One aspect I particularly enjoyed in Hellpoint’s systems is its use of a “day/night” cycle, the space station orbits a black hole and depending on where you are in its rotation dictates how strong enemies are. Hellpoint builds a solid foundation with its gameplay loop, it takes practice and patience to use to parrying light swings, to dodging heavier cleaving slices, to find opportunities to counter but when it all comes together and you manage to take down that boss you have been struggling with it feels incredibly satisfying and rewarding. In comparison to the souls/borne franchise Hellpoint’s gameplay isn’t revolutionary by any means, everything is here that you would expect from its genre, but it does it well. Yes, the game is tough but you can beat it if you are patient and play smart. This to me is one of the greatest strengths of Hellpoint. Combat is a game of chess you read your opponent and wait for an opportunity to strike. The difficulty is not artificial, the various beasties you encounter are not tough because they have huge health bars, they go down quick enough if you can get close to them. I like that you are thrust into this world with no hand holding, it’s a challenge because you have to rely on skill to beat those early encounters, you have to dodge, you must learn the enemies attack patterns if you want to live. Hellpoint is an extremely tough game, those opening hours are beyond brutal and until you manage to find a decent weapon and some armour you will die many, many times. I like this method of story telling and it is done very well in Hellpoint, exploration is rewarded not just with equipment and items that help you conquer this world but with a compelling story and the world is brilliantly crafted that I wanted to learn more.įrom the outset Hellpoint wants you to know it means business, you are thrust into this Sci-Fi world without explanation or direction. You learn of the events leading up to your arrival through lore items that are dotted around the station and environmental storytelling, not everything immediately becomes clear to you and its only through exploration that the story becomes clearer. Cradle Games have done a good job of building a world that holds your interest without giving too much away within a narrative, as we have come to expect from this genre. In Hellpoint you play as a nameless android that is awoken on an abandoned space station, you are tasked with uncovering the events that lead to the destruction of civilisation upon the space station and fighting back against the darkness behind the disappearance of its inhabitants. Cradle Games is one such company, Hellpoint is an ambitious project for a small team and hard work has clearly been thrown into building this world and expanding on the souls/borne formula. Many publishers have since tried to grab a slice of that market for themselves, some meeting success and others being left in the dirt. From Software filled a gap in the market no one had thought to fill. 2009 saw the release of Demons Souls, the first game in the action RPG series, the release saw was met with critical acclaim and was responsible for a host of main line releases thereafter. If you were to ask a hardcore gamer what to play if you are looking for a challenge, no doubt they would point you in the direction of the dark souls series, undoubtedly the most successful franchise for delivering an exciting and, most often, a challenging experience.
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