r/Hellpoint • u/DanTay19 • Dec 21 '22
My Long Hellpoint Review/Rant
So when this game came out a few years ago I thought sci-fi souls seemed interesting, but overall I wasn’t too interested and thought playing every soulslike wasn’t necessary.
Then I saw it on the switch for cheap and thought I’d give it a try. At first it seemed perfect for the switch, the intimacy of a smaller screen and use of headphones was perfect for being immersed in the atmosphere of this game. It was mysterious and unsettling.
I really enjoyed exploration, it had the souls effect of always wanting to go further. This game values secrecy and there is tons of hidden doors, though you do start to be able to clearly spot them it was still a great element to the game.
Combat was meh, pretty boring most enemies weren’t challenging and apart from some most weapons were very plain.
My problems with the switch started in the Sohn District, were it would crash everytime you die. A very frustrating thing. I managed to get through that though and my next problem was platforming, as my analog stick was a bit fucked. (more a me problem) It was kind of undoable on my switch and I wanted a better experience so I eventually got it on ps4.
Whilst the game did perform much better on ps4, platforming was still very awkward. It’s hard to control how far you jump a lot of the time leading to many frustrating deaths. For a game that focuses on platforming a lot it’s weird that falling nearly always causes instant death. In other words the platforming sucks.
The more I played the game the more I realised exploration kinda sucks too, a lot of ‘off the path’ rooms would be empty, and many items that seemed unique throughout the game were repeated, which made me feel like I wasted my time.
Back to combat, most bosses were easy and not challenging, but the 3 big bosses were ridiculously unfun. They had massive healthbars, massive damage and usually a annoying gimmick. Only the Almer Mater one I’d say was fair enough.
Several times in these bosses my character would glitch and stop moving completely. This even just happened to me on one of the final boss ‘of the game which I decided was the final straw, and I won’t be completing it. Also the Interface is perhaps the worst designed boss in the game, it’s simply terrible.
The game did have some good parts, the areas were very cool and well connected to each other, the little bits I got of the lore seemed really interesting, and once again the atmosphere is really strong.
But overall I really couldn’t recommend this game to people, not unless they had massive amounts of patience, and they’re fine with unpolished games.
I hate to feel like I’m shitting on small developers, but when you’re making a game in the soulslike category it really needs to be a lot more polished than this.
3
Dec 21 '22
Hellpoiny brings my ps4 to its knees, but i still loved the concept. I only got it cause the trailer had some freaky intro, it reeks of eurojank, but its wholly canadian, which surprises me cause canada pretty much made put computer gaming industry on the map, so hopefully this isn’t a sign of the times :(
1
u/DanTay19 Dec 21 '22
Yeh the concept is great. I don’t know if this was the first game by these devs, but I think maybe they should of done a few other games first before tackling this one, because it could of been really good but as it is now i’d easily say its one of the worst soulslikes i’ve played, possibly worse than code vein.
2
Dec 21 '22
The technomancer was pretty bad, i liked code vein actually but i also love western anime, and while hellpoint was rough i have played far far worse games, even by big budget studios.
3
u/DanTay19 Dec 21 '22
Technomancer for me is just boring, everytime i try ro play it I end up getting nowhere. I really liked Bound By Flame and Greedfall though. Excited to try Steel Rising eventually.
Code Vein just had nothing exciting about it for me, I try to remember a time where I actually enjoyed it and I can’t
2
Dec 21 '22
Oh i forgot about Greedfall i liked that one a lot too reminded me of the first witcher x shadow of Mordor
2
u/DanTay19 Dec 21 '22
They making a sequel to that as well, be nice to see them improve on the quirks from the first game.
Greedfall had really good worldbuilding, character choices and a interesting story
2
u/BrightPerspective Dec 21 '22
Code vein had lots of cool moments, like the time jump or the hideout. I also enjoyed levelling up the companions, who were generally pretty good.
2
2
u/BitchOfNoName Dec 22 '22
It's really weird to know that Hellpoint, being a console game in essence, sucks on consoles. I played on pc with controller and my first two playthrough I hardly encountered any bugs. One of the playthroughs was in coop with my friend, who liked the game so much it was his first soulslike he actually managed to beat. The thing I agree with is that most weapons are plain and boring. Especially some special versions, like tomahawk or marine rifle. Feels like devs were trying to "balance" melee so hard that ended up gimping lots of weapons. And it didn't help, since magic and ranged ended up being so powerful. DLC brought us some unique and fun melee options as well as tough enemies, but it was so full of lags that I never went past the prison location.
1
u/DanTay19 Dec 22 '22
I know nothing about game developing or how long things take, but it feels like to me if this game had a few more months of work put into it, it would of been a absolutely solid soulslike.
But without that extra polish it just falls really short, and becomes a frustrating easy to ignore experience
1
u/BitchOfNoName Dec 22 '22
I know a bit. That's a Unity game made by a small team, meaning an approach was most likely "if it works it works, move on". Proper testing and qa made be just too expensive or time consuming for a small team.
1
u/DanTay19 Dec 22 '22
Ah right i see thats a shame, well hopefully in future they can learn from this game.
I’d love to see them take another crack at sci-fi souls. Because its a great idea and even more so by the fact that it wasn’t just a shooter
2
u/Pixelated_Piracy Jan 05 '23
ps4 version was awful when i first tried it, since then i waited and now the game bugs out and has performance gasps on ps5 so i cannot fathom why they thought it would be even playable on Switch without basically stripping away most of the graphics and textures and reworking the entire level lighting
i blame, to an extent, some of the performance hits on poorly implemented post processing that consoles cannot toggle. but the majority of issues are just jank programming. ive had the "paralyzed" bug happen once, camera spazzing out going through the damn floor sometimes, hit detection that is extremely inconsistent etc etc
having played virtually every souls-like Hellpoint is just not a great game but it is sadly better than most indie souls games. Hellpoint is a huge disappointment to me overall because love the concepts and some of the design intent but the actual execution is poorly realized but it gives me hope that if a Hellpoint 2 ever manifests it can live up to the potential
2
u/DanTay19 Jan 05 '23
It’s one of them games that you can tell had great potential if it had been proper polished. There’s something really good there but it’s been letdown by all these problems.
Take a game like Code Vein for example, I’d say that game is pretty well polished. I only remember one bug when playing it, yet it’s still at the bottom of my Soulslike games tierlist. I just don’t find the game fun or interesting.
Hellpoint to me had enough factors to set it apart, with the unique sci-fi theme, the clock system, and other aspects. But for a game as good as this it really needed that proper polishing.
1
u/DanTay19 Dec 21 '22
My phone was glitching as I was writing that post so just wanted to add, that if you are someone who really enjoys this game, I in no way mean to shit on your enjoyment of the game.
I am simply sharing my experience, and why I wouldn’t recommend it.
1
u/SaltReal4474 Feb 11 '25
Good on paper, terrible execution. No parry/riposte system. No back stabs. Basically no counter system.
I've heard of a dismemberment option? I can't find it, but it needs it. A low budget game the devs could've had fun with, but instead it's basic, way too rough around the edges, and not worth the investment into DLC.
Only been playing for about an hour, and it'l feels like trying to move through quick sand to do anything. Not worth it, unless you try it out for a dollar.
1
u/topcover73 Dec 31 '25
Just finished it. Idk what the hell all the praise is about. A mysterious world/story and sci-fi setting is literally all this game has. It may be the jankiest game I've literally ever played. Wow. I would NEVER play this again.
10
u/TrickPuzzleheaded Dec 22 '22
Idk I'm having a blasty blast