Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice Options

[SubRosa]

I started playing it today. So far it is alright. It has some utterly fantastic things. The story is simple, but draws you in from the start. Senua is journeying to Hel to get her dead boyfriend back. Or she is hallucinating because she is insane? She is clearly mad. Maybe it is both?

The game recommends you wear headphones when you play, which I agree with. The game uses binaural audio for the voices you constantly hear in your head. So one voice might speak in one ear, and the next in the other, or some in both. There are a lot of voices in Senua's head. The headphones really makes them come alive.

The voices are not just atmosphere either. They both tell the story, and give you hints on what to do next. There is no UI in the game. So the voices are your only guide. I am sure this is no accident. For the voices are Senua's only guide as well.

The creepiness really sucks you in. There is fighting, but the game is primarily story-driven. The combat is only secondary. At least so far. I have seen a lot of reviewers slam the combat for being simplistic. But I do not mind it at all. I have never been into fighting games that are all about mashing buttons in the right combinations like Mortal Kombat.

But there are some really simple things that really bring the game down. Most I think stem from being made with a console in mind. Most notable is that there is no manual saving, and no way to manually load a save. The game autosaves, and loads the last autosave when you restart it. If your save gets corrupted, I imagine you simply F'ed in the rear and have to start completely over. But we know that never happens right?

The graphics are mostly outstanding. But one issue I have is that the camera is too close to Senua's right shoulder, which makes the field of view really narrow. I found a fix for this:

The game's .ini files are found in Users\{Your Username}\AppData\Local\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

Open Engine.ini and add the following:

[/script/engine.localplayer]
AspectRatioAxisConstraint=AspectRatio_MaintainYFOV


There is also no way of turning off Motion Blur and Colorfringng in the game's options menu, but you can do it this way:

Open scaleability.ini and add:

[PostProcessQuality@3]
r.MotionBlurQuality=0
r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0

NOTE: In the file scaleability.ini (the @3 is the quality setting you have it set to in gameusersettings.ini, 3 is the very high ingame setting. Set this number to match what you have in gameusersettings.ini)


Turn off Film Grain

Open Engine.ini file, find [SystemSettings], and make the following changes:
r.Tonemapper.GrainQuantization=0
r.Tonemapper.Quality=0



Skip Intro Videos

Go to to your Hellblade\HellbladeGame\Content\Movies and rename the following files:
NinjaTheory_Logo.bik
ThirdParty_Logo.bik
UE4_Logo.bik.


There is also a softness to the image. I am not sure what it is. I might be FXAA, or some other post-processing effect. I have seen some people say that turning Post-Processing down to Medium fixes this. But others say it made no difference for them. I will have to experiment.

The final thing that really gets to me is the camera always auto-centers itself, all the time. So if you look up, the camera automatically pulls down to center. The same if you look down. That gets really, really annoying.


Senua

Her BF

The gate to Hel looms

Really close up

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 19 2017, 02:00 AM

[SubRosa]

Acadian: The whole scene with Dillion started out really nice. Sunshine, plants, flowers, back home in the Orkneys. Then it all turned to crap, starting with Dillion in the tree. This game is very mercurial like that, as Senua's memories and moods swing from one extreme to another.


haute ecole rider: I was very glad that they did not over-glamorize Senua as well, and give her skin-tight, glossy leather, stiletto heels, etc... She is meant to be a real person, and she looks it. Seuna is modeled from a real woman, who also does her voice. She actually had to spend time working out with a bodybuilder-trainer to get in shape for it.

The regular price of the game is only $30. So it is already half the price of any other game...


ghastley: I watched some of those developer videos too, including the one with voice actress. I was really impressed with how well she did, especially since she is not an actress by trade.



The way is shut

Memories of better times

Home sweet home

But those dreams have turned to ash

Broken dreams

Up in flames

Shores and swords

Can Senua draw the sword from the tree?

But it's not a sword at all

It's an illusion

Even illusion is painful in this place between life and death

Horror