The game therefore focuses exclusively on battles that are quite challenging, although the combat system itself is very austere. But it works pretty well. Your character has a sword and the only kind of attack that shadows everyone in her path. A nice bonus, however, is that the sword reflects missiles and they can also hit the attackers directly. It worked well in Star Wars and here as well, and it is spectacular. In addition to the shooters, you are threatened by smaller bosses, who are sometimes difficult to approach because they create a healing zone around them. Throughout the game, you will encounter only a few variations of base units with minor variations. For example, they sometimes have a flamethrower or transform into a few smaller invaders. In principle, however, they have similar abilities and appearance.
An essential aid in the fight against shooting and teleporting enemies is a lightning - dash. As a result, you can get your opponent on the body or avoid hits. At a later stage of the game, this is the only way to move around the small islands. There are platforms where you use your ability to move across the abyss. It is one of the few variegated sites you go through. Occasionally you still find traps with fire or lightning, but otherwise you will not be surprised. The environments are not ugly, quite the contrary, they are quite interesting. However, they look very similar to enemies, and most of them are just cosmetic design changes.
Your character collects runes on the way. There are nine of them, but you only use two in combat, which you choose and replace as needed on the areas with red symbols. They are quite densely placed in and also serve as checkpoints. Unfortunately, the runes are mostly uninteresting. Descriptions, while promising quite a variety of attacks on which you use your energy, but in combat have a similar effect and are drab. But you can still use some of this and it has the right effect. For example, a series of strikes where you bounce from one enemy to another is particularly effective against odds. And slowing down time allows you to comfortably hit selected victims.
That's all you can count on. The heroine does not develop, except for the garments, does not collect anything, cannot change her gear or apply any advanced tactics. In short, you only sweep the sword, sometimes you help rune and mainly practically constantly moving, so that you missed missiles, which you do not always manage to reflect. And so it goes to the final, where you fight your way after some four hours. And it is nothing special, the feeling of satisfaction does not come and at least the final animation could be good.
The basis of gameplay is not bad, but rich threshing with walking on paths and small sectors to be cleaned of all enemies is not enough for fun. The process of killing almost the same adversaries very quickly becomes monotonous and unrelenting. It would require more diverse threats, greater environmental variability, perhaps even a few NPCs with a few words and tasks, collecting prey, and the possibility of replacing or at least upgrading equipment. Then it would be more juicy and not sterile. Given the poor content, even a relatively short game time is sufficient. You can go through it in one evening and you won't even remember Helheim during the next.
We have already indicated a good visual and in this respect we can only read the mentioned small variability of the environment, or it would like more details. The music is good, but we can imagine something more dynamic about this game, the sounds are quite austere. The automatic camera often does not provide an ideal view. Sometimes it doesn't manage to respond in time or simply doesn't try to change the angle, so you don't see what you have in front of you. In a game where you have to react quickly to surrounding stimuli, this is a fundamental mistake. It would be advisable to switch multiple cameras or manually move the camera with the mouse or lever. By now we are getting to control. Helheim is a PC game without the support of the mouse, which is noticeably missing here. You don't need a lot of keys to control it, but it's more convenient to play with a gamepad.
Helhem is a title with poor storyline, content and possibilities. The gaming system could work satisfactorily in certain circumstances, but there would have to be greater variability in each area. Helheim is like a gnawing bone - it smells but has nothing to feed, so you quickly lose interest and rather look for something tastier and more hearty.
