GAME CLEAR No. 23 -- Hades

Hades (2020, Multiplatform)

Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: Supergiant Games
Clear Date: 4/21/2021
Clear Platform: Switch

Wow! This game is great! I spent a great deal of time deliberating over whether or not to play this game because it’s a roguelite, which I’ve generally decided to Do Not Like. I’ve tried my hand at greats like Spelunky and other darlings like Rogue Legacy and ultimately bounced off both. Primarily I just hated feeling like failed runs (read: all of them) were wasted. I didn’t like feeling like I was never making true progress. I even really enjoyed the gameplay of Downwell and got reasonably far, but I was never really compelled to finish it either. I pretty much just assumed that kind of game wasn’t for me. So when Hades started receiving enormous praise and GotY nods, I was almost annoyed.

Do I have to try one of these again?

The answer of course is that I did eventually try it, and I can say I was a fool to delay it.† What ultimately pushed me to get it was a) people whose video game opinions heavily match mine liked it b) other people who don’t like roguelites were like “this one’s different.” It is different, and pretty much only for the better.

The most immediately apparent difference between it and any other roguey game I’ve played is that it has a story, and a meaty one at that. It follows Hades’ son Zagreus as he attempts to escape from the Underworld to find his mother, who left for reasons unknown to him. Hades thinks this is a bad idea for reasons he won’t explain to his son and thus sets his underworld fiends upon him to prevent his escape. Since all dead folks eventually wash up at the House of Hades for processing, thus is the game’s loop established. When Zagreus dies while attempting to escape, he finds himself ushered quickly back home. The very short version of why this isn’t as frustrating as other games I’ve tried is that generally speaking you’ll be able to either advance the story or improve your abilities every single run, often both. The other reason is that the gameplay kicks absolute ass along the way. I consider that important but also secondary because I’ve played other roguelites with great gameplay that I never saw through. I think it’s the previous point that changed that with Hades.

In any case, I reckon I should establish the gameplay loop in order to talk about how it’s improved by other systems. Basically, at the start of the game, Zagreus leaps from his window sword in hand to climb out of the Underworld, which is presented in a 3/4 perspective. To dispatch enemies, Zag can attack, use a special (weapon-dependent), dash (invincibly), and cast bloodstones, each mapped to a face button by default. Each of these feels pretty good, and you can organize your runs around any combination thereof depending on how you manage your upgrades (discussed momentarily). Zagreus climbs out of the Underworld chamber by chamber. In roguelite fashion, these rooms will never appear in the same order twice, and certain special encounters, bosses, or shops may appear from time to time. This randomization is justified in lore as another of the ways in which the Underworld intentionally schemes to confound those that would attempt to escape it. Sure!

The enemies that appear in each chamber are varied and interesting, and no two can be approached in quite the same way. Some cast beams/projectiles to harass you from afar, some bully from up close. Some make your life harder the longer you let them live, others pack a punch but can be dealth with swiftly. In general, though, the enemies demand something I love, which is that it’s generally a bad idea to be standing still for long. Dashing between enemies and wailing on them in their moments of vulnerability was pretty much the name of the game for me, and I relish that style of play. The game allows for others, though, if you’re into, say, a more projectile-based approach. Some enemies are clearly more susceptible to certain weapons or playstyles than others, but all can be dealt with no matter how you’ve built your Zag. The fact that no style of play makes everything a breeze (or makes everything too hard) keeps the game from getting boring. Each Underworld realm ends with a boss as well. I won’t spoil them, but they’re well-designed and fun, and they can even change their behavior as the game progresses.

After clearing whatever obstacles face him in a chamber, Zag is presented with one or more doors to advance, each with a reward displayed above it. Some of these are consumables and collectibles, but if Zagreus has any real desire to escape, he’ll need to collect the Boons of Olympus, which upgrade his base abilities to stronger, modified versions. Having heard of Zagreus’ desire to escape, the Gods of Olympus offer him their aid. Their pickups vary wildly and are naturally themed based on what they’re the god of. Poseidon offers wave effects that push enemies away. Aphrodite offers charm effects that make foes’ attacks weaker. Dionysus’s boons can inflict “hangover,” which damages enemies over time. And so on. I found these boons generally diverse and interesting, and they are clearly fastidiously designed to pair well with the different weapons Zagreus unlocks, and different combos of gods can synergize well. Of course, as a roguelite, these (and other collectibles/items) appear randomly, once per chamber. When a god’s message appears, Zag gets the choice of one of three boons. It’s then up to your ingenuity to pick the best boons for your style of play or your needs at the time. In my experience, basically none of them are bad, and best of all, they’re free simply for progressing. In some of the other roguelites I’ve played, you could pretty much only get better by having [money-like resource], which meant sometimes you could be squeezed really thin if you had some rough RNG. Not so here.

Anyway, collecting these boons devising how to make them work with my weapon and playstyle of choice felt good as hell, and I always felt like I was learning. However, the important thing Hades also does is make it so escaping isn’t strictly about getting really good at the game (it doesn’t hurt, of course). After dying (and you will many times before reaching the credits), Zagreus washes up at home, usually mumbling his annoyance at how he died. Hades may taunt him as well. It’s at this point that you can do some chores and upgrade your stats. While back at home, you can talk to (and improve his relationships with) the residents of the House of Hades, who will give you useful trinkets if you ingratiate yourself enough. Furthermore, you can visit the mirror in your room (to reflect, lol) to upgrade your stats in various ways. These upgrades cost Darkness, which is one of the game’s consumables. They will seem marginal at first, but they can become quite mighty after sufficient investment. Home is also where you can unlock more weapons (and different styles of those weapons later in the game). Finally, you can commission contractor work if you are so inclined, which does a variety of things ranging from changing the color of the house’s drapery to installing healing fountains and treasure chests throughout the Underworld. I trust you can figure out which to prioritize. In any case, all of these things can work together really well to make each run feel considerably more doable than the last. Unlike other roguelites I’ve played, it felt less like I was waiting to get really favorable RNG and more like I was actively stacking things in my favor over time by virtue of what I’d collected in previous failed attempts. Progress!

But that’s not all! As I mentioned, the many residents of the House of Hades will always have something to say to Zagreus when he gets home, and most of them are interesting, comical, or both. Some will give you quests and/or rewards for earning their trust, but mostly I just cared about seeing how these interactions played out. Everyone is delightfully voice acted and wonderfully drawn (conversations are visual novel style). The voice acting in particular is impressive considering characters often remark on one of your latest exploits, meaning the amount of VA I probably haven’t even heard is probably staggering. Hypnos, for example, operates basically as the check-in guy for the dead arriving at the House. He will almost always remark on Zagreus’ cause of death and usually wish him well on avoiding such a fate in his next escape attempt. This is both charming and a remarkable effort. There are also allies awaiting in chambers throughout the Underworld to offer conversation and respite. Always a sight for sore eyes, they too have quests and interesting things to say, so I found myself always crossing my fingers that their chambers would appear on my runs.

So this all sounds pretty good, but you might find yourself worried that the game will eventually get too easy if you can just keep buffing yourself and collecting helpful accessories from your friends. Not to worry. Once you accomplish certain prerequisites, you will be able to access an extensive list of options you can toggle to increase the difficulty of each run. You’re rewarded for this by being granted some of the game’s rarer collectibles if your run is successful. Using those, you can become even more powerful, and you can crank up the difficulty even more. What this means is there is a truly deranged number of runs and playstyles I could still do before I exhaust what this game has to offer. And I gotta tell ya, even as a backlog fiend that usually ditches games post-credits, I find myself compelled to return to this one for a run or two from time to time. It’s just a lot of fun. There’s an epilogue too if you need a story carrot dangling to keep you going.

Another reason I’m interested in continuing to return to the game is that I’ve still not cleared it with every weapon (it features six and I’ve escaped with four). I’ve had fun with all of them, which is impressive to me because I usually “main” one playstyle in most games and stick to it. Grabbing a weapon and planning what boons might suit it best (and finding those boons to the best of your ability) feels so good when it works. I think that is sort of the mark of a good rogueli[k|t]e in general, but Hades was good enough that I actually got far enough along in it to care, which I think may be a great summary of how I feel about the game in general.

Now, as always, I’m gonna tack on my brief audiovisual review because I’m still really bad at making those remarks a natural part of the rest of my review. The graphics and artsyle are good! While the combat encounters can at times seem a little dinky and old-school, since Zag and his foes occupy relatively small amounts of screenspace and aren’t super detailed, this is more than made up for by the outstanding drawings of the characters used during dialogue and the beautifully rendered realms of the underworld. The music isn’t really my style, but it’s competently composed and played, and it does have a couple bangers for sure. And of course, I’ve already remarked on the excellent (and abundant) voice acting. The game has a strong aesthetic and style, and it could not be easily mistaken for another. Supergiant nailed that.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that you should buy Hades even if you don’t like roguelites because I don’t either and it rules.

† The one positive side effect of not getting the game immediately (or at any point in early-access) was that I got to get the delightful little physical release Supergiant put out on Switch. It includes a little art book and a soundtrack download, which are both nice, but the real treat is just that a game like this is preserved physically at all. And fully preserved at that. The cartridge contains, as far as I could tell, the latest version of the game as of the date of this writing. I put it in the Switch and didn’t have to download a thing before I started playing and haven’t had to since. That’s so rare these days! And so nice. Supergiant may balance the game further after this date, but that will not diminish the fact that a full game and months of patches are on this cartridge. I know my personal preferences aren’t scalable to the market at large, but it almost makes me wish the physical video game release pipeline would take this approach in general. Release it digitally, work out the kinks, then release it physically with the full game and all patches. I can never keep up with major releases anyway, so I’d love that. Alas, I am not the protagonist of reality.