Members are useful things. They make life easier when you want to move around, pick up or take things off and throw them at people you don’t like. No? Well, no, maybe not the last one, but you have to admit that if you could remove your arm and use it to reach the places that are currently inaccessible, it would be somewhat convenient. In Helheim Hassle, the slightly crazy puzzle I’ve been playing lately, you can do just that. You can also remove your head. This creates its own questions about their mortality, which we hope to answer in a moment. However, the most pressing question at the moment is whether it is good.
So to be a Viking is to action and a lot of things. All these downright bloody actions and brawls lead to one thing; your place in Walhalla. Walhalla is not an average sky. If you don’t like confront, you are on your ass because you will do a lot of it forever. If you don’t have psychopathic tendencies and maybe you want to rest a little when you Pass away, or better yet, don’t get hacked to passed away; being a Viking is probably not the best vocation.
In Helheim, your protagonist Björn is confronted with this situation. in his matter, it seems like it’s a good idea to run in the opposite direction when the giants hit. What is less of a good idea falls into passed away. Even worse, killing a bear on the way down means that he defeated him in a one-handed action and he has to go to the Eternal battlefield anyway. All he wants to do is go to Helheim. If Viking hell is a better choice than Viking heaven, your life is pretty tragic.
Helheim Hassle is cross genre in the best way. First of all, this is a Puzzle/platform game. You have to use Bjorn’s disassembled body parts to throw switches, assemble pressure cushions and surpass a number of other clever puzzles. Bjorn’s body can’t go anywhere, so you have to throw his limbs and head to reach these areas in his place.
If it were just that premise, Helheim Hassle would be funny and new, but not necessarily enough to warrant huge reviews. What really sets this title apart are its Point-and-Click elements. Well, it’s not a Point-and-Click adventure, but some of the puzzles you face seem to require a bit of the same type of thinking that you would apply to one of them, which really increases the experience as a whole. Add a brilliant story and you have a nice little package.
Helheim Hassle is a very complex game. Not in the sense of a visual novel, but rather in the way the Point-and-Click adventures of the old days depended on a good story to carry it. The characters you meet are friendly and the storyline is funny. If you have a dark sense of humor, I really think you’ll get a kick out of the antics you and your Pesto boyfriend will do to each other.
The characters of Helheim Hassle are very well written. Whether they are bureaucratic leprechauns or egomaniacal gods, there is a lot to fall in love with. There is also a door that speaks. She’s less friendly, but being the guardian of the Underworld will make you salty at best, so there’s a good reason. After all, on this point you do not expect the obvious. This game is Norse Mythology, if it were updated. Odin, for example, is a bit of a dick, no matter what timeline you classify him in, but in the current he has taken up a fairly familiar hobby.
My biggest (and only real) Bugbear is the control system. It’s a mix of WASD commands and arrows, and it can feel a bit cumbersome at times. The WASD keys are designed for your movement and that of your various attachments, while the arrows select the attachments that you want to separate and use. The problem is that it is quite easy to forget what is moving.
Many times I did the wrong thing because the wrong Björn piece was chosen. It’s not a big deal because you can’t Pass away in Helheim, but it feels a little awkward and awkward trying to get everything flowing, which can sometimes make what should be a really fun experience frustrating. To make a fair comment, I played with the keyboard. I think the controls on a Pad would probably be more comfortable, and it’s also a console version, so I’m trying not to hate them too much.
