I hate rogue-likes as a genre mainly because a recurring theme that keeps cropping up for me when it comes to them is that I always feel like I'd actually really enjoy them if they were just more standard action/strategy games. Hades is a perfect example of this.

Hades feels like it could have been a really cool action game if it was traditionally non-procedural level based akin to Bastion; (Which seriously seems like it will be the only Supergiant game I will ever like) instead Hades is one huge, long, tedious, slog of a grind. The whole game is stretched out to its breaking point in both gameplay and narrative. As I said if this was a more standard story-driven action game I would probably love it. The core combat is solid and for a while I really was having fun and even had “a one more run” feeling; but the slog really sets in once the difficulty starts spiking. Like Hades himself is just such a brick wall that I didn’t really want to bother trying anymore, especially because Theseus and the Minotaur are hard enough as is. You need to grind so much if you’re going to want to stay alive and even then I didn’t really feel like I was actually getting any stronger. Even when I was getting as many boons from the Olympians as I could to make some decent builds I would still get destroyed. The game does have a God Mode that progressively gives you more permanent resistance the more you die but I just wasn't having fun anymore to even bother just easy modeing it. The game doesn’t have much variety either which also really makes me feel that this game shouldn’t have been a rogue-like at all. The story is also dragged the hell out by locking character interactions out through a collectible that you got to grind for and also that you can only really talk to characters once a run. Which is a real shame because the cast has their charms and if this game’s narrative was structured in a more straightforward game it would have been all the better for it. I seriously want to play a version of Hades where it wasn’t a rogue-like, I can’t stress this enough.

I’ve heard that this game was a good rogue-lite for people who don’t like rogue-lites and for that I completely disagree, if you don’t like the genre this game probably won’t change your mind at all. I wanted to like this game, I really did, but ultimately I’m glad I family shared my friends copy.

The epitome of charisma.

Hades is a game I've felt bad about not playing extensively for a long time, since it was sitting in my library for over 2 years with only a couple hours of playtime. I'm now 20+ hours deep and completely understand the appeal and praise, its truly an addicting experience.

I have never seen such a good looking game in my life, this shit might be the peak of art direction for what I've played so far - nothing I can think of can match. Many artists I admire have worked on this project, Jen Zee's illustration work is just perfection. The shape and colour design she utilised to mold the game's identity reflects and enhances the tone of the world and environments, the wonderful voice acting performances, and the visual identities for character designs alongside their associated boons/abilities. These choices in visual design bleed throughout the others' work in Joanne Tran's backgrounds and Weilin Zhang + Spencer Wan's trailer animations. The game is truly something that stands at the top of my list for visuals.

The score is nuts, the mix of modernized rock with crazy electric guitar riffs and the strumming of acoustics in the theme of Mediterranean folk really fit with the aesthetics of the game. I especially love how dynamic it feels while playing, it never feels like the music abruptly cuts off at an awkward time and instead transitions smoothly throughout each room of the level, increasing or decreasing the amount of instrumentation depending on the encounter difficulty.

Writing isn't something I can talk about in its entirety, but based on what I've played so far its above average with some creative concepts for the mythical Olympian gods, the way it focuses on a more personal aspect between Zagreus and this cast is a refreshing perspective, and I feel like I can connect with the characters and their stories more than I initially expected because they feel like real people with past relationships. I'm still getting story content, new dialogue and character interactions even after completing the main objective which is something I really appreciate.

Gameplay loop is so satisfying, the flawless character and effects animations really help with the feeling of shitting on everything in the room and wanting to do it over and over. The RNG aspect (that comes with this genre) of finding different boons throughout your runs was not something I thought I'd end up enjoying so much, the immense satisfaction I feel when getting all the things I want is a big part of why I want to jump back into the game as soon as I close it.

Anyway game is amazing and after some more play time this might go in the top 5, not sure but its peak so im excited for the sequel :)

Hades is truly Supergiant’s best work by far. It is astonishing the sheer amount of voice acting and writing this game has. It’s in its own class as the best roguelite experience around. Just overall very solid isometric action gameplay with a fun selection of weapons and upgrades that allow for some truly busted loadouts (as all good games in this genre should). It also features a very fun cast of characters and story that made me keep coming back enough to push the game to my top seven most played on Switch (even more than Breath of the Wild). And yet, I bet if I booted it up right now, my next run would still likely include several lines of dialogue I hadn’t heard yet. Bravo to Supergiant games for Hades, because they have certainly established a whole new bar for the genre.

I've always been a roguelike lover and what comes with that for me is that I tend to be a bit of a roguelite hater. And so I guess I'm not that surprised I didn't like this game very much, but I think it's one of the better attempts at a roguelite that I've ever seen.

On the positive side, the narrative justification for the repeated "runs" in the game is good, and the writing, music, and art direction set it apart in games in general but particularly in the roguelite genre. My favorite thing by far is simply the character writing and acting -- some of the better voice acting when taken across the board of any video-game of recent memory.

What I don't like that much is the repetitive gameplay with little variation. It's been written about better in other reviews (because a game this big has already had just about everything to say about it said elsewhere) but there simply isn't that much variety in this game. There are a handful of weapons to play around with all of which have 3-4 moves to their name, and sport slightly different playstyles. To introduce roguelike randomness you're given a bunch of "boons," or powerups, that correlate to various gods and goddesses, but they lack the flavor that makes a good roguelike -- they take the form of percentage bonuses of damages in certain contexts and changes of the RNG for certain occurences etc... there's nothing game changing or wild that I encountered in my 10-ish hours of playtime.

The overall sense of reward starts dropping really fast as well, which is a common problem for the roguelite genre -- usually developers will try to drip feed you enough progression to make it feel like you're progressing, but in the case of this game, I don't really feel that there's much at all. For the first 10 or 15 runs I felt like at least there were some systems unfolding, but from there to about 25 it felt pretty even except for new dialogue after each death and very slowly accumulation of resources even though I regularly made it 3/4ths of the way to the surface.

I got to Hades once at around run 9 or so and he swept the floor with me, and I never could get back through Elysium again, but with each attempt I found myself caring less and less. The game is just too repetitive, and the lack of interesting randomness means there may as well be no randomness at all -- if Zagreus simply leveled up a little bit after each run and gained some stats, that would be a far more enjoyable progression system than just picking between some AoE status effects to deal on enemies or some percentage changes of this or that.

That ultimately is the difference between the roguelike and the roguelite and why the roguelite is a hard sell for me: roguelikes usually are devoid of "real" gameplay and focus instead on creating great and ridiculous variety and outlandishness, sometimes to the detriment and equally as much to the delight of the player -- they offer a lot of very out there concepts to experiment with. Roguelites on the other hand tend to feel more repetitive because they just don't try nearly as hard to be interesting in the randomness that they implement.

All in all, Hades just feels like it would be better served being reduced to a more linear game, especially with the lack of variety in the powerups and stages, and lack of SOMETHING to distinguish run from run in a way that's memorable. I would rather have played something with the levels connected end to end with this same style and characters, instead of this which feels far more clumsy as a result of the systems it's trying to implement, half-heartedly, over-top of what otherwise seems like a decent game with an interesting narrative concept.

3.5 - Good: A good game that lacks something to take it to greatness

I've sunk around 100 hours into Hades. Unsurprisingly I think the game has a lot going for it, the core gameplay is very satisfying, the game gives just enough variety in the experiences it provides whilst having enough consistency to it that doing well is much more about mastering its mechanics than rolling the perfect mix of boons. Of particular note I love the player agency offered in the boons system giving you a lot of choice over the build that will come together this run, and the heat gauge which lets you up the difficulty whilst crafting an experience you'll actually still enjoy.

Beyond that the production quality is incredible, particular standouts being the music which is exciting and enjoyable but able to withstand many hours of repeated listening, and the character designs that are (almost) all just extremely evocative and endearing, each coming with ludicrous amounts of unique dialogue attached.

Beyond all this, beyond all the ways the game interweaves the lore of real mythology into its world, there's just something so conceptually compelling going on here too; the core gameplay loop and the reasoning behind it just makes so much sense, like of course a tale of someone breaking free from the underworld would be a roguelite, of course his inability to survive on the surface sets up perfectly for repeated gameplay loops even after you've "beaten" the game for the first time. It all just works.

That said, I've mellowed a lot on Hades since I put it down a few months ago (and returned to update this review). I still think it's a great game with a lot going for it, but I wish I felt like its true ending respected the player's time a bit more; it takes somewhere in the realm of 80 hours to get to it, but my best experiences with the game were all in my opening 20 or 30 hours of playing and I never really found myself recapturing that initial excitement. It doesn't help that once the heat level is pushed high enough the game stops really becoming fun, all its designs starting to crumble under the weight of however many different modifiers layered on top of one another, some mutated form of its former glory. As much as I enjoyed much of my time with Hades, and as much as I respect a lot of what it is doing, I'm unsure I will ever be returning to it.

Status: Completed 100%
Date: 04.14.2021 / Play Time: 105 hours

The Rogue-lite genre perfected.

I know “perfect” is a pretty bold word to use when describing a game, but Hades gets pretty close to it. Don’t get me wrong, it has some stuff in it that I would absolutely change, but I truly think Supergiant Games have absolutely perfected the Rogue-lite formula with Hades.

I think one of the trickiest things in Rogue-likes/-lites is making your runs feel worthwhile - making loss not feel like an enormous setback, because in many Rogue games, it is. The story of Hades is built around your repeated runs in such a way that makes it feel like every single run builds on the story, even when you die. Win or lose, some aspect of the story moves forward. Yes, you do need to successfully escape a few times to roll credits. Beyond that, however, most progression with upgrades, characters, side-quests, etc can happen regardless of whether you make it out or not… provided RNG is on your side and you happen to trigger a conversation or find a boon needed for a quest.

Which leads me to my only complaint about the game - randomness. RNG playing into which boons you find in a run is fine - it forces you to adapt and make the best of what you’re given. However, I don’t like RNG when progression is locked behind it because you can’t find a specific boon or you can’t get a conversation with a certain character to trigger. I spent countless hours looking for a very specific boon to finish my last side quest. That said, even during that frustrating hunt, I didn’t stop playing because the core gameplay is a dang blast.

I also need to give a huge shout-out for how well Hades includes LGBTQ themes in extremely normal ways that are unfortunately not found very often in video games.

The cast of characters in this game is phenomenal. One of my favorite ensembles in a while. I was eager to continue doing runs not only because the gameplay was fun, but I wanted to keep seeing everything the characters had to say. And after 105 hours across a total of 96 escape attempts (73 of which were successful), I was still hearing new dialogue when I finally finished the game.

I could speak at length about how much fun I had thinking of cool builds and trying to create them, the wonderful cast of characters, or the excellent hook of collecting resources to upgrade your gear or hub. But honestly this review is already getting a little long. Go play Hades.

+ Perfect attempt/die/repeat gameplay loop with meaningful upgrades
+ Amazing cast of characters with great voice acting
+ Supergiant’s typical gorgeous visuals
+ Great soundtrack
+ Good LGBTQ representation
+ Good accessibility/difficulty options

- RNG impacting story progression

Hades counteracts the lack of variety in its rogue-like gameplay, that is, maps, enemies, bosses, weapons with a main story and its series of secondary branches whose threads sustain the game as the hours go by. New conversations here and secondary character development there. Endless comments/conversations every time we die and appear in the main room where the characters await us with updates on their arcs/plots or to comment on the way in which we died and how far we have come in that hell, congratulating us or laughing at us. Also the possibility of unlocking new objects, decorations with their aforementioned comments by the protagonist. All this creates an excellent feeling of progress and that our surroundings react to our actions with each attempt to escape.

But after about 20 hours everything is losing strength and reality arrives. Side stories lead nowhere. The main one holds your interest until you've cleared the game several times, when you realize there's nothing significant coming up. What the characters say becomes variants of the same theme said differently. Before I thought they were dynamic, now I know they are static. What used to be conversations worthy of emotion are now mere procedures to return to the playable part.

Playable part that, as he said in the first sentence, lacks the variety of enemies, weapons and settings to be a rogue like that pretends to be a player for dozens and dozens of hours. Like the rest of the game, the best thing is at the beginning, when you learn how to play, when you try the weapons or builds for the first time. Until exhaustion arrives due to the repetitiveness of its systems.

However, thanks to the fact that I didn't need to go through the epilogue, where you have to repeat god knows how many times the same loop to see the real ending, I can keep the good things, which are the first 20 hours where you learn the rules and where every victory is a reason to comment with those around you.

-----

Hades contrarresta la poca variedad de su jugabilidad rogue like, es decir, mapas, enemigos, jefes, armas con una historia principal y su serie de ramas secundarias cuyos hilos van sosteniendo las partidas conforme pasan las horas. Nuevas conversaciones por aquí y desarrollo de personajes secundarios por allá. Un sinfín de comentarios/conversaciones cada vez que morimos y aparecemos en la sala principal donde nos esperan los personajes con actualizaciones es sus arcos/tramas o para comentar la forma en la que hemos muerto y hasta donde hemos llegado en ese infierno, dándonos la enhorabuena o riéndose de nosotros. También la posibilidad de desbloquear nuevos objetos, adornos con sus susodichos comentarios por aparte del protagonista. Todo esto crea una excelente sensación de progreso y que nuestro alrededor reacciona a nuestros actos con cada intento de fuga.

Pero pasadas unas 20 horas todo va perdiendo fuerza y la realidad llega. Las historias secundarias no llevan a ninguna parte. La principal tiene su interés hasta que has completado el juego varias veces, cuando te das cuenta de que no hay nada significativo por llegar. Lo que dicen los personajes se convierte en variantes del mismo tema expresado de manera diferente. Antes creía que eran dinámicos, ahora sé que son estáticos. Lo que antes eran conversaciones dignas de emoción, ahora son meros trámites para volver a la parte jugable.

Parte jugable que, como he dicho en la primera frase, carece de la variedad de enemigos, armas y escenarios para tratarse de un rogue like que pretenda ser jugado decenas y decenas de horas. Al igual que el resto del juego, lo mejor está al principio, en el aprendizaje, cuando pruebas por primeras veces las armas o builds. Hasta que llega el agotamiento por lo repetitivo de sus sistemas.

Me quedo con lo positivo que son sus primeras 15 horas donde voy aprendiendo a manejarme, donde cada combo o poder desbloqueados producen sensaciones magníficas, donde cada boss superado es un logro mayúsculo para comentar entre todos los personajes y donde cada conversación o nuevo inquilino del infierno me parecen una gran victoria y motivo de ilusión.

A roguelite masterpiece made by a tiny team that somehow manages to master the art of doing everything exceedingly well. Hades has high-speed, deeply fun gameplay that encourages both mechanical skill and strategic planning; an engaging, expanding story with unexpected twists; meaningful, progressing relationships with genuinely interesting characters; stunning, bold art; and music that you'll continue to listen to for months after your final run.

Out of my favorite roguelites, I think of Hades as being not only the best, but also the most accessible for players who are strangers to the genre or "bad" at games. This is because Hades' excellent narrative and relationship development are woven in between each run, cushioning the blow of failure. Who has the time to feel bad about dying when it means you get to revisit old friends, experience an expanding storyline, flirt with demigods, poke fun at your dad, and pet Cerberus? Because of this and its tight, addictive core mechanics, Hades is one of very few games I genuinely enjoyed sucking at long enough to, eventually, become genuinely good at.

(As a side note, I'd recommend playing with a keyboard and mouse if you want precision, or a controller if you want speed. I don't think one is clearly "better" than the other.)

Hades is Supergiants biggest hit and what truly brought them into the limelight and showed the whole world just how talented the team at Supergiant Games is. This game is easily the best gameplay wise from SG, and is one of the best roguelikes I've ever played. Before I get into gameplay, I'll talk about the rest of the game. The music in this game is one of the best parts. While I think the vocal tracks don't hold as much weight as they do in Bastion or Transistor, they are still wonderful songs. But when it comes to battle tracks or otherwise, Hades is the best SG has ever done. The battle themes are almost akin to Bastion in terms of instruments, but also adds rock elements. Themes like The Hard Way and House of Hades and Through Asphodel, the game has no shortage of songs that get your heart going. As for narrative, Hades has brilliant characters through and through, and the voice acting for each one is superb. This game really benefits from being a roguelike as it allows for so many character interactions that flesh out the world and characters more. As for gameplay, putting it simply, it's great. I love the weapons and the different aspects for each one, and the abilities being built around the different gods is honestly brilliant. Would recommend to anyone. Can't wait for Hades 2.

Perfect. Holy moly I finally finished it.

I had the most fun, the most intense, and most enjoyable experience with this game. I think this game perfected the “roguelike” experience and it’s gonna be hard to go to other roguelikes.

I can’t emphasize how annoyed and energized I felt sometimes dying to a simple spawn, but I knew I was stronger going back. Not just me the player learning the game, but Zagreus gets stronger through upgrades.

Not only that awesome part, but you dying continues the story and conversations you have with multiple characters. Aaaannd the dialogue system is deep. You get a boost from one Olympic God and a few minutes later another God will comment on that first God. And almost every time is the dialogue different. They recorded so many lines.

I am incredibly curious about “Hades II” and if it can run on my potato laptop. “Hades” could run amazing and ran amazing on my phone (where I played it).

The endgame content is crazy. They basically want you to continue playing the game as much as you want. I actually started another run (but paused and saved it) just because I wanted to see how it would keep going. I might come back to it soon, but I really want to dive into some other games.

When I decided to buy Hades I was initially worried the game wouldn't live up to the insane hype around it. Fast forward a week of binge-playing and 52 hours of play time later (To get the credits, add another 15 to get the epilogue) and I can 100% without a doubt confirm this game deserves absolutely every bit of praise it gets. I have enjoyed multiple games in the roguelite genre prior to Hades, but nothing ever truly blew me away the way this game did.

Gameplay: I would describe Hades as the kind of game that is 'Easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master'. You might think at first that on the surface the game mechanics are simple, you have your typical hack n slash 'light attack', 'heavy attack', 'dodge/dash' etc, but you'd be very wrong because the sheer amount of depth in the gameplay is just mind-blowing and really makes the game insanely addictive. Even 50+ hours into the game you'll still be learning new strategies and combinations for the myriad god boons and various weapons you have at your disposal, this level of depth truly keeps every single run fresh and enjoyable. That's to say nothing of the other activities you can do like various side-quests and sub-plots for other characters, collecting materials to cosmetically enhance your hub-base and unlock permanent upgrades for Zagreus to make your subsequent runs a little less difficult, hell you can even fish! The fact you have to beat the game 10 times to get the credits and ending might have bothered me more if not for the fact that there's so much to do in Hades that I was fully kept enthralled for all 50+ hours I've put into the game at the time of this review.

Story and characters: Someone might describe the story of Hades as an angsty teenager rebelling against his father and while that isn't entirely wrong, it can also be viewed as the sheer determination and stubbornness of one man, journeying to hell and back (multiple times) to repair his dysfunctional and fractured family. It's honestly not a super 'deep' story, but the way it is executed and the characters being so vibrant and unique really brought it to life. Speaking of the characters, I truly adored them all. Zagreus is a fantastic protagonist full of so much wit and charm, every single one of the Olympian gods have their own distinct personalities that are true to their myths, from the flirty and seductive Aphrodite to the awkward and shy Artemis or the boastful, arrogant Zeus etc they all were portrayed fantastically. I also have to mention how much I loved the incorporation of various Greek myths like Orpheus and Eurydice or Achilles or Theseus and the bull of Minos, it was a nice touch to the mythological theme.

Voice acting: I was absolutely blown away by the voice acting in this game for a small team of voice actors I'd never heard of prior to this game they did a stellar job that sounded just as professional as any triple A game, they really captured the essence of that style of speech you'd read in a classic Greek epic such as The Odyssey. I also want to make note of the sheer amount of voice lines in this game. In my entire 50+ hour play time I didn't run across a single repeated line of dialogue and that really impressed the hell out of me.

Artwork: Supergiant games have always had fantastic artwork in their games, but Hades seriously has some of the best, most detailed and beautifully stylized art I've seen in a long time, all the character designs are so colorful and vibrant. There's not a single character I didn't think looked amazingly designed.

Music: Hades has just as much to offer musically as it does in every other aspect. Every single track of the OST perfectly captures the mood of the game. An excellent blend of modern music like heavy and intense electric guitars and classical music like flutes, harps and all the other stuff you'd expect to hear in a game about Greek mythology.

Whether it's the sheer amount of depth in the gameplay, the well crafted narrative, the amazing characters and voice acting, the masterfully composed OST or the beautiful and detailed art, Hades honestly has everything you could ever want in a game and I don't have a single complaint. This game truly is a masterpiece deserving of universal acclaim and I can't recommend it enough to literally anyone because this is the kind of game that proves gaming is just as much of an art-form as any other style of media.

Um absurdo, Incrível em todos os "aspectos". Hades é um jogo até mesmo pra quem não curte roguelike, Essa obra de arte é tão imoral que quebra e ultrapassa essa barreira como se não fosse nada.

Arte impecável, trilha sonora magistral, gameplay satisfatória, ambientação e temática incríveis. Além de tudo ainda tem o fator repetição super divertido, que é o diferencial dele e que me fez curtir roguelike, É um jogo completo. Mesmo que você acabe enjoando dele uma hora, Vai querer voltar em outra.

Não curto repetição e por isso não sou fã do estilo, Acontece que esse jogo é a exceção, É outro nível. Falo com tranquilidade que Hades é a perfeição, Uma obra prima, Não existe nenhum ponto negativo nessa masterpiece.

an impeccably designed and incredibly well-crafted game with great combat and production values that's still just too much of a roguelike for my taste; I didn't even make it to the Temple of Styx, let alone complete a successful run, and the repetition was already getting to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm clearly in the minority here and I absolutely get why this game has been so immensely popular and critically acclaimed, but honestly, I wish Supergiant had just made a non-roguelike ARPG with the same setting and combat mechanics.