Remiel's Game Reviews: Hades

[Remiel]

Ahoy there, good citizens of E!  In this week's episode of Remiel Writes Something for the Pure Unadulterated Hell of it, I review the indie game Hades, developed by Supergiant Games!  I hope you all enjoy it!

SUPERGIANT'S HADES IS MINDLESS, ADDICTIVE FUN

As anyone who has ever bought a game on Steam knows, buying an "Early Access" game is like opening up a Christmas present from an extended relative: you never really know what you're going to get.  It could be a $200 gift card, or it could be an ugly sweater.  It could be that inspired indie gem that you didn't know you were looking for, or it could be...well...Earth: Year 2066.

That being said, Supergiant's Hades definitely belongs in the former category.  Categorized as an "action roguelike", Hades stands well above the crowd in an oversaturated gaming landscape.

Supergiant, you may or may not be aware, was the developer who gave us the indie cult classic Bastion and the somewhat less acclaimed--although still good--Transistor.  Bastion, of course, was the game that redefined the art of vocal narration as a storytelling device vis-à-vis the smooth, gravelly baritone of voice actor Logan Cunningham and paired some vibrant and rich two-dimensional visuals with a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack.  Like many gamers, I played the crap out of Bastion.  I enjoyed Transistor, too, but the latter game's interface and gameplay didn't quite strike the resonant chord with me that Bastion did.   Although the graphics were, obviously in a cartoony way, beautiful, the game's story, as well as its combat mechanic, seemed rather esoteric and, at times, alien.  I never tried Pyre, the third Supergiant offering.

With that in mind, I had no idea what to expect from Hades, other than what its promo video and its Steam user tags--"Early Access", "Action Roguelike", "Action," and "Indie"--suggested.  For those not familiar with the term, a "roguelike" is a hack-and-slash dungeon crawler-type game where the dungeon is a randomized, procedurally generated series of chambers, so no two expeditions will encounter exactly the same paths as they progress, making mapmaking a pointless exercise.  In addition, while the enemies become increasingly more difficult and deadly as you progress, you will encounter items and powerups that will help you meet the challenge.  Diablo and The Binding of Isaac are probably the two most famous examples of this genre. 

And Hades certainly lives up to that billing.  In the game, you play the role of Zagreus, son of Hades, Greek god of the underworld.  For reasons that are soon revealed, Zagreus wants to leave the underworld and escape to the land of the living.  Hades, Zagreus' divine father and undisputed ruler of his eponymous kingdom, is--to borrow a phrase from the great Captain Hector Barbossa--shall we say, disinclined to acquiesce to his request.  "To hell with you, Dad," says Zagreus, and runs off into Tartarus, the lowest layer of Hell (and the first of four levels you will eventually encounter).  But the gods of Olympus, who have learned about Zagreus' quest, are eager to encourage him along his way and assist him, directly and indirectly, in defiance of his father's wishes.  But it turns out all of Hades (the place, not the god) has been tasked by Hades (the god, not the place) with stopping Zagreus, and so the Prince of the Underworld must bite, claw, and fight his way through the labyrinth.

Home sweet home.  Trust me--you'll be seeing this place a lot.

At its core, the game's recipe is extremely simple:

1. Enter a chamber filled with monsters. 
2. Kill all the monsters.
3. Receive your reward.
4. Progress to the next chamber, where you'll have some indication of what kind of reward you'll receive.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

But what makes Hades so ingenious is how Supergiant took this formula and made it so utterly, utterly fun to play.  I'm not kidding.   I bought it last Thursday night and have already put over 34 hours into the game.  It's addictive, man.

How did they do this?

Through a mind boggling, ass blistering, sheer craptastic amount of customization and variation.  The game starts by dropping you into the bowels of its first dungeon--Tartarus, the lowest level of Hell--and gives you a sword with which you hack and slash your way through mobs of creatures and critters until you die.

And you will die.  Trust me on this.

But that's the genius of Hades.  You're the friggin' Prince of the Afterlife.  In the Underworld is where your father, and chief antagonist, wants you to stay.  So up you pop, back at home, none the worse for wear and ready to go again. 

Shut up, old man.  You're not the boss of me.

But this time, you can leave your sword behind and take instead one of the other weapons at your disposal--a bow, a spear, a shield, among others you can eventually unlock.  Each weapon has its own unique primary and secondary attacks.  If you have the bow, for example, you can hold down your primary attack button to charge up a power shot, or click your secondary button to fire off a burst of arrows in all directions.  If you have the shield, you can use it to bash things over the head, you can use it to deflect attacks while you charge up for a powerful dash, or--my favorite--you can fling it, Captain America-style, and watch it bounce off walls and enemies.  The spear can stab repeatedly at a foe, or be chucked like a javelin.  And so on.

And the "boons" that you receive from the various gods of Olympus each have their own unique effect.  For example, Zeus' boon adds a "chain lightning" effect to your attacks, Poseidon's will add a knockback effect, Aphrodite will weaken your foes so they dish out only half as much damage, Dionysus will poison them, Ares will do additional damage over time.  And so on.  But it's not just your primary attack that might be upgraded; the gods have various ways of improving your secondary attack, as well.  And other passive and active attributes, such as your character's speed or health or mana.  And did I mention your Cast, which is a kind of powerful but limited-use tertiary attack?  Yeah, they can modify that too.

Then there's Daedelus' Hammer, which has the potential to trick out and modify any of your weapons into something else entirely, and the Pomegranates of Power, which will let you upgrade an existing ability or effect, and the possible power-up permutations are just ridiculous.  You'll always be offered a choice, any time you earn a god's favor; the decision is entirely up to you, and actively encourages experimentation.   Do you want to soup up both your primary and secondary attacks in order to create a deadly combo?  Or would you rather go all in on your primary and let your secondary go hang?  It's your choice! 

And that's the secret to what makes Hades such ludicrous fun.  Every run, every trek through the dungeon is unique, and you'd be hard-pressed to replicate the same experience twice.  While you do have some agency in which reward you decide to select, once a god offers you his or her favor, you don't really have a say in which god decides to help you, and when.  Some chambers, when cleared, allow for two or even three exits, each promising a different reward: besides the god boons, the Daedelus Hammer, and the Pom of Power, there are Darkness shards (which you can use for permanent upgrades); Obols of Charon (the requisite currency of the Underworld--you can use Obols to buy good things from Charon, the ferryman); Centaur Hearts, which will boost your maximum health; and Chthonic Keys, which will unlock weapons and other items.  There are a simply absurd amount of things to collect and upgrade, and oftentimes you'll be presented with a choice of whether to temporarily boost your abilities in your current run, or collect treasure that won't do anything for you, but will allow you to redeem back at home for permanent upgrades. 

That's a winning recipe by itself, but Hades takes all this and wraps it up in a marvellous setting borrowing heavily from Greek mythology, sprinkles it with witty dialogue and memorable characters, and ensures that each level of the maze is so unique and distinct from the others that you'll enjoy fighting through them all again and again and again.  There are a wide variety of enemies, each with their own attack methods and weaknesses: some enemies, for example, can be best fought by button mashing while others will demand that you employ hit-and-run tactics.  Some enemies are best sniped from a distance, while others demand that you be constantly on the move, etc.  Each attempt at fighting your way through the Underworld, thanks to the sheer amount of randomness in the way that you snag rewards and climb up through the power tiers, is its own distinctively unique experience.  Sometimes you will be woefully underpowered, and die quickly; other times will see you an armed-to-the-teeth engine of destruction.  There was one time I kept running into Poseidon again and again, so by the time I got to the fourth and final level, I discovered that my best tactic was simply to run around like mad, using my super-upgraded dash to slam my foes into the walls again and again and again for massive damage.  Sometimes it was my Cast that won the day, and sometimes I found that I had been so armored up that while I didn't do much in terms of damage, I could simply deflect and dodge and whittle away at the boss' health, little by little.

This guy is a dick.  Seriously.

Story: 9/10  The dialogue is surprisingly fresh and always dynamic; even though it's (usually) always the same characters that inhabit the halls of Hades upon your inevitable demise, I swear that I had to go through dozens of encounters with every single character before one of them would start to repeat a line (Charon and Tisiphone don't really count).  Characters will reference events in the story, once you have experienced them, or even reference previous conversations with other characters; and some of them will make comments about your current condition or which weapon you happen to be holding.  Even though there's not all that much to the story (and, at this moment in time, a rather unsatisfying ending), the dialogue and sheer proliferation of colorful personalities in the Underworld makes up for the dearth of plot.

Graphics and Sound: 7/10  Graphically, the art is pretty much what we've come to expect from a Supergiant game.  That is to say, somewhat cartoonish and cel-shaded.   It's pretty, but in a cartoony way, although each level bears its own distinct visual style.  The voice acting is good, but not great; most disappointing, at least to me, was the lack of a stellar soundtrack (aside from one or two notable exceptions).

Gameplay: 10/10  I simply can't think of any way they could have improved the gameplay.  The controls are smooth and fluid, and the sheer variety of upgrades and powerups more than makes up for the repetition.  It's an incremental reward system at its finest, and it's here that Hades shines outright.  I think in all of the 36 hours of gametime, I experienced exactly one glitch.  I think the only complaint here that I have is that I don't think the "Q" key makes sense for a secondary attack--one of the very first things that I did was remap it to the right mouse button.

Difficulty: 10/10  The difficulty is extremely hard at first, but with each new thing that you unlock, the game becomes ever so slightly easier.  If that's still too hard, you can enable the "God Mode" in the Settings which gives you a 20% resistance bonus out of the gate and increases that by 2% every time you die.  It's a method that guarantees you will eventually find just that sweet spot of difficulty between frustratingly hard and boringly easy.  After the first time you escape, a "Pact of Punishment" mode begins where you can make the enemies slightly harder in return for better rewards.

Overall: 9/10  For an early access game, Hades is all kinds of stupid fun and extremely addictive.  Supergiant promises to update with regular content including new weapons, enemies, and unlockables, and I can't wait to see what they come up with.  For the currently discounted price of $19.99 or even the regular price of $24.99 it's definitely a worthwhile buy.

[Remiel]

Addendum:  For those who care about such things, apparently this game is LBGQT-friendly.  One character, Chaos, is agendered and is referred to as "they" and "them", Zagreus' mentor Achilles (yes, that Achilles) is gay, and, unless I have completely misread the innuendos in the dialogue between Zagreus and Thanatos, Zagreus himself is polyamorously bisexual.