Hellpoint

Hitching framerates and drab visuals take away from an otherwise decent hack and slash with a terrific atmosphere.

There were many times in my playthrough of Hellpoint where I had the same delicious salad of feelings that I get with Dark Souls — frustration at my own carelessness, need to try again or satisfaction at besting a challenging encounter — but these highs were balanced by some disappointments with the design that seemed to intentionally frustrate. Even more than Nioh, The Surge, or Remnant, Hellpoint goes all in with the Dark Souls model. When it’s good, it’s great; when it’s not, it just reminds you why Dark Souls is and will be a classic.

Despite being a bit basic in terms of combat and controls, Hellpoint is a good action-RPG, with a interesting universe, a nice level design, a cool cooperative splitscreen mode.

With the hope that the development team will be able to intervene with post-launch corrective patches, Hellpoint is undoubtedly a dignified soulslike, unfortunately unable to fully express its potential.

Hellpoint borrows the elements found in Fromsoft titles that make a compelling action RPG game but ultimately stumbles due to technical issues and an overall lack of polish.

Hellpoint is a sci-fi Souls-like with one killer feature: local split screen co-op. The rest of the game lacks the polish of its obvious sources of inspiration, and ultimately the technical issues including a wildly inconsistent frame rate, hit detection problems, and interface glitches hold Hellpoint back from achieving more. But if you’re looking for a Souls-like hit that you can take with a friend, you may want to check out Hellpoint, albeit with tempered expectations.

I love these types of games but Hellpoint, mainly due to its framerate, responsiveness, and lore, falls behind most other games in the genre. Its exploration, character building and combat is a carbon copy of Dark Souls but it lacks the substance, character, and playability of the games it takes its inspiration from. Its a shame really, unless you have played every other game in this genre, there are many better examples of this style of game to play.

It’s great to see new takes on the Souls formula, but they need to have something special if they want to find their place in a market that’s becoming more and more saturated. Hellpoint has a solid foundation and good ideas, but that’s about it.

Hellpoint is absolutely a game to try out if you’re a fan of the Souls-like genre and especially Bloodborne. Its stunning aesthetic alone should grab your interest. However, the game unfortunately falls short of being truly amazing due to several unpolished elements.

The truth of Hellpoint is that even with all the jank and annoyance, it’s working with a well-known and beloved formula in an interesting setting, with enough tweaks to feel like its own thing. All of the satisfaction from near-deaths against big bosses and slow mastery of enemies and mechanics is here, it’s just dressed differently. The technical issues and world progression hold Hellpoint back, but for fans of the Soulsborne or sci-fi horror genre it’s worth checking out.

If you’re a big fan of Souls-likes and want to play a game that follows that formula fairly closely while introducing a few unique gameplay elements, Hellpoint isn’t a bad choice. However, the game lacks direction and polish, and it makes for a poor introduction to the genre.

Hellpoint might have been a decent Souls clone if it didn’t suffer from so many technical problems. A few more months in the oven would have done it wonders, but it is an easy skip in its current state.

Another ineffectual attempt to transpose the Dark Souls gameplay and atmosphere into a sci-fi setting, although the split-screen mode is an interesting novelty.

On the surface, Hellpoint should have been a worthy contender. But too many technical issues suck any real enjoyment out of it.

I can appreciate why a developer would want to try its hand at a Souls-like. It's a hugely popular genre that doesn't have that many entries at this point in time, and there's a veritable goldmine of unique settings and concepts to explore. A horror-themed Souls on an abandoned space station, circling a black hole, is appealing on every level. Unfortunately, this genre is also incredibly demanding, technically and creatively, and while I admire the ambition of Cradle Games, with Hellpoint they've shot for the stars but well missed the mark.