Hades Review
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Introduction
Hades is the latest offering from Supergiant Games, the team that put itself on the map with Bastion and then followed that success up with Transistor and Pyre. The game is described as a “god-like rogue-like dungeon crawler,” but what it actually is, is an isometric roguelite action-RPG inspired by Greek mythology.
Prior to its eventual release, Hades spent a couple of years in early access. And since I’m not the biggest fan of that particular release model, it took me a while to give Hades a shot, even though I’ve enjoyed every Supergiant game so far.
But having now essentially “beaten” the game, I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys fast-paced action-RPGs and Supergiant’s signature vibrant art style. You’ll find my reasons for that below.
Marvelous Myths
Let’s start by tackling the elephant in the room. What even is a roguelite game? In short, it’s a game that takes some roguelike elements, usually permadeath and procedural generation, and puts them into something that’s decidedly not a turn-based dungeon crawler. There’s also usually some form of persistent progression involved.
As a result of that, Hades is structured as a series of “runs.” You, as Zagreus, a mystery-shrouded son of Hades (the god, not the game), try to escape the Underworld by going through four expansive procedurally-generated floors, each ending with a boss fight. A successful run takes about 30 minutes on average, but whether you succeed or fail, in the end, you end up back in the House of Hades that acts as the game's hub.
There, you can spend some of your hard-earned currency on permanent upgrades and advance the game’s story by talking to NPCs and buttering them up with precious gifts.
The story itself is essentially a retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth. In this version, Zagreus first has to patch things up between his parents and then establish a working relationship between Hades and the Olympians.
And I’ll be honest, this overarching story was the weakest part of the game for me. Supergiant took more than a fair share of creative license when depicting the gods, heroes, and monsters you meet on your journey, and as a result, the whole thing feels more like a sitcom than anything else. Basically, if you’re someone who can watch a Marvel movie without groaning whenever they show Asgard, there’s a decent chance you’ll enjoy Hades’ story. Otherwise, you’re in for some heavy eye rolling.
On a more mechanical level, what’s also a bit annoying, is how all the characters you meet in the House of Hades are seemingly incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes. Instead, they keep moving around and having private conversations. On paper, this livens up the place and prevents things from feeling stale. But because you only get one shot at a chat after each run, this can lead to a situation where a character you need to talk to simply refuses to appear for a while.
With that in mind, what saved the game’s narrative side for me were all the bits of dialogue you get when you actually interact with stuff. This is a Supergiant game, so of course, audio design and voice acting are among its core pillars. And Hades kicks that up to a new level.
Pretty much everything in the game can result in a voice line from either the protagonist or the narrator, and the sheer variety of these lines is staggering, to the point where a boss would berate you for not dodging an attack, or your character would complain about that same boss using an annoying attack of his too many times in a row.
These little interactions create a fantastic illusion of a living world, as opposed to just a bunch of procedurally-generated content, and help sell Hades as something more than just another roguelite.
Feats of Strength
Now that we’re done with the House of Hades, let’s talk about his realm and how you actually escape it. At the very beginning, your options will be limited, but eventually, you'll get access to a total of six different weapons, each with four distinct aspects. With how impactful these aspects are, you essentially end up with 24 basic templates to start things off.
Each weapon has spammable basic and special attacks. You also get a dash that allows you to dodge out of harm’s way and perform unique dash attacks. Beyond that, you also get a Cast, a ranged attack independent from your weapon. These are limited by either a cooldown or a limited supply of Bloodstones. And later on, you can also get access to a Call, a move you can use after filling a special bar by dealing and taking damage. These range from brief invulnerability windows to strong bursts of damage.
All this comes together to create a very smooth and satisfying combat system that gives you plenty of options, rewards aggression, but also leaves enough room for a more meticulous playstyle. It’s just fun, basically.
And while the above can seem like a description of a pure action game, things get really interesting once boons enter the picture. Each time you clear a room, you get a reward of some sort. These range from bits of currency to health upgrades and permanent alterations to your weapon’s move set. But on top of that, certain rooms contain messages from the Olympians.
After a brief chat, your extended family members imbue you with a bit of their power, granting you powerful passive bonuses or enhancing your attacks with special effects. So, for example, Athena helps you deflect enemy attacks back at them. Dionysus allows you to damage your foes with powerful hangover (poison) effects. And Poseidon lets you wash your enemies away.
Each god has over a dozen of these boons that can later be upgraded to enhance their effects. And just to make things even more interesting, after you’ve received boons from two different Olympians, you can get a Duo boon that combines the powers already available to you in a new way.
This character-building system is easily the best thing about Hades. And while there’s never a guarantee you’ll get exactly what you want on any particular run, after you’ve unlocked some stuff at the House, you’ll get to nudge the RNG in your favor in some major ways.
But even if that doesn’t go your way, the number of viable builds and the fact that pretty much every weapon is good in one way or another means that you'll never end up stuck with an unwinnable run.
Another important thing to mention when talking about roguelite games is their longevity. With the exception of FTL, up until Hades, whenever I played a game like this, I would usually get the simplest ending, then maybe do a run or two after that, and call it a day.
With Hades, I was compelled to keep playing, keep unlocking new stuff, keep discovering new boon combinations. In fact, in order to get to what the game considers the “true ending,” you have to beat it ten times. I did that. Took me exactly 30 tries to get there. But then, I still kept playing to complete the second act of the story and get to the canonical epilogue.
Basically, the game is structured in such a way that you keep unlocking and discovering new stuff pretty much all the way till the very end. And not just cosmetics and minor stat bonuses, but entire new systems like fishing and summoning.
This approach allows the developers to teach you the ropes without overwhelming you with information. Gradually, you learn how everything works, and once you do, the game hits you with some new twist, unveils a new system, or sends you on some new long-term quest.
But if you’re looking for some more traditional progression systems, there’s plenty of that as well. The game has an abundance of currencies that allow you to gradually unlock new weapon aspects and then upgrade them, permanently make your character stronger, unlock new rooms and increase the rewards you get for clearing them.
You also get to gradually learn more about a multitude of NPCs, work on fulfilling various prophecies, redecorate the House of Hades, and so on. Basically, there's always something you could be doing and this keeps things fresh for way longer than you would expect.
In fact, the more I played Hades, the more I enjoyed it. Early on, I had some issues with the game's combat design. I felt that bosses had a touch too much health. I wasn't a fan of the special armored enemies and was already planning an entire paragraph comparing them to the Divinity: Original Sin II's fun-killing armor system.
But as I kept unlocking new options and upgrades, and as my understanding of the game deepened, all those things fell into place and started to make perfect sense.
One last thing to mention here is the game’s difficulty. After beating the final boss once, you’ll be able to use the Pact of Punishment and manually make things harder for yourself. This is essentially Supergiant's signature way of handling difficulty levels, and it definitely works. And on the flip side, if you feel that the game is too hard, there's an option that makes you stronger after every death to let you experience the overarching story without too much hassle.
Technical Information
Since this is a Supergiant title, by now you should expect gorgeous and vibrant visuals, an outstanding soundtrack, and fantastic voice acting. Hades has all of those, although I would argue that its soundtrack doesn’t quite reach the heights of something like Transistor.
When it comes to voice acting, Supergiant’s iconic Logan Cunningham is now just one part of an ensemble cast. This opens the door for some more uneven performances, but none of them can be considered outright bad by any stretch of the imagination.
The game's early access phase didn't go to waste either, and it is now beyond polished. It runs very well, doesn't use a lot of resources, and takes mere moments to save and load. Everything works, and nothing is out of place.
Seeing how Hades was inspired by the roguelike genre, it’s understandable that it uses an autosave system. But you never seem to be more than a minute away from an autosave, so it’s not too bad.
Finally, the game was clearly designed with a controller in mind, which is a bit annoying, because I have no idea how you would play such a fast-paced and precise game with a controller. In my experience, using a keyboard and mouse is beyond preferable here, but this results in somewhat clunky menus.
Conclusion
If we consider Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre as the video game equivalent of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy, where three decidedly standalone projects by the same creators can be seen as sharing certain stylistic and thematic elements, then Hades would be the end goal of such a long-term endeavor that refines various elements of its predecessors before combining them into one ultimate package.
You take Bastion’s fast-paced combat, Transistor’s modular character-building system, Pyre’s incremental storytelling, and add a coating of Greek mythology on top of it all, and you end up with Hades - an action-RPG you’ll have to try very hard not to enjoy.
