Hellblade was average in your opinion.
Quite frankly, you're talking out your ass. With metacritic ratings of 81% on PS4 and 88% on Xbox One, Hellblade was far above average.
And I'll tell you what; that average game brought me to tears, in a way no other game ever has. I have never, in my 35 years of life, cried from a video game. The closest that got me choked up a bit was Max Payne 2 when Mona died, and no real tears flowed. When Arthur died in RDR 2 - that came close; but still, no real tears. Hellblade is one of the most moving, gripping games ever created.
The criticisms about the combat are, for the most part, valid. That said, Hellblade didn't contain any tutorials; if you were a gamer, you figured it out quickly. And if you were a gamer, you quickly realised that the combat had a lot more nuisance to it than first meets the eye. Even at its best points, the combat criticisms are valid. However, I strongly believe there are many people who played Hellblade, and didn't realise they could do a whole lot more in the combat, than just swing a sword wildly and block, and that might be due to the fact that the game lacked any sort of tutorial. There were many different animations for dodging and attacking, heavy attacks, light attacks, rolling and focus (when everything slowed down). It required moments of precise timing to properly block certain attacks too, leaving you with an advantage for a counter attack. Even when you were knocked down and we're about to die, it required your active input to get back up and push through the pain, just as it would in real life. That's actually not something I've seen done in any other game, outside of some QTE cinematic. The animations were smooth, fluid and very responsive. I've seen many people on Gaf complain about being hit from behind in combat. Not realising that the voices gave you prompts/warnings about incoming attacks, and when to dodge. I've seen many people here didn't even know that "Focus" was a thing in combat, that slowed down time. The fact that they made the combat so nuisanced, and were able to use the voices in-place of a traditional HUD or visual combat system was absolutely brilliant. It became very evident to me that many (not all) of the people who complained about certain aspects of the combat are simply terrible gamers, who lack any deductive reasoning or awareness. Because certain elements were not obviously explained to them, like popup pictures in a children's book, they never realised the depth or scope. They gamers who have to be spoon-fed, to get anything of worth out of a video game. Can't blame them though...the industry has spoilt many of us.
That said, there are still valid complaints about the combat, and the puzzles. But get this, the puzzles aren't the shining point of Hellblade, nor were they intended to be. The story is the shining point of Hellblade. The acting. The voice acting. The writing. The pacing. The boss fights. The adrenaline in high combat/stress situations - those are the things Hellblade is about, and Ninja Theory absolutely nailed those elements. In fact, it nailed them so good that the game has above average reviews, by reviewers and users alike. So yeah, you're talking out your ass!
So, respectfully, when it comes to this game, I'll take my opinion over yours, thank you.
