![]() ![]() Instead, enemies will only respawn after a while has passed or if you die. Breaches scattered around act as save and respawn points, but unlike Dark Souls whenever you visit them to spend Axiom points on stat upgrades or to fast travel enemies won’t immediately respawn. Hellpoint does manage to do a few things better than Dark Souls, though. A lot of the enemy designs don’t fit together or seem like they have anything to do with each other or like they even belong in the world. However, it’s not a very visually cohesive game. It’s a shame it doesn’t actually lean into the horror elements more, perhaps bringing in a touch of Dead Space. While it is quite visually dull the generally dark ship and the lack of music gives Hellpoint an eery feeling. If I wanted meaningless drivel I’d just read my own damn reviews, Hellpoint.Īt least it does nail the atmosphere. It constantly raises and then gives you no answers to any of them, not even the vaguest of hints. Hellpoint’s storytelling is like being handed a join-the-dots page with three dots and a message telling you to use your imagination. You’ll find terminals and scrawled messages here and there and maybe even an NPC or two, but the information they give you is, at best, incredibly vague. You wake up as a newly created Spawn on a giant space ship and set out with a sword and shield to kill the monsters, beasties and cosmic gods inhabiting the place. Hellpoint aims for the same thing, but while it nails the first part it forgets the rest. When you combine that with the excellent visuals it creates a compelling world that is worth exploring. ![]() Just about everywhere you look there’s stuff to find, and secret doors often lead to more secret doors.ĭark Souls is famous for not having much of a narrative upfront while also having a deep lore for people who are willing to spend the time putting it all together. Review code provided free of charge by the publisherīut while I think general exploration is muddled thanks to the lack of visually interesting areas, I do appreciate the game’s love of hiding secrets. If you do find something of important like a key card or a boss it feels more like you accidentally stumbled in and now the big bad boss is looking just as confused as you are. Hellpoint’s giant ship is so packed with generic corridors and rooms that it becomes increasingly difficult to remember specific locations and routes. I’m not against complex map design that takes proper exploration and memorization, but you still need those little design cues to help guide players just a fraction, otherwise so much time is spent doing absolutely nothing of consequence. Rather, it was designed by someone who desperately wanted to work on mazes but couldn’t get the job and thus settled for making regular people’s days into a freaking nightmare. ![]() Like Dark Souls world, the giant ship Hellpoint takes place on was not designed by someone trying to make something sensible. ![]() However, the majority of your time is actually spent traipsing through boring grey corridors and trying to remember where the hell anything is. On paper Hellpoint’s marriage of Dark Souls with science fiction is downright sexy, and on occasion, Hellpoint manages to make good on the idea with a cool vista. Today, I’m taking a look at one of them: Hellpoint, from Cradle Games. And there’s no shortage of games being released that have obviously been inspired by From Software. Hard as nails combat, exploration, baffling stories and a willingness to invest a lot of time are just so of the things that have come to define Souls-like titles. It’s weird to think that From Software have managed to create a whole new genre of action game, yet that’s exactly what they did with Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne and the Dark Souls trilogy. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |