It was all a lie... YOU ARE A LIE!
It's the story of a Celtic warrior woman traveling and fighting her way into and through the Norse version of Hell. Moments of awesome are all but inevitable with such a premise, and Hellblade delivers.
- Every time Senua defeats a boss.
- She stabs Surtr though the throat, throws him to the ground, and then impales him, with flames instead of blood spurting from the wound.
- Senua outright blindsides Valravn, knocks him on his ass, and skewers him through his open mouth.
Senua: I never beat you in the wilds, did I? It was all an illusion! But not this time!- She engages in a terrifying Light-Flicker Teleportation struggle with Garm before giving him a Sound-Only Death.
- The final fight at the end of the game is the greatest of its moments of awesome. Senua, empowered by her iron-hard determination and burning rage, charges through the heart of Helheim and cuts down everything in her path. Her damage goes through the roof, and with the legendary sword Gramr, she can rip through most of the horde of common foes with ease. It's extra awesome if you've gotten really good at the combat by now, as that combined with the above turns the entire first part into a pure one-sided beatdown.
- The fight gets even more intense and awesome in part two. You have to fight a shapeshifting mass of shadow that swaps between the three previous boss forms as you damage it. If that were not enough, a second one drops in and you get tag-teamed by them. But Senua just grits her teeth and kills multiple gods...AGAIN.
- Senua also drops a short Badass Boast between part one and two, just so you know she has gone full Determinator for this part. "I can see through your darkness! You're a liar and a murderer! And if you really are Hela, then I have a sword here that can kill a god!"
- The music playing here
is a gorgeous fit, as it matches perfectly with Senua's tenacity and Heroic Resolve by this stage of the game.
- Every time the player manages a perfectly-timed parry of Valravn's throwing knives, Senua sends the knife spinning back and striking him instead. Likewise, a perfect parry against one of his charge attacks turns the otherwise-unstoppable Foe-Tossing Charge into an ignoble pratfall that he has to clumsily get back to his feet after, in sharp contrast to his usual acrobatics. It takes a skilled player behind the controls, but Senua can potentially make the terrifying Reality Warper god look like a complete chump throughout the fight. Especially satisfying after he's spent his entire area trolling her with his illusions.
- The combat on the Bridge to Helheim, is technically just another combat encounter with basic enemies. However it comes with a beautiful, climatic view of the bridge itself and accompanied by the chorus from River of Knives kicking in as Senua crosses the bridge, cutting down the Northerners that try to block her path along with the narration highlighting her resolve.The gods made you a warrior for a reason. It's your calling.
