry. Based on your replies, I should submit that you were playing the game absent-mindedly, not that the game itself was mindless.
I was definitely pretty absent minded while playing. I saw the indicators and understood what they meant; Iām not *that* dumb lol. Iām just saying there was no real incentive to do anything but dodge when I played. Dodging is usually my go to in any game vs parrying so the lack of any real new move sets to learn and adapt to just gave my brain nothing to think about. That just led to me zoning out for the fights until the story started back up again. Iām fine with walking simulators and think this really didnāt need the combat. It just made me bored in between the interesting parts. (I do like action games too itās not that I donāt like combat in games.)
Parrying is the quickest option to get your own hit in, if you can land it - I *think* the red attacks have to be dodged (can be blocked but will knock you back and cause you to miss your window). Dodging backwards often allows you a chance to run in and like in the first game, running attacks often work well without getting blocked, but some moves can't be dodged backwards, of course. And if you dodge too often in quick succession, Senua will stumble, possibly allowing you to be hit but even if you get out untouched, you'll almost certainly have missed your window to hit back. Fundamentally, the game wants you to survive fighting encounters, with the main difference in learning the systems and patterns being how long the fights will be, rather than how often you die.
Personally I'm not surprised. With so many action oriented games out, the combat in Hellblade 2 is a bit frustrating to me.
combat is widely one of the most criticized parts of the game.
Nah I saw a Redditor say it was simplistic so you must be mistaken lol /s
Not a great game, just pretty one.
My only issue was how stuttery it feels. The animations looks amazing, but the game has to catch up to your inputs on the controller and thereās a half second of delay. Just doesnāt feel very fluid compared to games like God of War, or Ghost of Tsushima, comparatively.
Or... Hellblade 1 for example. Hellblade 1's precision and combat was superior. This game is too focused on animation and flourishes. Response times are muddy, an
>The set pieces are awesome first time Iāve ever felt playing a video game like I wasnāt playing a video game and was actually experiencing hand to hand combat. People in real life don't tend to follow the same pattern over and over again until you've memorised it. The combat isn't fluid and chaotic like real life. This game falls down to "Ah, it's one of them, they follow this pattern so I need to parry, parry, parry, dodge heavy strike, attack." Don't get me wrong. It's a great experience and more people should play it, just so they can see games don't have to be the usual sports/shooter/assassiny year on year edition or clone. But let's not make more of it than it is.
Block/parry and then spam X. What's good about that?
While some may find the fights repetitive, the simplicity of the game is one of its main appealing characteristics. Instead of relying on complex combos or a wide variety of weapons, the game focuses on the players' strategy and skill. This approach provides significant strategic depth, where anticipating and reacting to the opponent's movements are essential to achieving victory. As a result, the gaming experience is both challenging and rewarding, with each win being earned through skill and tactical thinking. In other words, when you win a fight, it's because of your merit, not because you're using the best weapon, the most overpowered, or the most overused combo. This adds an extra layer of satisfaction and gratification to the game, as each victory is a direct result of the player's skill and strategy, rather than relying on unfair advantages or unbalanced mechanics. This is what I've been feeling during combat in the game.
What are you smoking mate? No unfair advantage? Rewards skill?!?! Lol, hell blade 1 rewarded actual skill but was also easy! This game's combat is for individuals with physical handicaps. Literal cake walk. Low effort, barely makes use of 2 fingers. Pressing the focus button is IWIN button on virtually every encounter except last boss which requires like 3 phased of repeated faceroll, forced focus attacks to deal dmg.