Hellboy: Web of Wyrd

Hellboy Web of Wyrd has some issues when it comes to the combat, but it's still fun to play, and fans of the comics are going to love diving into a new story featuring the surly yet loveable demon.

Web of Wyrd is the best Hellboy game, but that doesn’t mean it’s great. It’s an undemanding roguelite that can provide a couple of hours of simple, rather repetitive entertainment. However, it has strong points too, namely the atmosphere and the art style which makes it look like Mike Mignola’s comic book in motion.

Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is a fan letter that suffers from too much enthusiasm and not enough substance. Beyond the undisputed visual style, it lacks originality, creativity, and challenge to keep you pinned in front of the display. The biggest difficulty is conjuring the patience needed to finish the game, which should take around 7-8 hours. The elements needed to make a great game are all there, at least on paper, but it feels like the developers got lost in trying to recreate the visual style and forgot about everything else. As such, Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is even more of a footnote in the franchise’s history than the latest movie.

Hellboy Web of Wyrd is, sadly, a giant wasted opportunity: the sublime artstyle wasn't unfortunately accompanied by a gameplay that could do justice to the beloved hero.

Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is an insufficient game in almost every way. Unfortunately, the love that the development team must have for the franchise is not reflected in an action roguelike, slow, cumbersome and terribly lacking in variety. There are few aspects to save: the characterization of the protagonist, the bosses at the end of the level, the impacts of Red's attacks. However, there are many stumbles that leave a bad taste in the mouth: a lackluster level design, a poorly diversified progression and a technical structure that makes the gameplay not very fun. A wasted opportunity to bring Mike Mignola's splendid works back to life. Sin.

Way of Wyrd’s shadow-heavy visuals perfectly capture the Hellboy aesthetic. Sadly, the game lurking beneath those shadows suffers from unambitious design, inconsistent mechanics, and occasionally devastating bugs. Fun can still be found in the Wyrd, it’s just harder to find than it should be.

Despite capturing the artistic style of Mike Mignola's comics and featuring the charisma of Hellboy, this roguelite falls short with an extremely simple combat system, lack of variety in situations, enemies, and strategic possibilities, along with a scarcity of content and somewhat clunky controls, ultimately failing to do justice to Mignola's masterpiece.

Underneath the thick red skin of its unpolished exterior there is an entertaining and surprisingly sophisticated roguelike brawler to be found in Hellboy Web of Wyrd. It's just a shame that sluggish combat, uninteresting lore and poorly executed exploration all conspire to drag Hellboy Web of Wyrd down into the depths.

Web of Wyrd is clearly created by people with a reverence for Mignola's work and impresses as an adaptation. However, as a roguelike and a brawler, it underwhelms.

n this case, playing Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is a sacrifice for the story, and a sacrifice so great that you wonder if it was worth it. It wasn't. The story is good, but even that only adds to the aftertaste of a game that seems to have everything but the pleasure of playing itself.

There is, at least, a pleasing weight to impacts as you thump enemies into walls or slam them into the floor. Good job, too, since there's precious little else to enjoy here. [Issue#391, p.123]

Playing Hellboy Web of Wyrd was exciting at first but it quickly devolves into a repetitious formula that can easily put you to sleep.

Hellboy: Web of Wyrd has great combat and some stunning visuals, but it's bogged down by frustrating mechanics and a progression system that rarely feels rewarding.

Between its sticky brawling mechanics, repetitive level design, and extremely low difficulty, Hellboy Web of Wyrd simply feels like an unfinished game that was early on its journey to greatness. There’s a heft to its combat, yet the controls aren’t nearly snappy enough, and it’s too easy to be engaging. The striking art design means its worlds look nice, but they’re made up of the same rooms and hallways. Incomplete or not, it utterly fails to realize what could have been and only continues Hellboy’s video game curse.