So, Hades...this is the game that got hyped up to holy hell (heh) by everyone who played it. I've seen people that call it the best indie game, some even call it the best GAME ever. I wouldn't go anywhere near that far, but, after playing through the game, I can see why it got praised so much. It's far from my favorite games list, although its solid overall and I thought it had a lot of cool stuff about it. For context, this is the first roguelike (or is it a roguelite?) that I've played and actually tried to get through. I never liked the idea behind the genre; a gauntlet of randomly generated rooms that makes you go lose everything and start from square one every time you die sounded like torture to play through for me. Before this, I had only played through a bit of Enter the Gungeon with a friend and thought it was very "meh" (not to insinuate that game is bad or anything). Hades was much more interesting to me. Admittedly, I died a LOT in this game. It was frustrating when it was the same enemy or boss over and over (I died a lot to Megaera and the Asterius-Theseus tag team boss), but the way the game is structured makes it to where death isn't quite as frustrating as I thought it would be without losing out on that sense of brutal challenge the genre seems to be known for. I ended the game with only one successful escape attempt; I know its intended for you to keep going, and part of me is curious to see where the story goes from here, but quite frankly I didn't feel like playing through the same levels again no matter how randomly generated they were. Not sure if labeling this as a "Completed" playthrough is entirely accurate because of this endless aspect of the game, so I'm not going to do that. This game is going to get a specialized Note in my 2023 List stating that I didn't technically finish it but I also feel I've seen what it has to offer.

Alright, I'll start with the visuals. Normally not the first thing I talk about, but this game surprised me with how much of a distinct and cool style it has. When you look closely, you can still see the cracks (the models of the characters that aren't the enemies or bosses look a bit weird to me), but this is easy to ignore when there's such a neat art style to the whole game. The colors are very vibrant yet suitably dark when it needs to be. Each character you can talk to has a portrait that's drawn in this cool style that I'm not really sure how to even describe. It's just great, but not much else to say about it there.

The gameplay is definitely the main attraction of Hades. The combat has a frantic high speed energy to it that just feels excellent to play through. Everything goes so quick, but never so speedy that you can't tell what the hell is going on. Things do get pretty crazy once you get to rooms chockful of enemies to take down, but this is balanced out by the enemies all spawning in waves (new enemies will mostly only spawn after taking out the wave you're currently fighting with a few exceptions). Whenever you're in trouble, you can always dash up to 2 times by default, which gives you invincibility frames and can be upgraded with Boons (more on Boons later). The dash is probably one of the most important tools in your arsenal because of that, but it never feels like it cheapens the game's difficulty and instead feels like it enhances the sense of speed in it. There's a pretty good variety of enemies to fight, so it doesn't feel like you're always fighting the same guys. I imagine that's very important if you're a Roguelike fiend that tries to play all these games several times over, but I'm not that kinda guy. Rooms tend to have traps that you can use to your advantage if you're clever enough, like spike traps and pressure plates that make statues shoot out projectiles. I just wanted to keep pumping out damage and dashing around, so it was more convenient to just ignore the traps for me. I found that the boss fights are particularly amazing. They are hard and can be especially frustrating if you don't know what you're doing, but once you figure it out they're a lot of fun. The only one I hated was the Asterius + Theseus tag team, but by the time I got to Styx for the first time I was able to eliminate Asterius + Theseus much easier after having understood the pattern. The final boss fight against Hades himself was easily the most pressure I felt in a fight in a while, frantically trying to avoid all his attacks while still pumping enough damage to get him before he got me. I didn't end up dying to him once, but that was a stressful final boss and I felt so accomplished when I beat him while I was just barely at death's door.

One aspect of the game's combat that I feel makes it so interesting is the sense of customizability it has. Took me a bit to wrap my head around, but it was neat to experiment with. There are a bunch of weapons - or Infernal Arms, as they're called in game - that you can choose between once you unlock them all. You start with Stygius, but, once you get enough Chthonic Keys, you can unlock the other five weapons: Coronacht, Varatha, Aegis, Twin Fists of Malphon, and Exagryph. These weapons are a bow, forked spear, shield, gauntlets, and a railgun respectively. Each have some attributes unique to them, like Aegis has a charge move that also blocks any attacks thrown in its way or the spin attack that Varatha has that feels ripped straight out of The Legend of Zelda. Every weapon has a basic attack on X (I was using Xbox inputs so these buttons might not apply to your controller) and a special attack unique to that weapon on Y, which will make up the wide majority of your attack options aside from the occasional Cast (which is like a ranged projectile shot by pressing B that all weapons have). I found that all the weapons were pretty fun to use and none of them felt useless to me, although Stygius was the only one I genuinely didn't like using. I'd say the Twin Fists were the most fun to use, but Coronacht ended up being my best weapon so I kept using that instead. You can upgrade your weapons once you unlock them all, which lets you use that Titan's Blood that was likely sitting in your inventory from beating the first boss (unless you're unfortunate enough to have never beat her before you got all the weapons). Since I experimented with all the weapons enough to at least beat the first boss with them, I got a Titan's Blood from each one, which was enough to upgrade one weapon a few times. I made the mistake of using my first Titan's Blood on upgrading Varatha, since I thought I would like that weapon the most, but I ended up liking Coronacht more and felt like I wasted the blood. You can get pretty in-depth with builds in this game, honestly; each weapon has four different aspects that each add different perks or effects to the weapon, but unfortunately you don't get anywhere near enough Titan's Blood to efficiently try them out when you're on the way to finish your first escape run. On my playthrough, I just looked up a guide for Coronacht builds online and found that people say the Aspect of Chiron path for upgrades is really good, so I went with that and it worked well for me. Upgrading weapons is cool, but there's also the perks you get from the mirror in your room. You exchange your Darkness (the little purple orbs you get from clearing certain rooms or killing bosses you already killed before) for these permanent perks. One of these - Death Defiance - is pretty expensive, especially if you want to get all three upgrades for it, but its basically a necessity because it essentially gives you an extra life that you wouldn't normally have. Unless you're some kind of pro gamer that never dies to anything, you're gonna need Death Defiance, and if you're like me you'll need to have two of those to get your first escape attempt. A big feature of customizability for the combat is Boons, which are specific buffs you get from the Olympian Gods that last as long as you can last in a particular run. So, if you get the lightning bolt, Zeus shows up and gives you some options for buffing yourself up that last until the whole run. You're not stuck with the same Boon for the whole thing, since you can sell them in some rooms or replace it with a different Boon if you see one you like better from another god. However, the kind of gods you get on your run is randomized unless you have a Keepsake (equipped items that grant special effects for a run) that increases your chances of coming across a specific god. I found that it was very crucial to familiarize yourself with the kinds of Boons you'll usually get from the different gods. They tend to have specific gimmicks to most of their Boons that fit the kind of thing that god is known for, like how a lot of Ares's Boons focus on a status effect called Doom that deals damage after a small delay, and he has some other great Boons like Urge to Kill (increases your damage with all your attacks) and Battle Rage (makes you deal more damage after you have just killed an enemy). Dionysus has a similar status effect gimmick with his Boons, except his is called Hangover, which is kinda like the typical JRPG poison effect but it builds up to stacks of 5. Every god has a Boon that will buff either your regular attack, special attack, cast, or dash, as well as some more specialized stuff unique to each god like the ones I mentioned for Ares when I used him as an example. You have a bunch of slots for miscellaneous Boons, but the ones that buff your attack, special, cast, or dash occupy a specific slot that will have to be removed or replaced if you want to change it. As far as I know, the Boons from Hermes and Daedalic Hammers (basically Hephaestus although you unfortunately never get to see him in the game) are the only exceptions, since all of their Boons count as miscellaneous ones. Athena has some really nice defensive options, like Last Stand (increases the health you get after Death Defiance) and a useful deflection ability that most of her Boons come prepackaged with. Dionysus also has great defensive Boons, mainly Positive Outlook which reduces damage taken when you reach 40% health or below, and some Boons that boost health restoration. Apparently there are also some Boons that you get from comboing Boons from specific gods together but I never got any of these in my playthrough. I found that finding a good loadout of Boons that work best for your play style was very important.

Something I love about this game is how death almost seems encouraged. Of course, you never want to die since you'll have to start your run from the beginning again, but whenever you die there's always something you can do back in the home world to make it not feel like a wasted effort. You can spend that Darkness you got to upgrade your abilities. Later in the game, you get Contracts, which gives you a use for your gems to do stuff like make minor cosmetic changes, build a small pot of water in your bedchambers that reveals how many times you died or how many enemies you've slain, and upgrades that change the layout of the Underworld for your benefit (like adding urns that drop gold when destroyed or fountain rooms you may come across that give you the option to restore health). There's this weird social system that seemed rather pointless to me, but was kind of a cool addition, especially since Zagreus is thankfully not a silent protagonist. He's a pretty chill guy with a heart of gold and a bit of a mouth on him; he has some entertaining dialogue I enjoyed. When you interact with some items in the environment - indicated by a glowing yellow dot - there's a narrator that explains stuff to you, and, amusingly enough, Zagreus breaks the fourth wall and knows he exists. The thing about the social system that I thought was weird is that, the more you talk to characters, the more it fills up a codec that Achilles gives you that has some lore and background information about the characters written in there. Don't get me wrong, I think this is cool. I'm no Greek mythology expert, so it was nice to see some information written about all these gods, demigods, and other mythological figures you meet along the way, but I really don't know why it's all locked behind having to interact with the characters enough times. Strangest of all to me, there's also the option to date specific characters, which I genuinely had no idea was even a thing and it can only be done for three characters. There's Thanatos for a gay romance option, Megaera for a straight romance, and honestly Dusa barely even counts since Zagreus admits he has feelings for her but they both calmly settle for just being friends since Dusa tells him she isn't ready for a relationship. From what I watched in a YouTube video, the Dusa "romance" was handled surprisingly maturely and I was glad to see it wasn't super cheesy. I never really saw the point in this whole system, much less the shipping, but hey maybe some people really like that and it'd be wrong of me to stomp on their fun.

Okay I usually don't take THIS long in the review to get to the story, but part of this is because...well, I can't definitively say how it ends since I really don't want to have to play through the same few worlds however many times it takes to see it all. As far as I understood, the story is that Zagreus wants to leave the Underworld, no matter how much of a brutal struggle it will be. His adoptive mother, Nyx, helps him out with that (she's the one that put the darkness mirror in his room). Eventually after you die enough times, you get a big story reveal scene where Zagreus sneaks up on Hades' desk to read the scrolls there. Little Zaggy boy finds out he's actually the son of Persephone, not Nyx. That only fuels him even more on his journey to escape the Underworld, which he eventually manages to do after defeating Hades in the snowy Greek mountains. Once his dad's out of the picture, Zagreus makes it to Persephone, making for a pretty emotional reunion. It doesn't last long, however, since eventually Zagreus finds out he truly is doomed by fate to be stuck in the Underworld forever. He gets pulled back down there, and decides to trek back up there again even if he only has a few more minutes to see Persephone again. I'm thinking its structured like this to make the whole endless roguelike aspect of this game make sense in the story, I have no idea what happens if you go back up there again unfortunately.

So, my overall thoughts...I don't think Hades is going to make me a roguelike fiend, but I do think it was a great time with plenty of positive aspects to it. I can see why people love the game so much, even if I don't think it was necessarily 5 star worthy or something I'd want to play again and again.