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I've started my second playthrough today. You cannot skip or speed up cutscenes at all. Which is understandable, but it's going to reduce replay value for a lot of people. Runestone progress is carried over, which I don't personally like, but I'll probably just delete may save data before my next playthrough so I can start that checklist clean. I've fixed the difficulty to normal, instead of auto, because one of my goals this playthrough is to figure out some of the combos I saw come up by accident in my first playthrough. Non-spoiler lore observations from the early game: Senua is a Pict journeying into the Norse Underworld. The belief that "The head is the seat of the soul" is a Celtic one, not a Norse one, so right of the bat they establish a clash of cultures/religions. Or rather, how in the ancient world, you were less likely to believe that the religion of your enemies is false, and more likely to believe their gods are inferior. From my limited knowledge and post-playthrough Wikipedia diving, it seems like the Norse mythology relayed via the audio logs is quite accurate. There are some minor changes but I don't know of anything they've gotten straight wrong.
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Aug 10, 2017 03:04
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Doorknob Slobber posted:wear headphones use controller Oh yeah. Both things.
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Aug 10, 2017 03:08
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And yet the blue one is chronologically first in terms of audio logs. I'm 90% sure Ive figured out the combo where she turns around and stabs into someone, and it's heavy->heavy->light->light->light. I'm not actually sure the last light is required, I think it may trigger automatically. Edit: Relravn puzzle spoilers you don't have to remove any of the ravens, the ones you need are there from the beginning. but I'm pretty sure I screwed myself out of a runstone I was missing by doing that, since after killing Velravn, the gates stop working. Edit again: oh, the gates do still work. Gotta go find those 2 runestones... Snak fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 04:44
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I keep thinking about Silent Hill 2 also, in terms of trying to get across how much of the game exists just to deliver story. edit: Here are the combos I have discovered so far: editing again to just cover everything I know about combat. Basic Moves Fast Strike Senua performs a quick, low damage, slash with her sword. Mostly Fast Strikes are horizontal. Heavy Strike Senua performs a much slower, higher damage slash with her sword. Most Heavy Strikes are vertical. Melee Senua performs a side kick. Melee strikes are lower damage, but are more effective at breaking the enemies guard. Especially useful against shielded enemies. Running Moves These are performed instead of the basic moves any time the run button is depressed while the attack button is pressed. This means that they can be executed from a standstill by pressing both buttons at the same time, and will be executed automatically if an attack button is pressed while Senua is running. Run + Fast Achilles thrust from the movie Troy. Senua performs a leaping thrust. Run + Heavy Vertical Spinning Slash. Senua performs a jumping vertical heavy slash. You can knock fools out of the air with this. Smaller ones, anyway. Run + Melee Jump Knee Strike. Senua jumps and strikes the enemy in the torso with her knee. It's really badass. Parrying By timing her block with the impact of an enemy's attack, Senua can parry the enemy and leave them open to a counter attack. I am reasonably certain that there two types of parries: normal parries, and perfect parries. The window for a normal parry is much larger than for a perfect parry. A perfect parry can also parry an attack that would normally break Senua's guard or knock her down. Counter Attacks Parry -> Fast -> Fast Senua performs a slash, followed by a spinning jump slash, similar to her Run + Heavy attack. Parry -> Heavy Senua performs a heavy, overhead slash. Parry -> Melee Senua performs a pommel strike, hitting the enemy in the face and stunning them momentarily. Combos These are the combos that I have discovered so far. Fast -> Fast -> Fast -> Fast Basic Fast Strike Combo. On normal difficulty, this results in a guard break on the initial swordsman type enemy Heavy -> Heavy (-> ??) Basic Heavy Strike Combo. Enemies keep dying so I haven't had a chance to test past the first two hits of this. These two hit guard break on basic swordsman (normal difficulty) Fast -> Fast -> Heavy -> Heavy Senua transitions into two heavy strikes that are not the same as the initial strikes of the Heavy Strike Combo Heavy -> Heavy -> Fast -> Fast -> Fast Impalement combo. For the final fast strike, Senua spins around and stabs he blade into the enemy. There is a brief pause before she pulls it out. Fast -> Fast -> Melee / Heavy -> Heavy -> Melee Punch combo. Instead of a kick, Senua performs a left hook for the melee strike. I am not sure if it works with other combinations of two moves. MID GAME SPOILERS MOVES: Once you get the sword Gramr, additional moves are unlocked Hold Heavy Charge Gramr. After holding the heavy strike button for a short time, Gramr will begin to glow a bright blueish-white. Releasing the heavy strike button will perform a charges heavy strike for massive additional damage. I am unsure what determines whether the charge immediately dissipates or stays on. It's also possible to maintain the charge to perform multiple fast strikes without the charge dissipating. I'm not to this point in my second playthrough, so I haven't been able to do more testing. Left Stick + Hold Heavy When Gramr is charged, you have the ability to Conan Spin left and right. This is an i-frame dodge and makes you almost completely invincible until you unleash Gramr's charge. I'm also reasonably sure you can super-parry when Gramr is charged, but it may just be that a perfect parry looks way more exciting when your blade is bright white. Snak fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 05:13
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edit: ^ agreed. Why are people so bad at this game? Or games in general. There's only like 5 buttons in this game, and two people on reddit looked at my guide and admitted they played the entire game without knowing there was a melee button. THERE'S ONLY 7 BUTTONS Speaking of reddit, someone discovered that the Rune Stones you find and the rune circle they form actuall spells something, and they translated it. Spoilers, obviously.
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Aug 10, 2017 14:38
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I feel like letting you chose whether to fight Valravn or Surt first was a later choice. The order of the rune stones and the cutscene explaining the usage of the mirror both point to Valravn being the first one you should do. But since Surt is the much easier path and the game is pretty linear, it feels like they added the choice to do them "out of order". And it's a good choice, but it's real weird if you do Valravn second and there's a cutscene that explains the use of the mirror in combat when you already used it against Surt.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:20
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Yeah, I think the difficulty is probably the main factor in why they let you do it the other way. I actually liked hearing Druth's narrative in the reverse order, though.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:32
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What I kike avout doing Surt first: while listening to Druth's story, you know you're hearing what happened to Druth. Then you go to Valravn's area and Druth says he's going to tell you the story of a man named Findon. as that story unfolds, you learn that Findon is Druth. I thought that made the the whole backstory flow more interesting, and than simply hearing it all in chronological order. I've seen several different criticisms about the combat, including someone who said the bossfights were just bad gimmicks and all combat should be skippable, since it doesn't improve the story. I think the combat is important, and also that it's kind of a good thing that it gets a little tiring near the end. One of the first reactions to to the game's combat I had was that defeating an opponent isn't very satisfying. They fall over and vanish and another one instantly spawns. That's the opposite of showcasing the brutal glory of a badass warrior's kill. But I soon realized that this is on purpose. These regular enemies are phantoms. They aren't real people and victory over each of them isn't a real victory over anything. It is part of an unending struggle to keep going. In contrast to these shallow victories, we do get brutal closure to each boss fight. Each time a boss is beaten, there can be no doubt that Senua has vanquished a demon. And while I don't think combat being unfun is good game design, I think that's different than it being tiring. Combat is an important aspect of the game experience because it's hoe the game makes the player feel the physically draining aspect of Senua's journey. If combat wasn't a little challenging and if we weren't tired of it by the end of the game, we wouldn't have the same connection to Senau. Obviously different people are going to feel like they are sick of the combat at different times in the game, and there's nothing that can really be done about that, but I think finding the last few fights tiresome and just wantingnthem to be done is completely thematically appropriate, and, in a game that does a lot to try to push the player out of their emotional comfort zone, perfectly acceptable. I also think that the combat system has more options that many people are aware of, and nit exploring these options is part of why people are getting sick of the combat so fast. I've seen lits of people say "spamming fast attack is all you need" and it's no wonder they think the combat sucks. I also think that the auto difficulty option works very poorly, and is probably worsening the experience for many people. The game's not perfect, but it is amazing. I think it's a great accomplishment for such a small team. It was clearly a passion project for the people involved, and I'm glad it turned out so well.
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Aug 10, 2017 18:03
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What I like about the combat is there were times I got lost in it, playing by sheer instinct and desparation. I think the system fits really well with the emotional tone of the game. I don't think that Senua fought through any regular Norse villages. I feel like by time the game starts, she's in a mythic land where there are no living humans. It could go either way, though.
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Aug 10, 2017 18:29
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Some people are really mad and calling Ninja Theory "outright liars" because of that message, with is presented in game and not technically a lie.
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Aug 10, 2017 23:06
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Octatonic posted:I really liked this game and it's really impressive to me from an audio design perspective. I'd love to see more binaural recording in video games, and I really appreciate how much love and effort was put into voice direction and soundscape. I would absolutely buy more $30 self- paced interactive movies with this kind of production value, so I hope Senua's Sacrifice turns out to be successful. Yeah. More $30 interactive movies wouod be great.
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Aug 10, 2017 23:54
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Those of you who have beaten it: How many faces did you find?
Snak fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 02:45
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precision posted:That is far and away the worst part of the game. If there's a gimmick that makes it easier, I never figured it out. You just have to learn where the runes are and then keep eating poo poo until you get lucky enough to focus on them without dying, or getting killed in the maze. Which burning house are you guys talking about?
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Aug 11, 2017 04:36
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I have never died in that place. I wonder what we're doing differently. I just ran constantly until I came upon a rune, looked at it for 1 second and ran more. It only got close to me once. It's amazing how people seem to have wildly different experiences with this game. It's also possibly that if you left the difficulty on auto, you were playing that encounter on hard. Snak fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 04:43
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precision posted:I think what's hard about that part is that it's very hard to know if you have time to "scan" the rune or not, and because looking at the thing makes it come for you faster, it can be very difficult to keep track of exactly where it is. Plus there is at least one dead end in the maze as a gently caress you. Yeah I mean, I guess I've just been lucky both times. I did it just now with difficulty locked on normal, so I on my next playthrough I'll have it set to hard and see if it's any different. veni veni veni posted:Holy poo poo the trial in the darkness is spooky as all hell. I intentionally wanted to get this one out of the way first on my second playthrough, and I hosed up and now it's the only one left. gently caress this, I'm turning the lights on.
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Aug 11, 2017 05:09
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veni veni veni posted:I was really disappointed in the way Venravyn ended. He's incredibly creepy and his song made me really uneasy and creeped out, as well as the visual tricks where you see him but on closer inspection it's just a shrine. Especially the first time where he is way above you, and I legitimately was wondering if I saw a guy up there or not. Unfortunately, I think they overused the gimmick by the end. But the real kicker was just fighting him as a normal sword and board boss. Just totally killed the mystique for me I think that's basically the point. That Valravn can just be killed by a warrior. Does anyone know how regaining your balance is supposed to work? It seems totally random and I have no idea what input it's supposed to be. Google was no help. Snak fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 05:31
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veni veni veni posted:Man I have no idea how you only died twice Snak. I am getting killed over and over and over in the river of blood and I'm playing on fuckin easy. playing on normal I just died like 4 times in that place. But I'm also focused on figuring out combos right now rather than doing a good job fighting. I spotted a new one earlier and I will not rest until I figure it out. It's where she stabs her sword into a guy and then turns around to rip her sword upward through their torso. I'm 90% sure that the combo starts with a kick. I don't know of any combos that start with kicks, but I swear this was right after kicking a guy in the shield that I did this. edit: I just platinumed the game though. First game I've ever platted, and this has got to be one of the easiest platinums ever. There's only one trophy that's missable, and progress on it carries over between playthroughs... Snak fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 06:10
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haveblue posted:Question- When you enter the final portal to hell, the rim lights up with characters that seem to represent the story collectibles you've found. Does anything different happen if you have them all? I will let you know tomorrow when I do it. veni veni veni posted:Something weird happened where either the game took pity on me, or there was maybe a bug, or I was going in the wrong direction. But I kept dying because there were so many drat enemies. I'd usually cut though about 30 and they were still spawning, them all of sudden there was maybe...8? And the battle was over. Hmm, I always thought they spawned in discrete waves, but maybe their spawns are triggered by forward advancement, and you've been fighting forward causing them to spawn "early". The most guys I fought at a time in that area is 4. With replacements spawning in as you kill them. Over the next two days, I'll be working on a big effort post about the mythology that's referenced by the rune stones and how it compares to real myths and their sources. All the reading I've done so far seems to indicate that the devs really did their research. But there are different sources/traditions of Norse Mythology, so it's neat to go through and see what choices they made in creating the game world. Part of the work of this is, during this playthrough, I transcribed all of the runestone audio logs except for like 4, because I had already passed 3 that I couldn't backtrack to when I started, and then I missed one that I got locked out of later. it's a shame that some people have encountered serious, game-breaking glitches. I hope that Ninja Theory is good about fixing them. It would be a shame for such a great game to be marred forever by such problems, especially with its controversial save system. I have been lucky to have only encountered two minor, mostly graphical glitches, one of which was fixable in game. I'm going to update and repost my combat guide, but the new best combo (late game only) is Fast -> Fast -> Fast -> Hold Heavy -> Heavy -> Heavy -> Heavy Luke waling on Vader in Return of the Jedi. Senua performs 3 quick slashes, then changes her stance and hacks downwards 3 times before winding up for a final big chop. Snak fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 06:33
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veni veni veni posted:Haha wow I think I hit a game breaking problem. Although as you can see from this posting I am legitimately terrible at this game so it's not unlikely something just went over my head. Oh yeah, I think you're hosed if you miss that torch. It's apparently an oversight, and a pretty bad one. It resulted in Jim Sterling giving the game a 1/10 review in a fit of rage. Which he has since backpeddled on. But yeah, assuming there really is no fix, that's pretty bad. I love this game to death, but, like I said, I've also been lucky and not encountered any game breaking glitches or bugs, and you would be the second person I've talked to today who had. Are you playing on pc? I haven't heard much about it yet, but I'm hoping that pretty soon people will find a way to share saves so that people who get hosed like this don't have to start the game over. Yeah it's only an 8 hour game, but talk about inconvenience and killing momentum and emotional investment. obviously comprehensive QA is one of the things that suffered in being a "indi AAA" title. I read that only 13 people from Ninja Theory worked on this game. I'm assuming that doesn't count playtesters, but that's a really small team.
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Aug 11, 2017 07:03
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veni veni veni posted:Luckily, I found the torch. It is a massive oversight on the devs part if you miss it. It took 30 minutes of absolute nightmare blind, massively stressful gameplay to find it again but it can be done. That labyrinth is hard enough to navigate when you can actually see, but that is an absolutely massive "gently caress you" to the player for running past a stick, holy moly. They really need to patch some torches into the area where you respawn. Oh, then either that's a different place, or it's already been fixed. Supposedly, in the situation before, you were actually locked out of ever getting the torch back. But also, maybe that was incorrect. Again, while it's clear there are a few gamebreaking glitches, many things reported as glitched have turned out not to be. I'm glad you don't have to start over.
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Aug 11, 2017 07:16
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Supposedly what happend to Jim Sterling is he ran forward without the torch far enough that it autosaved and he was locked in a room where he couldn't get to a torch, because the game didn't account for someone getting to that room without one. Again, that video has been taken down and he's recanted his 1/10 review, so it's possibly that his situation was actually more like yours. Like I said, it's pretty obvious at this point that despite being capable of being a great experience, the QA was not as rigorous as it should have been. Which is a real shame. To the point where, despite this being one of my favorite games of the year, I'm kinda waiting to see if things are gonna get patched before continuing to tell people to buy the game.
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Aug 11, 2017 07:24
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At some point I'm gonna draw maps for this game. Because I can. Unless someone rips some out of the PC version first. That's what usually happens.
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Aug 11, 2017 07:31
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exquisite tea posted:Are any of the lorestones permanently missable? I think I already skipped one in Valravn's zone by mistake and I don't think I can get back until he's dead. The ones in Valravn's area you can gonback and get after you beat him. There plenty of missable ones, though. The first 2 in the game you can't backtrack too once you drop down to get to where the three gates are. There are ones later in zones you can't revisite after you complete. If you look at the wheel of runes when you find a runestone, you should be able to figure outbwhich section you are on and see how many runes there are in it. You always find the runes in order. That is, when you find a new runstone, it's the next unread rune in that area. So you always hear the story in order on your first playthrough. Runestone discovery is saved between playthroughs, so if you miss some, those are the only ones you will need to get on your next playthrough. My biggest caution if you're trying to get them all on your first time through is to carefully explore before you focus on or open any rune gates, since doing so will sometimes trigger doors to lock behind you. There is another "collectible" which is not tracked by the game at all, of which I have found 3 that are missable. I suspect there will be one more.
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Aug 11, 2017 16:44
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Yeah, I would much rather see a different story in the same medium than a sequel. Senua's journey is so personal and complete it would be hard to extend it in a way that felt good and not cheap. A good idea for a sequel would be one where the protagonist is Senua's Daughter. A character who has her own issues, different problems, and is trying to find her own place in the world. It would both give us an implied happy ending for Senua, that she was able to get her life together and have a family, and be a good setup for a slightly different feel. A sequel that's just "your character hears voices and you're on a quest" would feel really cheap. Senua's quest was such tragic and personal one, it's not the sort of thing that a human one-ups in their life. Turning her in to a video-game protagonist who has a bigger adventure every sequel would cheapen it. A lot of Senua's emotional trauma is related to the lost of her mother. Misplaced blame, suppressed memory, guilt. A game where you played as Senua's daughter could explore an opposite dynamic. One where Senua's daughter feels like she is living in the shadow of her mother's legend. Senua's father made her believe she was cursed, and that she had inherited the curse the from her mother. Senua's daughter might feel that no matter what she does, she can never live up to the image of her mother. In terms of Hellblade's story, I think that Senua absolutely went to the Norse land of the dead and slew several gods in combat. I think that, due to the nature of supernatural journeys, hell was a reflection of her personal torments, and so even though her quest to enter Helheim and confront Hela was deeply reflective of her own personal trauma, it was no delusion. I like to think that the underworld manifesting her insecurities allowed her to conquer them, rather than "her journey is a manifestation of her conquering her fears" But in terms of this hypothetical sequel, Senua's story would be a legend, even in her lifetime. Senua is this larger than life hero who slew gods to avenge the Northmen's raids. I haven't really though much farther than that. In general, I don't want a sequel. I want other experiences this good. I just said all that stuff because that's the only kind of sequel I could imagine. "Senua kills more poo poo" just doesn't hold any appeal for me.
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Aug 14, 2017 09:29
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I agree.
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Aug 14, 2017 11:21
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Not only are all the bugfixes great, the combat balance tweaks sound really good too.
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Aug 17, 2017 19:13
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peonic posted:If you ever come home to your wife wearing blue warpaint and wielding a huge sword...... run like the loving wind and never look back! That doesn't sound very supportive 
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Aug 17, 2017 19:27
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Over There posted:Just brought it and going in blindly. Can't wait to see what all the hype is about Wear headphones.
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Aug 26, 2017 00:56
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Yeah, she was really good. I was really surprised when I IMDBed her that she hasn't acted before. I figured she was a professional actress they hired because of the demanding role. She knocked it out of the park.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:31
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I think it's pretty boring if she didn't actually go on an epic journey into hel. One of the things I really like about Hellblade is that it functions as it's own myth. Senua becoming a mythological heroine is hela cool.
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Sep 2, 2017 20:17
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It's also a much worse message if it's "all a dream". If she's actually just getting revenge as a mechanism for working through her problems, thats... not as good. If she's actually going to the underworld where her issues are manifested as obstacles due to the nature of underworlds, she's still conquering her problems, but in way that speaks to their universality. If her journey is literal, than the story is saying "you can be a hero, even if you suffer from mental illness". If she's just off murdering vikings, the message is "mentally ill people might go on a confused and murderous rampage of revenge and work out their problems in the process".
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Sep 2, 2017 21:27
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veni veni veni posted:I don't think that's the case. In the event that it was actually a viking stronghold that she was rampaging through it would be a pretty straight forward revenge story. A straightforward revenge story is pretty uninteresting, though?
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Sep 2, 2017 22:33
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I looked it up, and in some versions of the mythology, Garmr and Fenrir are the same creature. I was gonna make a big effort post about the sources of mythology in this game, but I got distracted by Factorio.
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Sep 3, 2017 01:20
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I'm telling you, Garm and Fenrir are the same creature in this version. It's not even really a mistake. You gotta remember, Senua is learning this poo poo like 3rd-hand, also. Edit: When does the game call him Garm? Snak fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Sep 3, 2017 |
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Sep 3, 2017 06:11
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Right, but I mean I don't remember him being called Garmr in the game either. I'm not disagreeing, I saying I don't remember. Why do you think Garmr and Fenrir are different in this telling?
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Sep 3, 2017 07:14
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MonsterEnvy posted:Because like I just said. The Devs said that was a mistake made on the achievement. It was never supposed to be Fenrir. I'm not trying to criticize you, but I can't find where the devs have said this, do you have a link?
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Sep 3, 2017 09:14
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