Hellpoint, by developer Cradle Games and publisher tinyBuild GAMES, has the player trudging through its sci-fi-inspired take on the Souls-like genre. The title meets nearly all the gameplay elements one would expect from a Souls-like: slow and precise combat, punishing death mechanics, sparse save points, and challenging enemies foreshadowing an inevitable boss battle at the end of a short, but hellishly dense labyrinth of a map. The game understands the genre appeal of fair but challenging gameplay, however, lacks the polish that other Souls-like games possess.
Story
In the beginning sequence, the player is plopped like a baby from a mechanical pod into a dingy abandoned space station. With little idea of where or who you are, you’re given vague instructions by an omnipotent voice. Some further dialogue reveals that something terrible has occurred, everyone is dead. Now, it’s your job to move forward and face the cosmic horrors around the corner with the goal of understanding what’s happened.
Beyond this point, there are only a handful of dialogue and computer entries that give any tangible story for the player to hold on to. This type of storytelling attempts to create mystery and suspense, yet, only ended up starving the player of ample narrative motivation to continue with the game. Hellpoint’s deep atmosphere was great at raising questions, yet the lack of clues resulted in feelings of frustration. The visual design of maps and bosses do make a commendable effort in pulling the narrative weight through visual storytelling, but I would have loved to see something more substantial. The game does not make a great first impression due to the lackluster narrative. However, its combat, map design, and visual elements do somewhat carry the experience.
Combat and Gameplay
Combat mechanics will be familiar to Souls-like veterans where the core gameplay revolves around carefully weaving light and heavy strikes in between enemy attack patterns. The dodging is generous, giving the player a good amount of iframes and made more powerful by the responsiveness of the player character. The system incentivizes player aggression as healing items are charged based on the amount of melee damage done by the player, thus, supporting more skill-based progression. These controls initially felt floaty as compared to the grounded precise movements in Dark Souls titles, but became second nature after a few hours of gameplay. What ultimately sells the combat system is the weapon progression. Equipment can be manually upgraded with increased stats and mods but dealing damage with a specific weapon will give it further stat upgrades and unlock its special active abilities. This gives the player a sense of owning a certain playstyle and having a signature loadout. There isn’t a massive equipment selection, but the moderate variation of weapons types combined with the quality of the existing weapons gives the current selection much weight.
When it comes to the core of Souls-like games, that is, the bosses: they’re overall visually intriguing and mechanically well-done. The bosses follow the Souls-like formula: the player fights them and gets a sense of their attack patterns and animations. They might die a couple of times, but eventually, build up enough muscle memory, intuition, and knowledge to defeat the boss. The fights feel challenging, however, almost all of the deaths will feel fair. This quality is also reflected in the lesser enemies of the game. There is great diversity wherein most enemies beyond the beginning section of the game feel unique. However, it was slightly disappointing when enemies started just being mini versions of bosses you’ve previously defeated. Altogether, a highly satisfying combat experience once the player has drudged through the directionless beginnings of the game.
Map Design and Visual Elements
The map design might be wonderful or frustrating depending on who’s playing the game as it offers almost no direction as to where the player should go or do. At times this evokes a sense of exploration and adventure. In other cases, continuously getting lost while being hunted by cosmic horrors becomes pretty vexing. The story, gameplay mechanics, and map design attempt to lend themselves to satisfying player exploration, but there is just too little player direction. In most cases, discoveries seem like pure coincidence where the feeling evoked is not so much an “ah-ha!” lightbulb moment, but more on the lines of “well that was random, but I guess I did it.” This dire lack of direction is very prevalent at the beginning of the game where the player is cursed to spend a few hours fumbling to figure out how the combat system works before they can actually start to enjoy it. Even so, it’s obvious that much care was put into the map designs as every level is punctuated with much detail; there’s a ton of hidden corridors and secret pathways for the players to find.
The visual elements of every map design are equally carefully crafted. There are some graphical shortcomings: menus and cutscenes were slightly outdated, the textures were dialed back, and the low frame rate was at times noticeably immersion breaking. Along with these performance issues, the game is ripe with bugs. I found no game-breaking bugs but encountered several buggy sillinesses that can take any player out of the intense, claustrophobic ambiance the game’s elements had worked so hard to build. Despite these flaws, the overall visual design of the game was well thought out and interesting. Every area of the game has its own visual motifs, however, they all still felt like a cohesive setting, united by a thematic sense of emptiness. An awesome soundtrack accompanies these visual elements in creating a deep atmosphere throughout the entirety of the game.
Conclusion
Hellpoint can be summarized as a game where its slightly under polished nature and close adherence to genre clichés prevents it from rising to the level of its triple-A predecessors. However, the game understands well that it can’t match the massive expansive experiences of giant Souls-like games. Its approach to traditional Souls-like gameplay is still wholly satisfying, and the tension-filled halls of that decrepit space station were a thrill to explore. For anyone looking for a Souls-like fix, Hellpoint will satisfy.
Score: 7/10
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For more information, please visit: https://playhellpoint.com
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