Hellpoint
Well, where do I begin with Hellpoint? Developed by Cradle Games, Hellpoint is an action-RPG with a Souls-like design, and one that we have been excited for since first finding out about it. But instead of a game that is punishingly difficult egging us on to keep going - we were plagued with glitches that made it frustratingly difficult to the point of being off-putting from the outset.
Stranded on Irid Novo, a derelict space-station, you must fight off tough enemies as you uncover what has happened - and why you’re stuck here. The station orbits a black-hole, and your positioning in relation to said black hole affects the difficulty of enemies you’ll come across, as well as triggering events such as boss encounters. There’s so much going on on board the Irid Novo that encourages you to explore and just see what you will find, in order to delve deeper and deeper into the lore.
Hellpoint is gorgeous to look at with well-designed areas and beautiful colour schemes. Locations are nice and varied, with some areas having a grotesque appearance, while others are devastatingly beautiful in their decay. The world is definitely one of the high-points of the game, with tonnes of detail and thought going into many of the artistic choices. The mysterious nature of the game enhances your desire to explore, whilst the looping, inter-connected layout destroys that slightly due to frequently being confused about where you’re going and what you’re supposed to be doing. Thankfully, there are checkpoints - known as Breaches - dotted around the map, and these can be utilised for fast travel however to do so you must use Breach Sychronizers (which are limited in supply) to connect, and this just makes things a real headache. This is one thing that would have made a real improvement to the game, and its pacing, just having the ability to have these already set up and able to Fast Travel to any previously accessed points with ease. Instead you’re left with a lot of going back and forward for things, never mind the sheer amount of time spent doing this anyway, just to get your bearings.
Combat is decent enough, with it being further Souls-like in style with very challenging enemies that will require you to adapt to each of their fighting styles. Mixing light and heavy attacks with plenty of dodging and parrying feels just like a FromSoftware title, and feels surprisingly robust considering the other issues we have run into whilst playing. There’s a wide variety of weapons as well as different upgrades or modifications at your disposal to help tailor your combat to what works best for you. The extreme challenge that bosses provide gives a rewarding feel whenever you successfully take one down - and with enemies respawning after a cool down instead of just being triggered upon entering/exiting an area, it means that any backtracking that’s required doesn’t feel as detrimental to you as it probably would have, considering the absolute labyrinth that makes up the Irid Novo.
If you’re struggling whilst playing this alone, you can always bring in a second player via local co-op or online to assist you. In our experience at least, this just emphasised the various glitches and issues at hand - with each player witnessing the other fading in and out of existence, as well as frequently getting stuck in walls/sinking into floors, and excessive lagginess and frame rate drops. These were all super common whilst playing online co-op (as well as when alone, albeit at a slightly lesser scale), and aside from the few laughs we got out of it at first, it put us off more than anything.
Hellpoint is a game that we truly struggled to play. The debilitating glitches combined with a shockingly poor fast travel system made for a frustrating time, which was hugely disappointing as I wanted to love this game so much. Maybe in the future I’ll revisit it, when things have improved and glitches aren’t as apparent, but for now it’s just too unbearable to fight through. The art style, as well as the world itself and the enemies within are well designed and I love how everything looks, so I’m hopeful for the issues to be resolved so I can get a chance to enjoy Hellpoint for the game it is trying to be.
In the end, we decided to give Hellpoint the Collecting Asylum rating of 6/10.
Have you played Hellpoint yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to tinyBuild for the Hellpoint Xbox One review code!
