HELL IS US (III)

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Finished last night with a twinge of disappointment. After all the build-up, all the questing, all of the beautifully aimless wandering around ingeniously deceptively unopen open worlds, it just sort of... ended. Sure: threads were wrapped up, there was some solidly maddening end-boss combat, but it felt like only two acts of the game ended and that the third act was a quick rush through, a return with the elixir in a shotglass barely passed around. Didn't make me love the game as a game any less or dampen my desire to replay it at some point but still, damn. Remains a deeply flawed masterpiece of game art; closest I can approximate to it would be LA NOIRE, all those years ago: a ridiculously accomplished swing for the fences from gameworld luminaries that left me wanting more. Taking a break for a palette-cleansing brainless romp through something else (I really need to use that Switch 2 for more than MARIO KART WORLD and BALATRO: recs welcome) before deciding whether to go SILENT HILL F or wait another week for GHOST OF YOTEI.

HELL IS US (II)

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For all of its beauty, frustration (controls, combat, inability to jump), and excellence, it's the emotional sucker punch of failing to do a good deed in time that hits hardest. In other games, these inevitable failures were oversights met with a shrug or mere frustration at not getting that bonus; in this, it's human, and with consequence: dead babies, lynched musicians, burnt bodies - I'm sorry I didn't find the milk in time! I'm sorry I couldn't find new sheet music! I'm sorry I didn't know what the fuck to do with those signal flares! I'm sorry I couldn't find your camp before because I couldn't figure out which part of the snake your leader was talking about...

HELL IS US (I)

Impressions at this point, maybe a quarter(?) through the game: a flawed masterpiece. Loathe the combat as it's the least interesting part of the game: this is the first time I've lowered a difficulty level to the easiest because it was getting in the way of the interesting part: uncovering and revealing the world.

Note: doing this is my first recommendation to anyone considering playing HELL IS US. That being said, "Lenient" is a bit too easy and repetitive; the midway, "Balanced," is anything but. A middle ground between the two would be most welcome if future updates don't tweak the combat. In a future replay, I might bump it to balanced since I won't be as occupied with learning the ins and outs of the world.

And it's a game definitely screaming replay: I love its mapless, goal-less, open enough world. My heartbreaking failure to get around to good deeds in time. Best level design I've seen in ages: Hadea has soul to it - not surprising, considering the main reason I bought the game new was that it's the creative director debut of DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION / MANKIND DIVIDED's art director, Jonathan Jacques-Belletete.

It may not be perfect but it is, so far, something special and new.