Hellboy Web of Wyrd Analysis

2023-11-04 11:00:00

Mike Mignola’s comic comes true in video game format.

The latest game starring the comic character Hellboy was in 2008. Although it was developed by Mike Mignolacreator of Hellboy, as well as with Guillermo del Torodirector of the films, Hellboy: The Science of Evil was a failure in reviews and sales alike. 15 years later, the iconic character from the Dark Horse publishing house returns with a new video game to try to make amends.

Hellboy Web of Wyrd is an action game in which Hellboy searches for a missing agent from the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). The team settles in a peculiar building known as “The Butterfly House” which, of course, is more than just a family home. This house has portals to another dimension known as the Wyrd and it’s up to Hellboy to dive into the Wyrd and find out what happened to his team’s missing agent.

Well thought out, poorly executed combat system

He Web of Wyrd combat takes advantage of Hellboy’s strengths and uses melee punches with the help of firearms. Being a rogue lite we have procedurally generated mapswhich is fine, but the problem is that It’s boring to fight enemies. Each arena room we enter will have one or more large creatures, giant statues that come to life, or monsters of all kinds. These creatures will give rise to little monsters that, by killing them, they will drop the coin with which we can improve our statistics. However, we will only have to go after the largest monsters, since once they are all dead the small ones simply disappear.

In combat it also ends up being boring because Hellboy hardly has any variety in his repertoire. All battles end with Hellboy beating larger enemies into submission., which stuns them and allows you to hit them with the fist of the Right Hand of Doom and finish them off. In theory, you can aim which direction enemies are flying. I say “in theory” because, although it was said that it could be done, not once did I get an enemy to fly in the direction I was aiming. This is frustrating because you can do a lot of damage to other enemies by throwing them this way.

Artistic and sound style to match

One of the aspects where Hellboy Web of Wyrd shines with its own light are its graphics and artistic style. In almost every aspect it is evident that Mike Mignola has had a hand in this game. The hand-drawn art style is beautiful, the game looks like a comic come true. If you are a Hellboy fan and you like his art style, Web of Wyrd graphics are for you. But as good as things look when they’re in motion, that’s where a problem with the game lies. The game appears to employ some sort of frame trick to emulate the comic book look.. But where in some products this fits, in this one it does not, since if you play for long periods it can make you dizzy, as it happened to me.

Finally, it should be noted Hellboy’s English dub voice (with Spanish subtitles). This is one of the actor’s last roles Lance Reddick (passed away a few months ago) and I have to say he did a fantastic job. Although it bothered me that the characters didn’t open their mouths when speaking, the great role played by Reddick makes small problems like that not even a big problem.

Conclusions

I wanted to love Hellboy Web of Wyrd as a comic book lover, but unfortunately the game fell short in too many areas. As I said, the art style is beautiful, but as soon as you start moving and the strange frame problems appear, everything falls apart for me. Lance Reddick was very good as Hellboy, but it’s very annoying that the rest of the game wasn’t as good as the written part.

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Hellboy Web of Wyrd

24,99€

Pros

Beautiful hand-drawn art style Great English dubbing work

Cons

Incredibly repetitive level design and gameplay Combat has annoying inaccuracies The game’s strange framerate