6 Hour completion time (did not 100 percent)

Wow. I just finished this game like 5 minutes ago, and all I have to say is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WOW play this game! IDK if i live under a rock or what but I don't understand how I haven't heard people raving about this yet. I don't even know where to start, but I will try and break it down as best I can. Here it goes...

The first thing I noticed about the game was the graphics. From the opening cut scene I was floored. I know a lot of this depends on what your computer can handle, but this game was stunning and my sister in law came in to watch a few times and thought it was a movie (she isn't really a gamer but you get the point). Throughout the game you are taken through a visual journey of greys and blacks and shadows contrasted by bright and vivid colors and moments of joy or happiness. Some of the cutscenes even had me guessing "was that guy live action?"

Close to visuals as the first thing to notice was audio, and oh freaking boy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Play this game with good headphones or a great surround sound system please. You will NOT regret it. Voices whisper in your ears throughout the game, playing on your sanity, and they make this game really come alive. They actually help you in fights when you cant see, which is a really cool mechanic, and have some really insightful and deep things to say. The music is powerful and perfectly executed (except for a few places where you can hear it loop) and the voice acting is phenomenal! Not just the main character, but from everyone involved in telling her story, kudos to the voice actors.

Next up is gameplay. Initially the game can feel a little slow. Senuas walking speed is pretty lousy, but once you find the sprint button (there is no button tutorial, you just have to figure everything out by trial and error for the whole game) it speeds up a bit. By the time I was into the story, roughly 30 minutes, I had forgotten about the slow pace, and found it matched the mood of the story. A lot of the game revolves around looking for illusions and hidden things, so going slow feels natural for that too. The combat system is dope as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The game tells you that if you die so many times you lose all progress, which really helps make the game feel real and the stakes are high for learning on the fly. Each enemy has different tactics to defeat, and as you grow stronger, the simple addition of one or two enemies makes a fight a real challenge. The bosses are all super cool, and have fun mechanics. Even just fighting "mobs" feels fun, and never felt like grinding or tiresome. The puzzles are clever, and different enough each time to keep them interesting, but follow a nice theme so once you figure it out, the rest still make sense that follow.

The story, was great from the get-go, but after finishing this bad boy, like.... ♥♥♥. Beautifully written, amazingly revealed to you, and perfectly acted, this story makes you look deep into yourself. You are confronted with mental health, the nature of your reality, and the permanence of death, loss, and grief in a beautiful and real way. I feel for Senua, and for the struggles she faced. This woman is a goddess and a warrior and she kicks so much ass while struggling and remaining relatable and human.
The Shrimpy Effect: While the game never made me cry or get teary, it did make me feel and think in ways that I really appreciated. This is not a "sad" crying game, it is a "sad" intellectually and spiritually game, and I loved it! It did not have the Shrimpy Effect at all in the ways that I tend to use the term, but I did have something else that I loved just as much. The depth and realness of the story and its characters was profound and enjoyable.

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10/10 Shrimps