Let’s Talk About Hades

You ever play a game that completely sucks you in. You know the kind of game so completely envelops you to the point that, even though you’ve seen and done most of what the game has to offer you keep playing it over and over again just because of how fun it is. I think every gamer has played at least one game that gave them that experience. I certainly have quite a few games that have given me it and now I can add another game to that list, Hades.

Hades is an indie game developed by Supergiant Games that has exploded in popularity recently. It was released on Steam in 2018 as an early access title but now it’s fully completed and has been ported to the Switch, which is the version I played. I actually wasn’t planning on playing Hades initially. Despite the praise it’s received I wasn’t all that interested despite it being based in Greek Mythology, which I am a big fan of. This was because I'm not too big on Supergiant as a developer. I've only played two of their games, Bastion and Transistor, and while I didn’t hate either game, I didn’t love them either. But I did eventually give Hades a shot and I’m glad I did. Not only is this a great game but it might be one of the best games I’ve played in years.

Hades is a isometric action rogue like game where you try to escape the underworld. You play as Zagreus, the son of Hades trying to get away from his overbearing father. There's a lot more to the story but a lot of it is revealed to you slowly as you play the game, so I won’t go into much detail. I will say that the characters are great. Each of them has their own distinct personality and the character interactions are fantastic helped along by some really good voice acting. I wish the actors didn’t read their lines so fast since it’s hard to keep up at times but if that’s the only complaint I can find, well that should tell you how good the acting is.

I will say this about the writing, it has a great sense of sarcastic wit. I wouldn’t say the game is funny, though it does have its moments, but it manages to have great banter between the characters without coming across as annoyingly obnoxious. You'd be surprised how often that happens. But enough about the plot, what do you actually do in Hades? As I said, Hades is an isometric action rogue like. The goal is to fight through the various rooms in the fur levels of the underworld. Each level has you go through a series of random rooms with each area being capped off with a boss fight.

Hades is all about the combat. It's an action game in the purest sense, the only down time you get is when you’re in the House of Hades in-between runs and the rest stops that randomly pop-up during a run. Outside of those moments the game is nothing but balls to the wall action. Now a game that consists of nothing but fighting can get boring after a while but, like any good action game, Hades finds a way to keep its action engaging throughout every playthrough. It being a rogue like is one of the big reasons the action never gets stale. For those who don’t know what a rogue like is, it’s a game where every run is randomized, so each run is different every time you play. This helps keep the game fresh no matter how many times you play it.

But that wouldn’t really matter if the combat wasn’t engaging to begin with. Luckily, Hades’ combat is incredibly fun. Everything is just so fast paced and hectic but it manages to also keep a decent rhythm and pace in its battles. It can get a little overwhelming at times, especially when you first start playing it, but once you get used to it you’ll find the combat deeply rewarding. You have four main moves you can perform, you have a standard attack, a special attack, a cast which fires a projectile and a dash that can be used to avoid enemies or get over gaps. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot of moves but by keeping things simple it allows you to focus on the enemies and how best to handle each situation. Enemy variety is important in a game like this so it’s good that Hades excels in this area. Not only are there a lot of enemies but each level of the underworld has its own unique set of enemies you’ll have to deal with along with a few sub-bosses you might have to fight along the way.

Each enemy has its own style of attack and requires a different strategy to take down. In Elysium for example there are enemies with bows that can snipe you from a distance and, unlike other enemies with projectiles, you can’t see the arrows they fire so it’s best to deal with them as fast as possible. Granted Elysium is one of the final stages in the game so it’s expected the enemies there would be among the toughest in the game, but even early stages can overwhelm you if you’re not careful. Like any good rogue like, Hades provides a good amount of challenge but it’s not too overwhelming to overcome like a lot of others in the genre. It manages to strike a good balance in the difficulty though there is a hard mode available for the truly hardcore.

The controls are great as well. Every one of your main actions are mapped to the face buttons which makes it very simple to pick up and play. And if you don’t like the control layout for whatever reason, you can change it to a layout that feels much more comfortable. I can’t believe I have to praise a game for this in 2020, at this point it should be a basic feature in every game there’s no excuse not to have it. I played Hades on the Switch and I found the Pro Controller worked really well, even playing in handheld mode felt comfortable. I don’t know what playing the game with a mouse is like since I am physically incapable of using one, but I would imagine it would provide a little more control over aiming projectiles. Luckily the game features a very useful auto aim function so aiming is a breeze when playing with a controller. I cannot stress enough how good a feature this is, if you struggle with aiming your shots like me this feature is an absolute godsend.

So basically, the combat in Hades is exceptional. Well balanced and fast paced action that never lets up. The bosses are one of the main highlights of the game. Each level has its own boss and there are different variations of those bosses you can run into when you beat them multiple times to keep them interesting. The final boss is a tough one too, I’ve had fights against him that have gone down to the wire but it’s always satisfying whenever you take them down. Most runs in the game don’t last for very long. Most of my runs usually last under an hour but the game is designed to be replayed again and again so the short length of each run is a positive rather than a negative.

And you’ll have to do several runs through the game if you want to see the full story as you’ll need to beat the game several times to get the full context of what is going on. I’ve had at least 6 successful runs so far and I haven't seen the ending yet, you’ll be playing the game a lot to get to the end, but you’ll want to keep doing it because of how addicting the game is. Here's the thing though, I said I've had 6 successful runs, but my actual number of runs is much, much higher. I’ve had dozens of runs through this game and most of them ended with bitter defeat. You will die a lot while playing this game but every loss, every defeat only emboldens you to get stronger, to last longer in every subsequent run. The game knocks you down, but it always encourages you to get right back up and try again. Even when you do eventually beat the game you can add extra stipulations to subsequent runs to add even more challenge to get more rewards.

That’s the thing I like the most about Hades. No matter how many times I died I always wanted to keep playing to see if I could do it a little better. As I get older, I’m beginning to value replay value more and more which is an area that Hades truly shines in. But I suppose it’s time to get into a little more detail on the game itself.

Before each run you need to prepare. The first thing you need to do is select what treasures and weapons you take into each run. Treasures are equipment that can provide some additional perks, you can only take one at a time though you can swap between them in between the levels of the underworld. Be forewarned though, you only get one shot at swapping each treasure and each of them can only be equipped once per run so choose wisely.

The weapons are where things get interesting. There are six weapons in total and each of them has their own attack and special which gives each a unique playstyle. You do have to unlock most of them, but it doesn’t take that long to do. The Sword is the only one unlocked from the beginning and it’s a good weapon to start out with. It’s one of the fastest weapons in the game, I recommend it if you prefer a fast-paced offensive style. If you prefer to have a little more range you might like the spear. It’s slower but has a longe reach and even has a projectile as its special. It requires a bit more patience, but it can be a good weapon for those who are good at spacing. The shield is the most defensive of the weapons, which should really go without saying. This weapon can block attacks and has a charge attack that can run through groups, combine that with the special that throws the shield and the weapon reminds me a lot of Captain America. This one is probably my favourite of the bunch.

The gauntlets have the shortest range of the weapons but it’s also the fastest. This one is great at one-on-one encounters but in groups, you’d better get used to dashing. A risky weapon, but a rewarding one. But let’s say you don’t like fighting up close, you like a more ranged style of combat, well these last two weapons are for you. The bow is for those that are more patient, it’s slow to charge up but very powerful when it hits. It's special also fires a spread of arrows to help deal with crowds but this weapon feels more designed for sniping. But if you want a faster ranged weapon then our last weapon is for you. It's the rail which is just a fucking gun. This weapon is the most unique weapon of the bunch, it’s the only weapon that doesn’t stun lock enemies with its normal attack and it has an ammo count that needs to be reloaded. The special attack for this one is a grenade shot that attacks everyone in a ranged circle and it can be devastating when it hits. The rail is a fun weapon to use, especially if you like hit and run tactics.

Given that each weapon has its own playstyle, you’re naturally going to gravitate to some weapons more than others, but I wouldn’t call any of them bad. They each do their job well and the variety they offer means there’s a weapon guaranteed to fit your style of play. Each weapon also has three different variations you can unlock that can significantly change how you approach each of them to add even more variety. It is fun to do a run with a different variation of a weapons you’ve used before, it can change how the run goes.

The weapons alone add a ton of replay value since switching between them makes each run feel a little different and that’s something the game does very well. As I said every run in the game is randomized, the rooms you run through aren’t but the order you run through them is so there is some consistency to help things from getting too random. You won’t know what room you’ll be entering until you’re already in there, the only thing you will know is what reward you get and often you are given a choice in what reward you want to prioritize.

 Since the rewards are what you’ll focus on when picking where you go I should probably go over what they actually do. Some of the rewards are stuff you can use to get upgrades between runs. Darkness is the most common and is used to get permanent upgrades that can help make things a lot easier but there’s also keys which can unlock new weapons and upgrades and gemstones which can be exchanged for renovations in the House of Hades or the Underworld. I should mention that you can buy upgrades to some collectibles to give them a secondary function like give you a boost to your health, this is a nice feature to have since you’re inevitably going to get to a point where you don’t need them anymore, helps give them a purpose after that point.

Then there’s the bottles of nectar you can find. These can be gifted to various characters to increase your affinity with them and you need to do this if you want to get the treasures. You do need the more powerful Ambrosia to completely maximize affinity and I’m not sure what it does yet, but I like the character interactions so I plan on doing it anyway. Hope I get something cool out of it.

The next set of rewards you can only use during a run. There're gold coins which you can use to purchase items at Charron's shop or from Wells of Charron scattered in the Underworld. Items sold in the well aren’t all permanent, but they can be helpful if you have the coins. Then there’s the Centaur Hearts that increase your health.

The final few rewards can alter your combat abilities. Daedalus' hammers can be used to add mods to your weapons. Yes, not only do weapons have different variations that change how they play but you can add modifications to them to change them up even more. Don't like the short range of the gauntlets? Add a mod that increases its range. My only problem with the mods is that there’s no way to preview what the mods do; you have to rely on the descriptions to figure that out. It isn’t that big a deal, but it can suck when you pick a mod and realize you don’t like it that much. There's no way to get rid of them either so when you get a mod you’re stuck with it for the rest of a run.

But now we move to the most interesting rewards, the boons. Boons are upgrades granted by the Olympian gods. Most of these are passive abilities but some are add-ons to your main abilities that can give them different properties. What properties they give you is dependent on the god, Zeus for example gives your abilities lightning that can attack other enemies nearby, Aphrodite can cast weak on enemies, Artemis, my personal favorite, can increase your chances at getting critical hits. These don’t change how the abilities actually work mind you, they just give them additional perks. The exception being the cast which does change how it works depending on the god, Artemis gives you a homing shot, Ares creates a blade rift that slices through enemies, Aphrodite gets a powerful short-range blast that casts weak. Each god also has a call ability that acts like a super move, you don’t have one of these by default so this is like an extra move that can help you out. Don't worry if you don’t end up liking a particular boon, unlike the weapon mods there is a way to get rid of the boons in exchange for some coins.

These boons are where the bulk of the games experimentation lie. Trying out different combinations is a lot of fun and some combinations can be devastating. Speaking of combinations, if you get the right combo of boons the gods will create a duo boon that combines their powers together. These duo boons can be quite devastating too, Ares and Artemis can combine to change Ares blade rift cast to give it homing properties for example. Trying out all the different types of boon combinations to see what I can come up with adds a ton of replay value and I haven’t begun to scratch the surface on what I can do with this.

There are two gods that do work differently from the others. Hermes can’t add boons to your abilities, instead his boons are focused on increasing your speed. He also can’t combine with other gods. Then there’s Chaos. Chaos can only be found in special gates that cost health to enter. Their boons are also unique as you have to be afflicted with a curse for a few battles before you can use them. They are more powerful to compensate for this. The last reward to go over are the pomegranates. These simply add an extra level to your boons to make them stronger.

Now those are all the basic rewards you can get in each run but there are a few more rarer rewards that you get from defeating the bosses, but I’ll let you discover those on your own. There's actually a lot more to the game that I haven’t gone over yet like the side stories or the list of fates that acts like a set of achievements, but I think I’ll leave it there. A lot of the Hades experience is discovering new things and I’d hate to spoil any of that for you.

What I will say is that Hades is a very polished experience. I never ran into a single technical problem during any of my playthroughs, occasionally I got stuck in some places, but the game corrected itself so quickly it didn’t affect anything. Everything about this game truly shines from the gameplay to the presentation. I already mentioned the voice acting but the music is great too and really helps add to the intensity of the action. And while graphically I don’t think it’s anything that spectacular it does have a cool style to everything. I especially like how the different levels of the underworld each have a unique look to them. Even the character designs are well done, well in the portraits anyway it’s hard to see them in game with the zoomed out camera, Zagreus basically looks like a Greek hero done as an anime character and it’s glorious.

If you haven’t gathered by now, I freaking love this game. Hades is one of the few games I’ve played that doesn’t possess any kind of major design flaw. Sure it has its problems, as all games do, but they’re all minor niggling issues that don’t affect the game too much. I can see why the game is receiving the praise that it is. To be honest there’s a lot more about the game I'd like to talk about. The central theme of the story is interesting and done well but to talk about that would involve me spoiling a good chunk of it. It's a game you have to experience blind to get the most out of it. There's a lot to discover in this game and with the amount of replay value it has, you will definitely get your money’s worth with this one.

In a day and age where AAA games are nickel and diming the consumer with games that look like they have tons of content but in actuality contain little more than copious amounts of filler, Hades stands as a shining beacon of hope. The game offers so much content, actual content that you want to go back to, at less than half the price of a big budget game. Hades is one of the games to point to if you want to show just how good the indie gaming scene has become. I cannot recommend it enough. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I'll go and play it again. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.