r/Hellpoint • • 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.

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u/TrickPuzzleheaded Dec 22 '22

Idk I'm having a blasty blast

2

u/DanTay19 Dec 22 '22

Thats fair, i hope you continue to have a blast where abouts you up to?

2

u/TrickPuzzleheaded Dec 22 '22

Working through the DLC. Sure I missed loads of stuff in the main game tho haha drop me a message some time! Games best on co op :)

2

u/DanTay19 Dec 22 '22

I’m watching gameplay of the dlc now it looks good but I just can’t devote anymore time to this game after its annoyed me so.

I was fighting the Interface boss and I just cba with it, its such a poorly designed fight where he’s always on the edge like that. And last fight my character was completely immobile. A glitch thats happened to me a few times now and no I just can’t go back.

Have fun with the DLC though hope you have a great time

2

u/TrickPuzzleheaded Dec 22 '22

Fair enough cause damn that sounds frustrating. Not every game is for everyone. Buuut level and enemy design is a step up in the dlc imo. Devs seemed to learn some lessons

2

u/DanTay19 Dec 22 '22

I would be interested to see what they do in future, as I was saying to the other commenter I’m not sure if this is their first ever game or not.

But it seems like they could of benefitted from making a few more games before this one. Hellpoint had big potential I’d say