Review: Hell is Us — An Intriguing concept with an over abundance on meaningless Puzzles
CyberBoxTV 2 min read
Hell is Us is the perfect example of how the industry has lost its drive to innovate, choosing instead to imitate popular genres that now feel completely oversaturated. At its core, this title tries to be a Souls-Like in terms of combat, but what it delivers are mere scraps.
The gameplay system includes melee weapons, level progression, magical powers, and a stamina bar for attacking or dodging, features that have already become standard in most action RPGs. The real problem lies in who you use these mechanics against: throughout the game, you only encounter five types of enemies with variations in color and size, but their attack patterns remain identical, making a large portion of the experience repetitive. Even the bosses fail to stand out, as they’re essentially stronger versions of the regular enemies.
The other half of the gameplay focuses on exploring a semi-open world, where you interact with NPCs, solve puzzles, collect items, and find notes that expand the lore. While these elements are also present in other Souls-Likes, here they become outright frustrating. NPCs ask you to fetch lost objects, and your inventory quickly fills with items you have no idea how to use due to poor mechanics and vague visual guidance. Environmental puzzles present another problem: you might find levers or buttons but won’t know how to solve them until six hours later in the story, generating confusion rather than satisfaction.
The developer claims this design is meant to encourage exploration and personal deduction, but in practice it feels like bad design that wastes your time and breaks the flow of the game. The hints provided are so vague such as “go north where the light does not shine” that they only add more frustration.
Not everything is negative: the visuals are truly stunning, with beautifully crafted environments that deliver a powerful atmosphere. The ambient music also shines, adapting to each situation and enhancing immersion. The world-building narrative is intriguing, showing a war between nations and a territory trapped in a time loop filled with ghostly anomalies. NPCs enrich the experience with small horror stories rooted in the war, but the protagonist, Remi, lacks charisma and becomes irrelevant, making the conclusion fall flat.
In summary, Hell is Us has an attractive premise, a high-quality visual presentation, and gameplay systems that sound solid on paper, but poor execution turns the experience into something frustrating. There is some satisfaction in solving puzzles on your own, but it rarely justifies the hours of confusion and repetition.
Final Score: 2/5
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