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 <!DOCTYPE html>
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    <title>Combat Hellblade</title>
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        <h3 class="textCenter" style="padding-left: 6%; text-shadow: 1px 1px white; font-size: 1.2em;">HELLBLADE</h3>
      </div>
    </header>

    <nav>
      <ul>
        <li>
          <a href="Video Games.html"> <-- Video Games</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeIntro.html">Intro</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeStory.html">Story</a>
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        <li>
          <a href="hellbladePsychosis.html">Psychosis</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeCombat.html">Combat</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeVisuals.html">Visuals</a>
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    <main>
      <h1 class="textCenter" style="font-size: 25px; padding: 5px;">Combat ~ Fighting & Enemies</h1>
      <p>
        Fighting in Hellblade consists of various attacks and defenses against enemies and bosses throughout the game. Senua’s sword is her only weapon and while in combat, the player uses square for fast strike, circle for melee attack, and triangle for heavy strike. Defenses include blocking with R1 and evading attacks with x. One unique part of the combat is Senua’s ability to “focus” using R2. Focusing allows the player to slow down time, see past illusions, and get a good number of hits on the opponent. If the player is attacked multiple times, they can pick themselves back up by holding up L3 and spamming circle but if they are attacked further and can’t get up, the game cuts to a scene of black veins crawling up Senua’s arm, representing her delusions of darkness trying to reach her.
      </p>

      <p>
        Hellblade has many different enemies that have different methods of attack and difficulty to defeat. The main enemies Senua encounters are the Northmen/Vikings who appear humanoid but are slightly altered with big masks and black smoke surrounding them. The first and most easily defeatable of the Northmen is the Warrior, who throws basic sword attacks and blocks. Next is the Protector, who does more damage than the Warrior and uses a mace to attack and sometimes will have a shield to block. The Keep Guard is a lot bigger in size, has a giant ax, and chargers towards and swings at Senua. They require strategic evading and better timing to defeat as blocking has no effect on the ax. Lastly is the Revenant, who has a pair of axes that are either swung or thrown at Senua. Both the warrior and Revenant can enter a shadow form for some time where they are invulnerable unless Senua attacks while focusing. Bosses include Surtr who can manipulate fire, Valravn who uses visual illusions to throw off opponents, Garm a giant dog-like beast, and Hela the goddess of Hel.
      </p>

      <video controls style="width: 70%; padding-bottom: 2px;" class="imgCenter">
        <source src="assets/Hellblade combat.m4v" alt="A video of me attacking an enemy in Hellblade as Senua. Senua, a girl with a dark leather tanktop and pants weilds a sword at a human-sized crow-like figure with a skull on it's head who can stand or teleport fly in a gust of feathers."/>
      </video>

      <p>
        For the actual making of the combat, the team first started working with a single attack and from there did fast, heavy, and charge attacks along with blocking, evading, and reactions. Battle Engine, the program they used, allowed them to link combat with animation, reaction, visual & sound effects, and other pad inputs. A big part of the combat is the directional attacks which were made possible with a third person over the shoulder camera view. This also opened up directional blocking and evading. Much of the combat is guided through the voices that instruct Senua when emenies are behind her, “behind you,” or low on health, “finish them.” For help with the animation, Ninja Theory used a stunt woman to do Senua’s combat and a stunt man to do combat for the enemies. They then added expressions to Senua and bleeding on the screen/enemies to show loss of health.
      </p>

      <p>
        For the most part, I enjoyed the combat. I thought the enemies were well made and it was clear that there were different types of opponents as shown through their different attacks, weapons, clothing, and best ways to defeat. The combat wasn’t necessarily easy or hard but I could get my way through by just spamming square. I think it would have been better to have it more difficult in terms of making space for the player to throw all of the different hits strategically, rather than being able to use just one to win battles. I do however think the “block” and “evade” make up for this as it allows the character to be strategic in defense, just not as much in offense. The addition of combinations or different weapon choices would have added to the offensive combat in my opinion. My favorite part of the combat is the focus ability. It is unique and makes combat engaging and fun when you can fight them as they are in slow motion. Another critique is that it is unrealistic to have various opponents fighting her just standing around waiting their turn to throw hits at her, rather than them all trying to fight her together which would probably happen in real life. At the same time, only having the other opponent appear once one is defeated would prevent the strategic use of direction blocking against several players so I understand why they may have kept that.
      </p>

      <h3 style="padding-top: 1%;">CITATIONS & RESOURCES:</h3>
      <p>Mead, Fran. “Ninja Theory Official Site.” Ninja Theory Ltd, <a href="https://ninjatheory.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">ninjatheory.com.</a></p>

      <p>
        “Hellblade Development Diaries.” Edited by Melina Juergens, Youtube Playlist, Ninja Theory, 2017,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcKBG-RoUOQ6BJRXp" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcKBG.</a>
      </p>

      <p>
        “Professor Paul Fletcher (Hellblade Clinical Consultant) Keynote Address.” Performance by Paul Fletcher, Youtube.com, The International Games Summit, Oct. 2019,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRMwq4T9gU." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRMwq4T9gU.</a>
      </p>

      <p>
        “Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis | Mental Health Feature.” Youtube.com, Ninja Theory, Oct. 2018, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31PbCTS4Sq4." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/watch?v=31PbCTS4Sq4.</a>
      </p>

      <p>“Psychosis.” NHS Choices, NHS, Dec. 2019, <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychosis/." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychosis/.</a></p>

      <p>Community Written. “Northmen.” Hellblade Wiki, <a href="https://thehellblade.fandom.com/wiki/Northmen" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">thehellblade.fandom.com/wiki/Northmen</a></p>

      <p>“Hellblade Official Site.” Hellblade, Ninja Theory, <a href="https://hellblade.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://hellblade.com/</a></p>

      <p>Hellblade Soundtrack (headphones recommended for 3D sound): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZKRPcWLms." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZKRPcWLms.</a></p>

      <p>Hellblade Gallery: <a href="https://hellblade.com/gallery" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.hellblade.com/pictures/.</a></p>

      <p>Buy the game! <a href="https://hellblade.com/buy" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.hellblade.com/buy.</a></p>
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