Hades

Yesterday I completed Hades, a roguelike game developed by Supergiant Games and was released in 2020. The objective is to escape the underworld with Zagreus (the son of Hades) by moving from room to room and defeating the enemies within which include several bosses and 4 zones with different characteristics. Along the way you collect rewards which will either make Zagreus stronger for your escape attempt or give you resources which you can spend to make Zagreus permanently stronger, unlock special rooms, weapons or cosmetics.

The game features a lot of Greek mythology for which I admit I know very little. There is dialog with most of the Gods which reside at Mount Olympus and in the Underworld plus many others such as the hero Achilles. I found this to be not exactly a unique but an interesting flavour to the game which I haven’t experienced before. Better still the dialog between Zagreus and the various characters in the game contains a lot of humour. It takes the somewhat deep and interesting subject of Greek mythology and puts a funny spin on it which I really like. The story and dialog is also continuous and not repetitive, even when you fail and Zagreus dies the story and the dialog continues which somehow makes your failure feel like not a bad thing and actively pats you on the back, encouraging you to try again. Much like how real life should be.

The artwork by Jen Zee is exceptional as featured above. The soundtrack by Darren Korb is also very good. The gameplay has a lot of hack and slash so I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who is susceptible to an RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). But I would recommend using a decent mouse and keyboard, something every gamer should have if they can, it really is helpful with games such as this. I don’t know what my average APM (Actions Per Minute) was completing Hades, but I can say it is much higher than I am used to.

I felt a great sense of pride and accomplishment escaping the underworld for the first time and effectively completing the game, so much so that as well as adding Hades to my list of completed games, I also captured the moment I defeated the final boss for the first time and uploaded it to YouTube. I don’t know if my strategy of ‘going in all guns blazing’ was a good one, but I had such a good run that I hoped it would work.

Spoiler alert.

To be honest Hades isn’t the type of game I would normally play, it was given to me by my friends Jamie and Shadey as a birthday present just over 2 weeks ago. This is the second game they have given me, the first being Slay the Spire for Christmas. I feel so incredibly lucky to have such thoughtful and generous friends in my life who have helped me broaden my gaming horizons and perhaps more importantly my confidence. I can’t thank them enough.

It took me 40 attempts and over 25 hours of play time to escape the underworld, but there is a lot of end game content which could probably add another 30 or 40 hours of game play. This includes ‘hell mode’ which makes subsequent attempts harder and/or speed running the game with the different weapons available. For me though I am satisfied to leave Hades on a high and move on to the next game.