14 DAY TRIAL // HellSign is the latest project of the studio Ballistic Interactive, a top-down action RPG that puts players in the role of a hunter who's taking various jobs in a fictional world where creatures like ghouls, ghosts, and demons are quite real.
As a concept, HellSign is a mash-up of Supernatural and Grimm, as you hunt down monsters using a wide array of weapons and accessories. What makes HellSign stand out from other games where you hunt monsters is the “investigations” part where you gather clues to find out what creature you'll have to deal with.
Although things look quite interesting on paper, the execution doesn't live up to the expectations. The first few hours of the game focus on teaching you how to gather clues and how to make money to get better gear, but it also introduces some kind of story.
In HellSign, you play a hunter who recently woke up with the vague memory of having died the night before while on a dangerous job. On top of that, a strange tattoo appeared on your back, which you do not remember having a night before.
It will take time to decipher the mystery behind that tattoo, a perfect excuse to start taking various missions around the city. You'll start your journey with a flickering torch, rusty gun and an EZ-Carry EMF Meter. The idea is to complete jobs, develop your skills and learn as much about the monsters that haunt the night as possible.
However, your starting gear will not allow you to complete job at the beginning of the game because you'll need other tools like an investigative mic to obtain all the clues required to successfully finish a job.
Luckily, that's not a problem since you leave a mission at any time and sell all the clues that you obtained for some profit. Once you have enough money, you can buy whatever tech you need to obtain all the clues in a mission. Even so, the rewards for finding all the clues in a mission are completely unbalanced (as in very low).
Each scouting, sweeping or hunting mission is rated with a number of skulls there represent the difficulty of the mission according to your level. The starting missions shouldn't be too challenging since the only monsters you'll face are spiders and centipedes, but the combat system turns even the most trivial missions into a chore.
HellSign plays like a top-down shooter but the controls are very clunky. Ironically, the small monsters like spiders and centipedes are much harder to hit because they're very fast and you need to use precise aiming instead shooting from the hip (just like in a regular top-down shooter: face the enemy and shoot).
You'll most likely need a few hours to adjust with the weird combat mechanics, which aren't the worst part of the game. What I really think is the weakest point of the game is the writing and how the game is structured.
Overall, the writing is quite bad, which is a bit surprising considering how well other aspects of the game have been implemented. There are some cheesy dialogues in the game that made me cringe. That totally destroys the eerie atmosphere and immersion, which are extremely important for a game that tackles a supernatural theme.
Hopefully, by the time it leaves early access, developers will improve some of the game's weakest points like combat mechanics and narrative, although I wouldn't mind a bit more variation when it comes to music tracks.
