Helheim Hassle might be the best adventure game I played in a long time. This game kept surprising me with its witty narrative and ditto puzzles. While adventure games haven’t been at the forefront in many years, this game feels like they should again!
Between Valhalla and Helheim
When a Viking dies during the battle he is taken to Valhalla to serve in Odin’s army. Viking Bjørn Hammerparty has no intention to ever battle and has evaded each opportunity to battle his whole life. As a pacifist Viking, he eventually meets his doom when a Bear falls on him after falling from a bridge. Since Bjørn technically killed the bear by falling on him before dying too, he gets classified as eligible to go to Valhalla. As eternities pass, Odin’s (online) army is still battling as suddenly Bjørn gets pulled out of Valhalla by Pesto. Pesto – or pestilence – is one of the riders of the apocalypse and is sent on a task to get into Helheim to get an artifact of Hel. Since Bjørn always wanted to spend eternity in Helheim, he and Pesto form an unlikely alliance to get into Helheim. But it might prove to be a Helheim Hassle.
Tear off your limbs
Since being resurrected by Pesto, a strange occurrence happened in which you seem to be able to get your head and limbs detached from your body without losing control of their functions. This strange mechanic gets introduced “piece by piece” throughout the first hours of the game. The road to Hel seems to be paved by puzzles which all get to be solved by using some sort of combination of head, torso, and limbs. The inhabitants of Helheim seem to be puzzle crazy because the place is filled to the brim with levers and pads to open up the next area.
Jump higher
The first few puzzles involve only losing your head. Your torso can throw your head in hard to reach places. For some reason, your head can still hop around to maneuver towards pressure pads which remove certain obstacles. With your head detached from your body, you can also choose to control your headless body. Without the weight of your head, you can jump a bit higher which might come in handy to get up on certain platforms previously unreachable. These clever ways of combining and detaching body parts keep them going throughout the whole game. Once mastering a certain combination, the next detachable limp gets introduced.
With more and more detachable parts, you can also make more (strange) combinations. Combining a leg with an arm makes you jump higher and lets your grip onto certain surfaces. Combining a leg, an arm, and a head makes you jump less high but grants you the ability to speak to NPC characters instead. All these combinations are what keeps the game clever throughout. It takes a while before you’ll know the strengths and weaknesses of all combinations and that’s what ultimately keeps Helheim Hassle fresh.
Use your head
Helheim Hassle is a puzzle adventure with some minor point-and-click adventure elements added in the mix. Ultimately it all comes down to solving containable puzzles with the whole loose limbs mechanic. The puzzles keep evolving throughout the game to further test your skills. A bit of platforming is also needed to get through certain puzzles but most of these will be solved with your head (quite literally in some cases). What I really like about Helheim Hassle is the fact they incorporated the puzzles in the story. Some elements of the puzzle will look familiar but in each area, there are new and exciting changes made based on the story to further augment the adventure.
Funny as Hell
Since you have to do all the heavy lifting, Pesto is solely there for moral support and many sarcastic one-liners. The inhabitant of Helheim all have a distinctive personality and bring much humor to the game. When the Allfather (a.k.a. Odin) discovers you are AFK in his online army game, things only get more frantic storywise. With some “breaking the fourth wall”-stuff incorporated it’s pretty clear Perfectly Paranormal learned from the great adventures from the past. The Double Fine/Lucasarts influence felt very present to me and that’s a big compliment coming from a Tim Shafer fanboy like myself.
Conclusion
I like (puzzle) adventures a lot. It’s been a while since a game has tickled my adventure boxes in the same way Helheim Hassle did. The way this game captured everything I like about adventures was something I yearned for. Finally, I can get my fix like the addict I am. Hi… my name is Nick and I’m an adventure-aholic… and Helheim Hassle made me relapse.
