Praise the sun! Dark Souls, I mean… Hellpoint is now available. Hellpoint comes from developer Cradle Games, and is published by Tinybuild. It is a supernatural, hard sci-fi, Souls-like, action Role Playing Game (RPG). God, that was a mouthful. In Hellpoint, you are born (or created) on the space station Irid Novo, orbiting an ominous black hole. You are greeted by The Author, who tasks you with gathering information on an event known as ‘The Merge’, saving Irid Novo, and learning its secrets.
I only recently delved into the Souls-like world with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I saw the critical praise Sekiro received and wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and it did not disappoint. I have had an aversion to Souls-like titles in the past. My perspective had been that they were rage inducing, as you couldn’t save and every action (jump, roll, and attack) required use of stamina. Sekiro caused me to change that perspective and taught me about how rewarding Souls-like games can be. There is a challenge and an immense catharsis when you finally beat a boss in a Souls-like game. Hellpoint lives and breathes this energy.
There is a lot to enjoy about Hellpoint. It is extremely challenging and embraces fully the Souls-like combat and RPG mechanics. For example, the various options there are to upgrade your weapons and armor, or that every melee attack will help to charge both your energy (used for ranged weapons and power ups) and your healing item. Combat has such an ebb and flow in Hellpoint, and feels developed and rewarding. Another thing that Hellpoint excels at is world-building. Irid Novo feels lived in and real. The environments are colorful and vibrant, while maintaining the exceptional supernatural sci-fi vibe. I am a huge fan of science fiction, and Hellpoint brings something novel in the form of a sci-fi Souls-like which immediately caught my attention. The world-building is largely done through interactive terminals with messages from the past residents of Irid Novo, and the game also has varying endings depending on interactions you have with NPCs/Subquests, which will be familiar to any fan of the Souls-like genre. Hellpoint has everything it needs to be a gripping, compelling title, but it is not without its flaws.
For all the things I loved about Hellpoint, I kept running into issues with the game’s functionality, and minor issues with the presentation of the story. Most of the game’s story is told through subtitles and interactions with the surrounding world, and I feel that voice acting would have brought some more consistency with the story’s presentation. I never felt lost, but the story and gameplay at times felt inconsistent and I wasn’t entirely clear on the rules of this world. The absolute biggest frustration is the amount of time the player spends on the loading screens. Any Souls-like veteran can speak to how frequently your character perishes. With Hellpoint, this is accompanied by a wait of at least 30 seconds before you return to the action. This made fighting the games’ bosses a severe test of patience. The game also has some frame-rate issues. For the most part, the frame-rate is stable and the game is playable, but there are exceptions, especially when surrounded by hordes of enemies, and it is then that the drops significantly affect playability. These drops can also lend themselves to input lag, which in tandem with the load times, can make boss fights even more of a challenge, and not in a good way.
Hellpoint is novel, and it has some features that make the game stand apart from other Souls-like titles. Irid Novo orbits a black hole, and there is an in-game clock that measures this orbit. When you reach certain apexes of the orbit, you will fight harder enemies, and be rewarded with more loot. There are also obelisks that can transport you into an underworld version of some locations, upping the difficulty of the enemies, but rewarding you with different and sometimes valuable items. In the tradition of Souls-like games, when you die all the experience (Axions) you have earned is lost and upon respawn you can attempt to retrieve your Axions from the location you died. Beware though, because in addition to losing your Axions, a ghost version of yourself will spawn to fight you.
There is much to love about this game; the level design, art direction, and combat structure made my time on Irid Novo worthwhile. Hellpoint takes the Souls-like style of game and places it in a completely unique sci-fi world full of character. Hellpoint does so many things right. I cannot ignore the things it doesn’t, though. Overall, what Hellpoint really lacks is polish. The car has all the right parts and looks beautiful, but just doesn’t run quite as smooth or well as other similar cars. Hellpoint feels just shy of playable, and that makes me profoundly sad. It is a wonderful take on the Souls-like genre, but just doesn’t quite deliver.
6/10
Check Out the Hellpoint Trailer:
Hellpoint is available on Steam, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, MacOS and Linux.
For more information, please visit: https://www.playhellpoint.com/
PlayStation 4 Review
I am a writer from Portland,Oregon who has loved gaming since early childhood. Writing and sharing about the best in visual arts is one of my favorite things. Some of my all time favorite games are: The Last of Us, God Of War (2019), Journey, Persona 5, Borderlands 2, and Shadow of the Colossus.
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