[Review] Hellpoint - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Cradle Games
Published By: Tinybuild Games
Categories: Soulslike, Action
Release Date: 02.25.21

Hellpoint is Dark Souls mixed with Event Horizon. So Dark Souls in Space!

To properly explain this, Dark Souls is a hard series. It’s a methodical series. You can’t just go in and expect to plow through the games. Think about everything, be patient, and you’ll eventually prevail. Story is sparse, but you slowly piece together what’s given as you play. It’s more lore focused than anything. What your motivation is however, is to find out what happened in this space colony, the Irid Novo, to make what was one thriving, to what it is now.

Plan out how you’re equipped. Have too much and your stats don’t match, you’re gonna be awful slow. But have too little and you might be a tad defenseless against the brutal attacks, some being a one hit kill if not properly protected. You’ll stop at rifts every now and then, and these are your safe spaces. You can heal, just take a rest, or level up. General stats like stamina, health, strength, how much you can hold, and then specific stats that benefit how your weapons work with your build. While more and more experience is required each time you upgrade your stats, it’s never quite that hard to earn it, though if you fall in battle, you’ll lose it all if not taken to a rift. If you can reach to where you died without failing again, you can just pick what you lost right back up. Plan things out correctly and this is a great way to grind as enemies respawn after death.

Small quick weapons, large heavy ones, guns, a variety of equipment. With how you level, you can play the game how you want. I wish you could customize your character before starting the game though. Your character is an emaciated, bald humanlike creature. At least you can cover that all up soon.

The general feel of the game has some creepy aspects, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call this a horror game, just one to keep you on your toes and a little nervous the whole time. Environments are dark, empty, worn down. Full of disgusting abominations out to kill you. Add a sci-fi flavor to this, to differentiate it from the overused olden times areas. It can be colorful when needed, but there’s a lot of black. The colors seem more highlighted and outspoken as a result. That said, it can be *too* dark at times, as to make things a bit hard to see…especially bottomless pits at times.

There’s aren’t exactly the only flaws the game has. Much like the Souls games on consoles, Hellpoint does not perform the best. It’s a tad muddy and seems to constantly run at less than 30fps, with drops. It’s playable, but I’d be a liar to say it’s not constantly there. There also seems to be a bit of an issue with hit detections, as at one point, my attacks would just flow right though an enemy without them taking damage. On top of all of that, I’d occasionally run into a bug that made pressing the Y button in game, the button to interact or pick up items unusable, requiring me to kill myself to reset everything back to normal.

Hellpoint has online multiplayer! You can leave notes for other players online, to give hints to trick them. You can also invade other players, just to pester them. On top of all of this, you can play co-operatively with someone. It’s a bit tricky to invite players though. You need to stand by a wall and place a handprint. I feel this could have been much clearer as I was standing in a safe area and the invite button just did nothing. It’s also in your best interest to be in similar parts of the game to play together, as to my attempts, it wouldn’t just warp you.

All that aside, if you like Dark Souls, you’re going to like Hellpoint. It practically a clone, even copying it’s lesser aspects. To non fans, it can be frustrating, and you can get lost on the occasion as these kind of games don’t really explain much. There is a sense of satisfaction to solving and succeeding in your trials however.