The first was better

[Valithin Drathyr]

The pacing between fights was better
The puzzles were more interesting, which isn't saying a lot because of how simple they are
The fights themselves were generally better
The first game had bosses like Valravyn and Garm which were fantastic
The first also had multiple enemies with warnings coming from the voices depending on which side the enemies were.
One plus of the second game is the introduction of more supporting characters, Thorgestrs character development is actually great.
Also, in the first, most everything can easily be explained by Senuas Psychosis. The second, there are some things that just don't make sense and cant really be explained.

Hellblade 2 is "ok". It does have some awesome moments, but it feels like they doubled down on the worst aspects of the first game and didn't improve on them at all.

[Demystificator]

Combat and Puzzles in the first one could be frustrating.

Originally posted by Valithin Drathyr:

Also, in the first, most everything can easily be explained by Senuas Psychosis. The second, there are some things that just don't make sense and cant really be explained.

Well her psychosis is "different", less brutal in Saga. But as the point of the game is to blur lines between objective reality and Senua's, its a good thing if you have hard time to explain everything.
Yet I'm not sure what you don't understand, with time and attentive eye, you can understand everything.

Imo, what was the 1st doing better was emotion.
In Saga you don't have camera stare and it seems you see less often Senua face or she just doesn't react.
She's taking a lot of things in whereas in the first she was explosive for every emotion, even joy.

After the 1st one, I felt a lot for Senua whereas in Saga, I was watching her doing stuff but I didn't feel like be next to her.

[Noelemahc]

I agree, the decision to make the fights more cinematic, while showing off the visuals vividly, was a downgrade - aside from the intro fight with Thorgestr, you can get by on more or less the same sequence of block, dodge, light strike, light strike until an enemy drops dead or you charge Focus. In the first one, you had to break through enemy blocks, kick stuff and manage more than one attacker at a time.

Same can be told about the puzzles. Yes, I am glad I have to do the rune lining up only once, and the reality flip puzzles of the Hiddenfolk were actually pretty fun, but none of it is on the same level as Odin Trial Mask Puzzles.

On the flipside, the first game relied a lot on Senua's psychosis to explain the non-supernatural version of events, whereas here you have to read between the lines a lot more (especially with Fargrimr who Senua thinks can hear the Furies and is appreciative of them, but is he really?) and I've seen a lot of people react with outright "oh no, it's all supernatural for sure, they ruined it" but they didn't. They made it less obvious.

So: better story, weaker gameplay, but that's the complaint EVERYONE has been making. I just don't consider it to entirely ruin the experience - the Illtauga not-boss-fight was actually pretty awesome, all in all.

[nutcrackr]

Yep, first was miles better

[evancampbell]

Agree, first game is one of my all-time favorites. While I still like this one, and it's definitely more polished from a technical standpoint, it isn't in the same league as the first.

[darkjairo29]

the first is the best in general... 2 also has its own thing, but graphically 2 is the best.

[ЯeÐ ĄnimaŁ ШaЯ]

Yes it was! Why are the reviews not at least somewhat reflect the forum? Always the same. Valves smart boys crafted their "review" system so it works as an advertising platform, its brilliant really. They manage to make every trash game look good on Steam. And shills help them make it look even better.

People who would rate a game 51/100 go and "recommend" it on steam, they are too retarded to realize what they are doing.

On Metacritic USER score. Its actually slowly dropping. 6.6 on PC currently https://www.metacritic.com/game/senuas-saga-hellblade-ii/user-reviews/?platform=pc

And proof that console players are dumb right there. They rate it 7.4 on Xbox. Exact same game with worse graphics compared to people who have decent hardware.