Hellsinger is a typical FPS shooter, and in terms of games understanding – eight levels, six weapons, and the pretty same bosses (except for the last) might not sound like a big thing, and it is a small game, and there is nothing to say. The uniqueness of Hellsinger comes from the fact that it is a member of this newly formed subgenre for FPS games called rhythm FPS, where you combine the beat system with ripping and tearing the demon’s flesh until it is dead.
Though in concept, it might sound like a restrictive thing, shooting and punching and doing stuff on beat only. Hellsinger has a slight difference, but you generally do better the more you’re on the beat. That means you do specific things on time rather than when it’s ready or when you can. But FPS games and heavier music, especially metal and more, have gone hand in hand quite well In the last little while. When you finally get on the rhythm and start dealing more damage as you shoot on the beat, dispatch monsters faster, better, more substantial – it’s not only fun, it feels incredible.
The game starts with simple beats, but as you’re doing better and better, more of the music comes in, with the multiplier going up and up.
The most significant advantage of the game – The Music
Developers pulled in quite the roster for the game, having Two Feathers as the songwriters for the whole game and pulling in vocalists from different bands. Some are the Lamb Of God and even the famous System of the Down, but others are not as popular. Maybe this game will convince you to become a fan of metal. Some may think developers pulled or made the game to pull in little-known bands.
Game Visuals
May you ask yourself – Doom Eternal? Without the names and different stuff on the screen, the game could be confused for Doom. That is both a good thing and a question if you are not into the homage. But level design is fantastic and awe-inspiring, running on unity. We can tell you some problems with movement already, but again, it’s a smaller-budget game compared to Doom. The visuals are inspired by Doom Eternal and Doom especially as well. It’s breathtaking to see, and players don’t mind it at all because Doom was awesome. It brought in wonderful music and, of course, excellent gameplay. And just because someone wants to emulate it, they succeeded if that was their plan.
As for the story we mentioned – the game itself is short, and the presentation is also not the best; the levels don’t have a significant connection, and the cutscenes are very budget. Regardless, adding more effort to the visual part of the game would be a good idea. Speaking of the story, all we can say is that it’s unforgettable and suitable in modern gaming and that that’s all you should know. One crucial moment, the game ending is a cliffhanger for the immediate next game, so it’s a sequel baiting. So let’s see if they could push another game, and if they do, it will probably be better, and fans want to see another game.
So going back to the storyline, your name is The Unknown, and you lost your voice, and you can’t say a thing since the arch devil has stolen your voice, and along with it, you kill bosses and get it back. But though you don’t get any new powers from it, we don’t know why they bothered with it.
Gameplay
As we already said, it takes quite a bit of inspiration from Doom Eternal, and the glory kills are there. The dashing, slashing, killing, etc., is present in-game. Overall the game feels like Doom 2016, where they put excellent mechanics and enjoyable gameplay, but it’s not quite the level of game interaction with all your arsenal or all your skills. You can finish the game with one weapon, and it will feel fine. However, in Doom Eternal, you had to switch and use specific weapons to defeat certain enemies. Otherwise, you would get killed quickly, which is not entirely about Hellsinger.
There are some examples, you can set up a spawn killing some of them, but still, enemies will try to damage you if you don’t deal with them quickly enough. The other part of the game comes from Bullets Per Minute, or at least a similar to it. The difference between BPM and Hellsinger is that in Hellsinger, it’s casual or rather more casual-friendly with better music. But the thing is that you can shoot without the beats, and that’s a simple, friendly approach. If you are not used to that sort of gameplay where you are genuinely locked in shooting on the beat like in BPM. In Hellsinger, you can continue piercing and slashing your foes with reduced damage, which works for people unfamiliar with this type of gameplay.
So you can play Hellsinger as a typical game and still make progress. Since you managed to slay demons on the beat, you are learning, advancing, and in time, you will do. This solution brings us to the general, outstanding, and intensifying gameplay. The problem in Hellsinger is that once you’ve done with the main story and gotten all the extra sigils or the challenge rooms (the tournaments), what else is there to keep getting a better score? You can finish the game in 15 hours or less, even with the highest difficulty. So there isn’t that much replayability, though the music is fantastic.
Animations
In Hellsinger, animations lag or don’t feel snappy enough, hindering you from getting into the rhythm, especially with the sword. Anyway, you may notice that in-game animations design are fabulous.
Speaking about Hellsinger’s price: It was only $30 on the release date, but it’s fair enough since such a genre of rhythm FPS is quite rare nowadays. The fact is, Hellsinger has the audio library in the game as well as in the codex. Music alone would be worth at least half of the game’s price, and it just simply has beautiful, challenging gameplay that is unique, so it’s incredible to have. It’s lovely to see good games from smaller developers coming out in recent times.