Review for Hellpoint. Game for Linux, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 30/07/2019
Hellpoint is the new title belonging to the souls-like sub-genre developed by Cradle Games and published by TinyBuild and available from July 30th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac and Linux. This new game - full of potential and which mixes the more classic style of Dark Souls with more “dark” themes almost in the style of Dead Space - will it be able to convince us? Here is our review!
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"Who we are? Who created us? Why do we exist? " These are all essential questions in every person's life and closely related to the individual's self-awareness. Fortunately, our protagonist in Hellpoint will at least receive the answer to all these questions in his first moments of life. We are the so-called Progeny created by the Architect to recover important data that will allow us to shed light on the mysteries that surround the past, present and future of the place where we are, Irid Novo. We will soon discover that it is a space station orbiting around a point so singular that it is called a "black hole" (also important from a gameplay point of view).
On our journey we will find ourselves exploring every corner of the station facing strange humanoid creatures, demons and real gods to be able to recover these precious data. Each new enemy defeated, each connected breach (the "bonfire" of this game) and each object of lore found (from books to documents, passing through simple writing on the walls) will reward us with a small percentage of data. In addition, there will be three main bosses who, once defeated, will provide a substantial 33% of data. All in order to reach (and possibly exceed) the amount required by our creator to complete the mission.
The plot and the lore of Hellpoint will be narrated to us, as well as through the books and documents mentioned above, also from terminals, from the description of some objects (in perfect "soulsborne" style) and from the dialogues with the NPCs, some of which they could also entrust us with side quests. In certain cases we may not find ourselves talking “directly” with other characters, but rather recovering their so-called mental envelopes, essential for interfacing with their minds. All this manages to fascinate the player by mixing faith and science in an articulated narrative structure full of potential but of which you can easily lose the crucial elements..
gameplay
As stated in the introduction phase Hellpoint belongs to the subgenre of "souls-like", indeed, to be precise, it is the closest thing to a "Dark Souls" there can be, but with a pinch of platforming more. In fact, we are faced with an Action RPG extremely linked to parameters and damage scaling based on the levels invested in the individual characteristics (also important to allow you to wield certain weapons). To level up in this case we will make use of the "Axions" collected from each defeated enemy and expendable in the checkpoints, in this case represented by the "Gaps", scattered throughout each level.
We will obviously have the opportunity to equip a fair number of armor and weapons (melee and fire), the latter characterized by quite varied movesets and real skills that will be gradually unlocked with use. Many of these items can only be obtained through crafting available after obtaining the relevant blueprint at certain building stations. It will also be possible to graft some modules into weapons and shields: these will change the type of damage of the weapon in question or could significantly increase the scaling percentage, thus increasing the damage in general and allowing the creation of builds focused on a particular statistic.
An essential element in our equipment will be the Omnicube, an important object from many points of view. It will in fact be possible to find different programs, to be equipped in a maximum of three at the same time, to facilitate exploration and more. The most important of all is certainly the one that will allow you to cure yourself, albeit slowly, while the others will range from a simple light to illuminate the darkest areas up to one that will consume your axions to allow you to return to the last breach visited. We will also be able to equip a maximum of two “Modules” (mind and body) able to passively provide some bonuses.
Over time, we have seen several implementations of healing in games of this type, from refillable flasks in Dark Souls to Bloodborne blood vials. In this case, however, we will be able to equip one healing method at a time; the basic one will be the quick healing injection, but we will also have status healing or a slow healing infusion. In general, however, they can all be upgraded through a special medical station to increase the limit of charges. "Resting" at a breach will not recharge them, to do so we will therefore have to die (obtaining the basic number of charges, 2), or obtain charges based on the number of attacks inflicted on enemies.
The peculiarity of Hellpoint is that our every action will be marked by a sort of clock in the upper left corner of the screen. Thanks to it we will be able to understand in which phase of the orbit the space station will be in such a way as to pay particular attention to two specific moments, the so-called "accretion storm" and "the hour of the black hole". The first represents the moment in which the station is at the minimum distance from the black hole to recharge all the energy reserves. In this case it will be necessary to pay particular attention as some enemies and bosses will turn out to be stronger than normal and also will appear in some areas of real hordes of enemies with unique rewards in case of victory.
The time of the black hole will instead be variable for each area of the station and will be essential to gain access to certain secret rooms. Still talking about secret rooms, even in the case of Hellpoint there will be the classic "invisible walls", in most cases easily recognizable by the presence of three identical aligned panels. These are present in considerable quantities and do not always hide simple rooms; they could in fact lead you to paths or entire hidden areas. In some of these hidden places we will also be able to find access to an alternate and mirror dimension called Overseas characterized by unique enemies and drops in which we will not be able to stay long.
The level design of the individual areas is already in itself particularly complex and vast, containing numerous paths that create numerous interconnections that make exploration anything but simple and linear. This degree of complexity applies not only to the individual zones, but also to the level of connections between one zone and another allowing, for example, access to an area at several levels and from numerous points at the same time. This complexity could be counterproductive due to the objective difficulty of keeping in mind the structure of each area and, consequently, making it very easy to forget about the paths not yet explored.
All this is "aggravated" by the choice of not allowing the rapid movement between one breach and another. These, in fact, will not all be connected to each other but will require the use of a consumable object called "Synchronizer of Gaps" to unlock the fast travel. However, these will be present in an extremely reduced number compared to that of checkpoints, making it necessary to choose which ones to connect and which to leave out. The only breaches that will allow teleportation even without the use of a synchronizer will be those that will appear once some bosses have been defeated and that of our real starting point, the Observatory.
In all this complexity (perhaps even too excessive) the not so excessive variety of enemies to face is a bit turn upside down.. Although these are divided into very different types, we have a revival of the same type of enemy at times excessive (to the point of finding yourself, even in the same room, for example fighting with the same enemy six times). Unfortunately, in a similar way, also all the bosses present in the game (except for the three main ones and the final one) are reinterpretations with some colors changed or with some additional moves of enemies normally present in some areas.
Longevity
Hellpoint has an excellent longevity (classic of games of this genre) and an equally excellent propensity for replayability. To complete the title by defeating all the bosses and exploring as much as possible you will need around 16 hours to complete your journey (although in actuality you will have to recover at least 100% of the data to reach the two main endings, which can also be done in less time). Given the vastness of the explorable areas and the secret areas it will not be easy to find everything at the first try, so you may also want to replay the adventure to discover every detail of the lore or simply to discover the other endings. Finally we would like to point out the possibility of playing cooperatively not only online, but also offline in split screen.
Technical Department
And here we are, unfortunately, at the real weakness of Hellpoint, which negatively affects the entire gaming experience. First of all, from a graphic point of view, the title offers an acceptable general glance (albeit not comparable to other triple A titles) but going to focus attention on environmental elements and it will not be easy to notice textures in poor resolution and other various technical inaccuracies. This turns out to be a shame not only for the aesthetic purpose in general, but also because it devalues a good artistic design of creatures, enemies, NPCs and levels.
However, if you are not particularly demanding in terms of graphics, they are relatively negligible problems; are by no means negligible, however, all those problems related to optimization and game code. Let's start first from the framerate, which almost never manages to remain stable even on PlayStation 4 Pro (especially in the most excited situations or in certain areas). We also encountered an additional problem on this console: before starting to play we strongly advise you to deactivate the super sampling mode (if you have it activated), this is because it causes significant drops in FPS reaching real "historical lows".
The problems related to the framerate should not be present, or in any case to a lesser extent, on PC. But this doesn't save this platform from the plethora of bugs and glitches that plague Hellpoint either. These are all kinds of problems: from enemies who start compulsively spinning in place or who decide to "get it over with" in the nearest precipice, to even bosses who penetrate inside walls, will stop suddenly attack you (probably preferring love to war) or that they will defend you from their attacks with their own appendages. Still talking about bosses, we would like to point out that the one linked to the "secret ending" would currently seem not to appear in its area (thus preventing you from completing).
Another problem is that related to the imput lag, which will not only affect your reaction times in proportion to the FPS drops in certain situations, but could make you find yourself launching more attacks than you should if you press the attack button too frequently.. Finally, we advise you to avoid falling deaths (enemy known very well by fans of the genre) as the game will end up in most cases by making your remains appear in the exact place of death, rather than on the edge of your last jump (preventing you so to recover them). Fortunately, at least the audio sector manages to save itself, as regards music and sound effects since technically we cannot actually speak of dubbing.
Hellpoint managed to amaze us in many ways, but at the same time left us disappointed for others. Thanks to the topics covered and the narrative style, all connected to a valid gameplay (but not without flaws) and enriched by unique elements, the title manages to involve and entertain, as well as favoring replayability and cooperative play. However, everything is affected on several levels by a poorly optimized technical sector, especially on consoles, and full of gaps that would have required a greater study.
► Hellpoint is an RPG-Adventure-indie game developed by Cradle Games and published by tinyBuild Games for Linux, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam and Nintendo Switch, the game was released on 30/07/2019
