Recent reviews by WassySK

It feels like devs have never made a game before. Each aspect alone looks great but they don't cooperate with each other.



I still don't know if devs wanted to do stealth game because how they implemented it to the combat focused part of the game is truly bizarre. When crouching behind an enemy you can perform assasination. So when you get into a fight with someone, the other guy can literally rush to your back , quickly press crouch and then E to assassinate and whoop you´re dead. You don't even have to be somewhat sneaky, you can clearly be seen at any time. The only single one condition to perform and assasination is to be crouched and at least approximately be behind opponents back.

On the contrary to assasination being too overpowered there is the fact that some characters have hour long assassinating animation, so he takes time beating someone up while the other guys will get to you raining down arrows and beating you. Sometimes you die before finishing animation. But there seems to be another bug or feature that the enemy is dead somewhere in the middle of animation so they dont save him by killing you.

Combat

On the other hand, if the opponent does not know about the assasination mechanic abuse and they will decide to fight you, here comes something that makes you think if devs even played it. It is stamina that is used for literally everything, even for crouching. You can't crouch if you don't have stamina, like cant do squat or what. ( although i have been told this might be a bug , but you don't know in this game what is a feature and what is bug). There are many things that can deplete your stamina instantly, like Robin´s flash that does not only blind you but instantly get rid of your stamina or also some of John´s hammer attacks. So you can't run , you can't attack back so instinctively you try to block and as soon as you get some stamina back here comes another Johns hammer smack and you are again on 0.

Tracking is largely inconsistent, sometimes you manage to turn 180 slashing your enemy down and sometimes foe does
move like 0.01 cm to right and you instantly miss.

Anytime you turn back and choose to run from the fight you got like 50-50% chance your character will be turning so slow for some reason and of course then instantly deplete your stamina.

Balance is off. Some abilities cleary don't belong to supposedly stealth game. Such as Robin´s arealy EXPLODING arrow and Johns arealy EXPLODING granade. Than we got the useless one, Hunter´s going invisible is more like going slightly transparent, you can clearly see her. And its useless in PvE cuz AI is so stupid to not see you most of the time anyway and in PvP you can see her as i mentioned.

PvE and AI opponents

They are just annoyance most of the time. They don't oppose any real threat. Everyone is going stealth for a few secs at the beginning then it becomes a deathmatch. What does AI do in this part is to be behind corner while you are chasing enemy of course, notice you and chase you through whole map while you are fighting opponents and they are so stupidly determined to go after one they see first even if enemy does run clearly in front of their sight they still do chase you. Only when you give them time and stand in front of them after a few seconds does the code finally tell them to change the target.


Tooke is best

Maps and enviroment does look spectatular and is clearly made for hardcore team based stealth game. Not this thing whatever it is.



Good looking maps and few fun moments does not save this game that doesn't know what genre it wants to be. At some parts it's clear that different parts of the developer team were working on totally different mechanics and never spoke with other teams on how to actually make them work together.

Great innovative , often confusing gameplay. Confusing in good way of course. Gets even better when you smoke joint before playing it. Pitty it is so short, took me something under 3 hours to finish it but not a sec of pointless fillers, ever single moment was great.

Best one out there !

WAAAGH GUD !

After cca 70h played only with keyboard and mouse i have to review it. Despite overall positive feeling i have to start with cons as there are things new player should be aware of.


- Exploration

Hellpoin is fairly large game and exploration is at least 30% of playing time but it so unrewarding and dull. There are many istances where level desing it done well to encourage you to look there and there, sometimes they also throw little puzzle at you but after you get there the item what will you find will be: 1. Duplicate item you have already found few. And it even happens in puzzles which that type appear only once. I remeber once after finishing puzzle located in the final parts of game i got same item as i found just lying on the floor in early game. 2. Axioms ( game´s currency for leveling up ) which are pretty useless coz in the most scenarios you can find 100-900 of these but what for when to lvl up i need 20 000.

- Platforming

There are load of platforming segments but platforming itself is exremely simple. Just jump and land. If you will miss plaform 0,1 mm further you will fall , there is no edge grabbing ,nothing. And most of the time it leads to death as if there is no death pit, platforms are so hight you just cant survive it with some character builds. Cherry on top , prize at the end is the item you have already found.

- First ending

I am not talking here about overall story but there is ending which is really simple to get without even having beaten all bosses and explored all areas. And you dont know that end is coming. It is so anticlimatic you dont want to believe it is the end. It is just modest dialog in the place that look like garage , at this part player is expectig twist. Not the end. When u will finish the game , there is no asking you if you wanna go to NG+. They will yeet you right there and will take some collectibles from you which were pain to find as i mentioned exploring becames really repetetive.

- Bugs

Yeah , there is still load of them. Updates every now and than but u know , its just too much. Biggest shame is that multiplayer is hardly working now. Second player do not have animations , he is naked , flying or stuff like that happening. From PvPing you get nothing, not even those measly Axioms. I tried PvE , enemies werent losing hp despite i was hitting them. After dying my camera just stuck there and i had to alt-shift-delete. But i havent crashed once, thats good i guess. Devs are releasing patch every week, i believe they are working hard.

- Tutorial

Except that right mouse is for attacking , space is for jumping game doesnt tell you much. Which is good but there are instances where it at least could warn you. For example there is this uderworld where if you die you lose everything you collected there. And there is no way of knowing that unless you check your inventory to see you are missing it.



+ game universe

I didnt expected it to be so deep as it is. I mean it is not abyssal zone depth type of lore as in dark souls but every character you meet has his purpose , his reasson to be there and mostly his goal. You can help NPCs ,you dont have to. At the end it leads to many different endings. Which except for the first one are really good. That one is probably for speedrunners i dunno.

+ Story

Story type of hell let loose on space station is excatly my cup of tea. Plus it is combined with paralell universes ideology. It adds more to already good story. Some characters are even aware of the fact there is same thing with few alterations happening right now in oher universes. Some are obliviouse to it, it adds such diversity. Multiple endings , even multiple intros which depend how did you finished your last playtrought. I havent seen this yet in other games so it really suprised me in good way. Dialogs or monologues are interesing and well written. Some tell you where to find good stuff or how to get somewhere. Some of them expands the story to next act. Some tells you about the lore. Some of them want to abuse you , some them want to be abused. I feel like hellpoint have 5 writters and one programmer, again referring to those bugs.

+ Combat

Someone actually finaly did it. They made combat fluid and fun, can compare it to dark souls. Althought , enemies can get cheesed in most of scenarios but at the end you are the one benefiting from this. I playd as heavy weapon guy and kept smacking monsters to the floor, it was fun. There is jump button , and its real jump button in contrast with dark souls where you can jump only while running. You can combine jumping with your fighting style. Its fun until you get to platforming as i menioned higher.

+ Atmosphere

Great, walking in cold iron corridors of Irind Novo is so immersive. Its dark and depressive and i love it. Altough if i am mentioning station itself there are some typical " only in game" desing stuff. Like, why are there falling platforms like in Indiana Jones movie on this space station. I understand it is part of a puzzle but still it makes me giggle a bit.

+ Builds

Big weapons , daggers, mace , scythe , swords, guns , artillery , mage weapons , catalysts. Fire damage , dark damage , radioactive damage, physical damage , explosive , heavy armor , light armor , magic armor...etc. The amount of builds you can do is something this game definitely does not have to be ashamed about.

+ And now they added PvP Arena with prizes day before christmas. What a great gift.


-+ Bosses

After few bosses i found out that all of them can be beaten by circling around them with a shield.

-+ Shield

Shield with 100% physical resistance or others makes game so easy. Even if there is some attack you cant shield game do allow you to dodge while having shield up, so even when you miss dodge you will not get damaged badly. I am not sure if dodgeing while having shield up is a bug or feature.

-+ Getting from point A to B when you already explored them.

There are no enought breach synchronizers ( thingy that lets you teleport from bonfire to bonfire ) I meant there are load of them but they are usually clustered at one place so I instinctively use it one bonfires in that location that are already too close to each other so there is no need for it and than i dont have it when i need it.

-+ Bonfires

Sometimes there are two bonfires centimeters next to each other, sometimes there is none where it should be.

-+ 2 handed weapons controversy

You cant two hand weapon in this game which is no biggie. It expands the things you can hold as there is useles to be empty handed. But, if you really want to do that heavy guy big weapon build ,pity, he will hold it with just one hand no matter how heavy it is.

Saving

I understand devs dont want us so save cheese before every fight but game auto saves almost never and when u die, u can only reload the save way back . You will lose not only understandalbe stuff like all itmes but even the quests you took are gone , you have to go around all houses and ask for same quests again. No plasuere in that. Plus walking is just pure boredom. Quests , enemies, points of interest can be far apart so all you do is just walk. This game consumes too much time for too little of pleasure or enjoyment in return.

Hackers are not banned permanently. After some time u will get unbanned and can cheat once again. Then gen ban again and keep reapeting the cycle.

Whole dlc is great , i think the best part is spectacular soundtrack. If not all aspects of the dlc would fit you the soundtrack is what makes this worth it.

Its about jumping. Back than I could not believe game focusing on pressing space bar will be this enjoyable. I usually play more action games so i bought it thinking i may relax playing this. I was wrong. The need to be the best drove me mad eventually. Constant desire to be on top of the leaderboards. You will get adrenaline playing this for sure. Plus the well made soundtrack that differs from location to location, adds a bit to already great atmosphere. Can not forget to mention Workshop, which is already full of great courses. As kid i playd floor is lava only few times , it wasnt the catcher here for me. Bought it blind , got marvelous experience.


A few cons -

Story (at least now) is none. There are comics and few shows with good guys fighting bad guys which for now, sadly serves only as marketing. In game itself you play as toys inspired by these heroes . You are not saving planet or fighting anyone , only trying to be fastest and dont fall into lava.

From time to time fps decrease , probably caused by lava particles.

All this fun and no dull makes jack a jolly boy.