It’s that time again where I make a certain Spartan play a game and then he makes me play a game and then we both write lengthy blog posts ranting about our respective games. This time around I sent him on a brutal shinobi quest in Sekiro, and he wanted to make sure I struggled through something as well. His solution? The widely acclaimed indie roguelike based on Greek mythology known as Hades. Climbing out of Greek-Hell That Isn’t Actually Hell but Still Looks and Acts Hellish at Times is tough work y’know?

This situation reminds me of a certain video I’ve seen. It involves two women engaged in particular activities. One woman acts frustrated and proclaims, “I’m trying to punish you, you’re not supposed to like it!” The other woman continues to quietly oblige, not looking particularly bothered.

Usually I keep mentions of my kinks to a minimum in these reviews, but this game’s not entirely unrelated. Particularly this idea of a punishment that’s enjoyed. It gets at the heart of what makes a game like this work. So unlike the other woman, I have quite a bit to say about my purported punishment. A whole review’s worth.

Usually I’d break this down into sections talking about the story, characters, gameplay, and whatever else separately. This time we’re going to let it all mix together. Also spoilers will be present in this review. Proceed accordingly.

I had some interest in Greek mythology in my youth. I had this gorgeously illustrated book I don’t remember the name of recounting parts of it. I read some Percy Jackson books. They weren’t my absolute favorite even at the time but I liked them. The protagonist being the son of Poseidon was cool to me. Poseidon was my favorite because he’s the side uncle and I’m fascinated by the ocean. Yet I let my interest in Greek myths subside as I got older. This game showed me it hasn’t subsided completely. What’s better than a YA-novel series starring the son of Poseidon? A video game starring the son of Hades apparently.

I am familiar with most of the figures this game portrays. The main character wasn’t one of them. Apparently Zagreus is an actual thing in Greek mythology to some extent. But he’s not super prevalent or well defined. He’s got an interesting family lineage and is enough of a historical blank slate to morph him into whatever character the game needs him to be. And so the game does just that. In this game he’s a guy that looks like he’s in his 20s but considering his immortal nature who the hell knows? He’s got the spiky anime protagonist hair and underworld drip. And now he’s running away from home.

Running away from home in the real world isn’t easy. Plenty of logistical problems involved. Fortunately for any would-be home escapers they don’t have to deal with the Underworld’s security. Here you’ve got to beat mythical monsters, fallen warriors, mythical heroes… well, let’s not get too far ahead. Because when I played this game the first time my ass didn’t even get out of Tartarus.

So in Hades running away from home means clearing four sections of the Underworld all in the same run. If you die, L bozo your ass is getting transported right back to the start. No save points after you clear an area, no permanently dead bosses. Everyone’s dead already! No matter how far you get, if you die, you’re going back to the start. ‘Tis the roguelike way apparently. Quite the brutal setup, but Zagreus isn’t truly alone in his quest. He gets some help from above in Olympus.

The Greek gods of legend can’t exactly go down there and fight alongside him, but they can bestow gifts to make his life easier. These gifts can boost your damage, add secondary effects to your attacks, and plenty of other things that can aid your escape. Which gods you encounter per run are mostly random, and the specific buffs you get from them are a selection of 3 picked randomly as well. You’re pretty much guaranteed to use a different load out each time you play, there’s all sorts of different combinations you can try out. While this game makes you play the same levels repeatedly this is one of the major ways they mix it up.

The various specific boons and their interactions are something I’ll comment more on later. For now I just got to say the Gods of Olympus are quite generous in their consistency showing up for Zagreus. Guess they don’t have much better to do. They’re under the impression Zagreus is escaping the Underworld to join them on the mountain. They gladly lend a helping hand to a young family member in need.

The Gods of Olympus don’t agree on much. They don’t all get along. But they’re family and they’re plenty happy to show up to help a god in need. Rather beautiful in a way, highlights what family can provide at its best. And yet there’s a problem, Zagreus isn’t actually trying to join them on Olympus. This complicates things. But they can’t fully see what’s going on down there so the lie can continue. Has to get resolved at some point but I didn’t play long enough to find out. I spoiled myself for a general idea of what happens but I won’t get into it. It’s post-game content for a game that requires you to beat it 10 times to get there. I’m good sticking to the main game.

Any ways, the boons are incredibly helpful but they weren’t enough to get my ass out of Tartarus round 1. Part of the path to progressing is the good ole’ “git gud.” Because yeah, I probably should’ve been better at not getting hit by those big orange dashy guys. But it’s still a daunting task. It’s like fighting a Snorlax that’s packing Extreme Speed. You start with 50 HP and no access to healing items. That leaves very little margin of error. Fortunately, Nyx, Goddess of the Night and Zagreus’ adoptive mother has some extra help for us. Not only did she contact the Olympians to help Zagreus, but she also offers the Mirror of Night.

You can find these purple gemstone looking things called Darkness during a run and they’ll carry over when you die. So you can offer them up to the Mirror of Night for plenty of upgrade options. Like added base HP, or Death Defiance which gives you a limited number of partial revives before you get sent home. This mirror is quite literally a godsend for Zagreus’ quest. I’m sure someone with the high level Omega Gamer Skillz could do a no-Mirror run and win. I am not one of those people. Perhaps with a combination of good RNG, persistence, and experience through repetition I’d maybe win eventually. But that mirror sure made things feel a lot more doable. Thanks Nyx.

Still mirror buffs don’t build up instantly. I died in Tartarus 4 times in a row before making it to the first big boss. That’s Megaera, and/or her fury sisters on later runs. I’m not going to say much about the other two sisters. They mix things up a decent amount, but they’re manageable. As for Megaera, well, time to get sidetracked.

Usually I’d save all that best girl talk for later. Honestly it feels weird using that term outside of anime contexts, but to be fair this game does have some clear visual novel elements to it. Try to run away from the weeb art style, anime stuff enroaches on your game all the same. Megaera may not have that anime face or strongly exaggerated anime proportions, but otherwise she could easily pass for a character in Darkstalkers. Cool blue hair, flashy outfit, a whole ass bat wing. She’d totally fit. I’ll leave my commentary about her design at that because that’s not really why I like her.

I don’t know much about Megaera’s presence in actual Greek mythology, but from what I gather she’s a figure that punishes certain moral transgressions. I’m pretty sure the whole dominatrix thing this version has going on is a modern invention, but I couldn’t say for sure. Ancient Greek folk can get freaky too. Either way you won’t find me complaining. I see it as an example of how Hades can reimagine these myths in ways that are fun, clever, and strangely suitable. The characters of Hades have solid foundations in mythology but they aren’t so tightly bound that they become stiff. That being said, I’m pretty sure Megaera would like to see Zagreus tightly bound later. Any ways~

I have to wonder how often video games make the protagonist’s ex-girlfriend the first boss battle. Pretty sure this is the first time I’ve seen it. Perhaps they should do it more often, because this fight’s pretty fun. It’s a relatively even matchup, at least early on. She’s got agility that comes closer to Zagreus’ than any other boss, a good balance of melee and ranged attack, and all around is set up as a fair fight. Too fair for her own good honestly, I won against her the first time I fought her… And then I lost to her the second time, and then I never lost to a fury again. All in all I don’t mind fighting her repeatedly. The battle has good mixups with the different furies and the heat additions. It also goes by reasonably quickly. I like their exchanges at the start too.

Got to give a shoutout to Avalon Penrose for her voice acting performance. Really sells the character for me. It’s like if resting bitch face incarnated as a voice. A rather attractive one. Megaera seems annoyed/exasperated with Zagreus the whole time, and I honestly can’t blame her too much. They’ve got some complicated history, and now she’s getting forced by her boss to fight him repeatedly.

I find it amusing that Megaera’s punishment for losing to Zagreus is having to continue fighting him every time and racking up those Ls. A fun way to explain the repeated boss fights as part of the story. Zagreus’ rebellious act has legitimate justifications, but he sure is causing a lot of problems for his peers in the process. That being said, Megaera isn’t necessarily a full on hater the entire time. You can get her to warm up to Zagreus again with some nectar gifts. It can even turn into a romance. Unfortunately for me I was too far into the game before I even knew that was option, so I didn’t get to see it play out during my own playthrough. That being said, with the power of the internet I can see how that goes and comment any way.

With enough good faith effort Zagreus manages to convince Meg to give their relationship another shot. Repeatedly duking it out gave them a way to vent their old pent up frustrations out. They’ve grown a bit since uh, whenever their old thing happened. Once their bond gets maxed out Megaera shows up in Zagreus’ bedroom. You’re given the option to roll with it or “ease off.” If you choose to roll with it we get the fade to black and the sounds of them having a good time. The whip’s involved. Nice and kinky. It’s not very explicit, don’t want to get kicked off Steam after all. But it does just enough to let people’s imaginations do the rest.

One thing I found interesting is how the Megaera’s romance interacts with Thanatos, the other main romance option. I haven’t mentioned Thanatos yet because he shows up later in the game. He’ll periodically help you clear a room, introducing a mini-game race against him seeing who can kill more enemies in the time frame. If you get more kills, the handsome death god gives you a life boosting centaur heart, thanks! And if you give him enough alcohol you can get hitched with him too. The rare bisexual romance option, gotta give this game props for that. And if you end up romancing both of them the game directly addresses it.

This game’s friendly towards polyamory too apparently. Cool. How forward thinking. Giving you options to support things that a significant portion of the player base does not. For as popular as Hades was I never heard much backlash about the game being too woke or whatever. I’m sure there was some. Probably helps that starting a kinky bisexual polecule is completely optional. It’s one of the beautiful things about indie games, they’re a space where you can explore things that a big budget AAA game won’t take a risk on. And now payment processors et al. are trying to throttle gaming around in their depressingly successful attempts to unilaterally censor shit. If that censorship train keeps on going it’ll be a lot harder for games to include these sorts of elements at all. Hades in particular is big enough and tame enough to avoid any problems for now, but that’s not guaranteed to last forever. I could derail this whole blog ranting about it but I’ll try to keep it constrained to this paragraph. I love the freedom of expression found in art, and I harbor resentment towards heavy handed restrictions of it. Fuck censorship. I want to live in a world where games like Hades can continue to be made without the creators fearing for their livelihoods. I want to see games a lot less tame than Hades be able to thrive too. There may be some specific cases that do something too extreme to be reasonably allowed on Steam, but I don’t see why VISA should be the one making that decision. Or the Trump regime. Or some pseudo-feminist Karen squad from Australia.

Alright, that’s enough getting sidetracked by Meg and my grievances about the rising tide of censorship. Back to the game’s progression. So after you beat Meg you escape Tartarus and enter your first rest area. You get some healing from a fountain, which is nice. You get to switch around your keepsakes, which is helpful. I wasn’t that adventurous with keepsakes usually. I mostly just used one to get a boon from a specific god such as Ares, Aphrodite, Dionysus, or Demeter towards the start, Hypnos’ money towards the middle, and Skelly’s lucky tooth towards the end. Sometimes I just lucky tooth’d it the whole way through. Thanks Skelly, dude’s got good gifts and good advice.

Gotta love when the sentient combat dummy talks. You get that in Sekiro too interestingly enough. Clearly the most significant parallel of those two games. Honestly I think Hades wins on that metric. Also gotta take note of what they’re discussing, my guy Charon. You can collect coins during your ascent, and as Skelly says you lose all the money when you die. So you want to spend as much money as possible during the run to get max value out of it. But sometimes you don’t want to spend too much at once to avoid screwing yourself out of something better later. The items you can purchase are largely random so there’s no real hard rule for the best way to spend it. Other than ‘use it or lose it’ any way. The way you spend will change depending on the run and what you need at any given time, adding another layer of dynamism to the whole ordeal.

Charon himself is chill. He doesn’t exactly talk much but he offers his wares for a fair-ish price multiple times each run. His services are well appreciated, so much so that he was the first and only character I maxed out my bond with during my playthrough. (I also just really like his blinged out reaper looking design). Yet even with all that rapport built up he’ll still fight you to the death if you steal from him. It’s a tough fight too. I only fought him once and it did not go well for me. It was close, but an L’s an L. His boss fight turns into a bullet hell with him swinging his oar at you the whole time. Fortunately, Charon doesn’t seem to hold much of a grudge after he’s done kicking your ass. What a bro.

So with all those musings out of the way, let our discussion leave the rest area and enter Asphodel. Purportedly in Greek mythology this is the afterlife realm for people that lived unremarkable but not especially problematic lives. It’s supposed to be some dreary meadow or something like that. Apparently it used to be like that in Hades too. Except it got flooded by a lava river, so it’s not much of a meadow any more. I guess I understand why they made this change. It probably would’ve had too much overlap with Elysium if they kept things fully lore accurate. So let’s have a shit load of lava instead.

Fortunately lava isn’t an instant kill as it often can be in video games. Nope, Zagreus is a tough dude but he’ll still take some chip damage if you stand around on it too long. It’s one of those things that force you to be mindful of your positioning instead of just mindlessly dodging wherever. Just like with the traps. Still even with that additional hazard things are pretty manageable here. If you can escape Tartarus you’ll probably do fine in Asphodel. In my case I actually died more times in Tartarus than Asphodel overall. I caught an L in Tartarus the first four times I went, and then caught an L to Megaera on my 6th run. So 5 Ls. In comparison Asphodel only handed me 3. One of those was against the Megagorgon mini-boss. The turned to stone+crushed by big stone guy combo can be pretty rough. My other two Asphodel Ls were with the area’s big boss, Lernie the Bone Hydra.

Must say I enjoy the bit where Zagreus just randomly starts calling the bone hydra Lernie and then the name’s added to the UI. LERNIE VANQUISHED! But yeah, I tend to like this fight. I’m usually not huge on battles where there’s a whole lot of nonsense going on in the screen at once, but here they make it work. We’re fighting the hydra, a creature who’s whole shtick is having multiple heads. If it wasn’t hectic it wouldn’t fit. Yet there’s a sensible structure underlying the hectic gameplay.

The battle starts with you fighting the main head, which is simple enough. Lernie will throw some projectiles your way and attempt to ground pound you with his head, but it’s nothing too crazy. That ground pound can be brutal if it does land though. Which is fair honestly, considering how it’s not that hard to avoid. It mostly just punishes you for staying close and spamming attacks without any intermissions. So you just duke it out like that until you knock off a third of his health bar. At this point, the main head gains invulnerability and a few moderately smaller heads join the fight. This is where it starts getting hectic, but it’s not too bad. Each smaller head can be deadly in their own right, but you can dispatch them reasonably quickly. Each time you kill one head the arena becomes one head less hectic. Still the other hydra heads have a way to punish you for ignoring the rest and killing one at a time. Sometimes they’ll throw out skelly man eggs. These eggs are simple to destroy, but if you leave them alone and let them hatch they’ll become a full grown skelly man. These guys aren’t *that* bad to fight but they just add another level of hectic stuff going on if you leave them alone. So they incentivize moving around, but if you move around too much it’ll take longer for any individual head to go down. Thus giving you more opportunities to get hit by one of the many, many attacks thrown at you.

Still with just three extra heads it’s simple enough to handle. It’s a bit hectic but you can still pretty much see every attack coming. And when you knock out all three extra heads you get to knock another third off the main head’s health bar. After you do that Lernie’s main head becomes invincible again and suddenly you have six more new heads to deal with at once. It’s the same deal as last time but there’s twice as many now so shit gets crazier. It’s harder to avoid letting skelly mans hatch like this with twice the nonsense going on. So then you have even more shit to deal with. It’s not impossible to deal with but it’s very difficult to exit this phase unscathed. Unless you’re crazy good and/or got a busted build you’re probably getting hit somewhere in that mess. Oftentimes repeatedly.

Once you clear the nonsense you’re not 100% out of the woods yet. Lernie can now do his ground pound 3 times in a row. He can fuck you up if he catches you lacking. Still it’s a lot easier than the previous phase, so you should be able to pack him up at this point. Still, I like the symmetry to this boss fight. Three phases, three extra hydra heads, and then six more for nine extra heads overall. Three ground pounds at the last portion. A whole lot of craziness. Yet the hectic portions are contained to specific sections of the fight, and you have ways to make it manageable. Namely killing the heads fast. This is a tough but rather well balanced boss fight in my book. Lernie only defeated me twice but I still have to stay vigilant every time I face him. He can do some serious damage if you’re not on point. I sometimes lost a death defiance stack to him even on my later runs. This fight holds up remarkably well on repeated runs. Seeing how quick you can take down those heads is a great way to test your build’s strength. If you’re deleting them you know you’ve got something good going. If not that’s a sign I’ve got work to do.

After dispatching Lernie that brings you to the third area, Elysium. Unfortunately there’s no disco in this one but if you want some you can read a certain Spartan’s review of that here. This area seems a lot more pleasant and peaceful at face value. It’s green! And ethereal! This is where the greats go when they die. And now you give them an opportunity to put their great warrior skills to use. It’s a substantial difficulty spike.

First let’s talk about the regular enemies. We’ve got witches throwing projectiles that burst around. A floating orb that constantly throws butterflies of death at you until you kill it. Big chariots that perpetually run you down and small chariots that explode on contact. And then there’s the main enemy of the area, the Exalted.

These guys are the spirits of fallen warriors, and they use weapons reminiscent of your own. It’s not a 1:1 copy of your moveset, but they still got the same general advantages. You gotta rush down the arrow guys or they’ll just keep sniping you from afar. Gotta get behind the greatshield guys or they’ll fuck you up while invulnerable from the front. To be fair, I usually uses the spear, which lets you do return damage when you throw it with your special. Otherwise yeah. Then there’s the sword and spear guys that’ll fight you close up. None of these guys are *that* tough individually, but they’re tougher than the usual mob enemy. And when you kill them they become little ghost balls that you have to kill again to prevent their respawn. That’s usually doable, but it’s easy to lose track when you’re getting mobbed. And if you do lose track you’re just going to get mobbed some more. Gotta respect the Hades enemies. It’s not just the big bosses that can give you a hard time, and there’s a healthy variety to them too requiring distinct strategies to dispatch. Enemy design is one of this game’s many strong suits.

Naturally the regular enemies aren’t the only thing that’s tougher in this stage. The bosses are too, both the major ones and the mini-bosses part way through. I lost two runs to that big soul catcher orb room where you’re mobbed from all angles. I also lost another two to the Bull of Minos, A.K.A. the Minotaur, A.K.A. Asterius. He’s a big beefy cow man that decimates any health bar he makes contact with. Once you learn his patterns he’s manageable, but hot damn can he punish you when you mess up. Also I like how he’s written as a character too. He’s tasked by Hades to get in your way, but he respects you when you beat him. No hard feelings, he just likes a good fight. You can provide one for him and he can provide one for you.

Still if you thought dealing with just Asterius was tough the final fight of Elysium got something for you. You get the chance to fight Asterius again, but he’s not alone this time. Theseus is right along with him. The great hero killed Asterius in the living world but they’re apparently good friends in the afterlife. They complement each other well. Where Asterius has some serious respect for you Theseus is just a full blown hater. Maybe if you kick his ass enough times he’ll change his tune eventually, but it sure hasn’t happened during my playthrough. I got to admire the consistency.

And thus a tough boss fight ensues. Even when I get past these guys they find a way to do some damage. Especially when you turn up the heat. It seems clear to me that this boss fight is heavily inspired by one of Dark Souls’ most famous encounters: Ornstein and Smough. For those uninitiated they’re a double team where a beefy hammer wielding executioner and a lanky spear wielding knight try to kick your ass together. Once you take out one of them the other one powers up to make the last stretch more difficult. There are pillars throughout the arena to help give you weave around the two. This fight has a very similar structure. There’s roughly a 100% chance whoever designed this fight took notes from Dark Souls, but the Champions of Elysium have distinction in their implementation.

Smough doesn’t do a giant leaping attack that sends rupture projectiles upon contact with the ground. Ornstein doesn’t walk around with a shield patiently aiming his javelin at you. The Champions of Elysium got more speed and range in general, which makes sense considering how much more slippery and dangerous from afar Zagreus can be compared to the Chosen Undead.

Even so the strategy to defeat these two is roughly the same. Focus on one to take out first and take advantage of the pillars to avoid getting too much shit from the other one. I pretty much always took out Asterius first and tried to avoid getting Theseus down to half health before I did so. Because when that guy goes half health he calls forth help from the gods. I thought that was my thing! Welp. Point is having all that nonsense happen while Asterius is still in the arena is a recipe for a bad time.

Smough and Ornstein are widely considered one of the toughest bosses the original Dark Souls has to offer. The Hades equivalent does not disappoint in that regard. I struggled mightily against them initially. There’s something uniquely demoralizing about losing to a boss so deep in a roguelike run. Not only do you have to fight the boss you just lost to again, but you still have to fight everything before that boss too. And whatever comes after them too. Even when I started being able to beat them they still gave me plenty of trouble. You don’t just have to beat them, you ideally want to beat them without losing too much health or death defiance stacks. That’s a tall order, but with enough repetition I found a way. Also I discovered that Demeter’s cast is quite effective on them. Theseus can’t defend against you and your laser crystal simultaneously. And if you got chill in your kit the minotaur becomes easier to handle. Either way these guys keep me on my toes every time I fight them, even after I got used to them. The double team may not be particularly fair but they took a strong template and remixed it well. Interesting things happen when the hero is your enemy. As an aside, I watched a portion of that Hades 5th anniversary stream, and in that the developers mentioned they originally intended Theseus to be the protagonist. Instead of an escape from the Underworld it’d be a journey to the center of the labyrinth. I guess that would’ve made Asterius the final boss. A fun idea, but I like it better this way. Theseus would probably have been a lot less of an asshole in that version of the game. Meh.

I don’t inherently have much to say about this exchange I just like it. But yes, life is indeed not particularly fair. Here I am affording to digitally yap online with no immediate threat to my safety while some kid in Sudan is going through a life or death situation. The main thing separating us is happenstance of where we were born. But I digress. Honestly, I don’t mind Elysium’s boss fight not being particularly fair. You’re escaping the Underworld and having damn near everything thrown into your path. I don’t necessarily expect that journey to be particularly fair. And in some regards it kind of is fair any way. Theseus isn’t rushing you down the same way Asterius is, and you can tell when he’s about to javelin your ass. No janky hitboxes. No one hit KOs. It’s a tough double team but there’s a certain balance to it, much like the boss fight it’s based on.

Regardless, once you vanquish the champions there’s just one area left standing in your way. The good ole’ Temple of Styx. The gateway area, the transition space between life and death. And it has a notably different format from the previous areas. Instead of going down a relatively linear path, you see the end at the start. Your buddy Cerberus guards the gates. Usually this would be the start of another boss battle, but Zagreus has a strong rapport with his three headed canine friend. He’ll let you through without a fight as long as you bring him an offering. To find that, you gotta explore a bit.

This area’s designed to provide one last skill check before the final fight and an opportunity to add some finishing touches to your build. You’re given 5 routes to travel down and you get to see the final reward ahead of time. Whatever path you pick entails a much tighter space than you’re typically used to. And a lot of rats. An unexpectedly strong showing for the rodent quota. These rats are tougher than your average video game rat enemy. In Dark Souls they’re more freaky looking than threatening unless you let yourself get mobbed. In Hades the small rats are even less threatening individually but greater in number. The bigger rats though? Well, they’re kinda beefy and they can poison your ass if you get too close to them. There’s also a mini-boss rat that looks like a small rat except it’s really strong for no discernible reason. Guess it’s a super rat. There’s also ratty looking bipedal guys that throw poison darts your way. Honestly those things are the roughest to deal with. Still this area’s not too bad once you get used to it. Your build’s probably pretty busted at this point and it tends to go by faster than the previous areas.

If you’re lucky you can find a sack of questionable meat to feed Cerberus after two tunnels. When you do find it you’re also greeted with a well placed fountain to heal you up before your final encounter. You still have the option to explore other tunnels after that if you so desire. The tradeoff is “hm do I need the extra gear or would I rather fight the final boss with as much health as possible?” Sometimes I went for the extra upgrades, sometimes I went straight to Cerberus with a gift. I appreciate the flexibility.

And that brings me to the final boss of this endeavor, Hades himself. The intense battle between father and son central to this game. This isn’t just a regular boss battle, it’s the culmination of a family dispute. Between a son that wants to see his mother and a father who believes the best way to protect her is to keep her away from the drama. This is a rather simplified explanation and the story expands on it every time you reach Hades and especially when you get past him. But shit, easier said than done on that last part. You’re challenging the God of the Dead.

Hades’ fight isn’t quite as hectic as Lernie or the Champions of Elysium can be. He doesn’t match the speed of the fury sisters. But hot damn if he catches you he makes damn sure it hurts. And if you have the misfortune of getting a direct hit from his skull projectile you’re going to get shredded twice as hard. And if you do dodge it’ll linger around before creating a shockwave to fuck you up any way. It’s a snowy arena with no traps inherently so he just throws his own at you. That skull projectile’s brutal to deal with but rather interesting from a design standpoint. You can protect yourself from damage by destroying the skull before it explodes, but that’ll distract you from fighting the big guy. It goes from a deadly projectile to a delayed time bomb. Never seen any boss move like it before. Props for that.

I also note that Hades uses a spear to fight me, and honestly? He makes a wise choice. That spear is my MVP as well. Hits a hell of a lot harder when he wields it though. He’s a big beefy dude. So much so that I wonder how Zagreus’ conception worked. Persephone must be rather tough in her own right. Any ways. Another fun thing with the fight is that if you manage to deplete his health he brings it right back to power up a second phase. Guess your daddy’s got Death Defiance too. This honestly didn’t shock me that much. I’ve played enough FromSoftware games to know shit like this can happen in a big boss battle. Still this game surely attracted some players who aren’t used to boss fights like that. The rush of finally clearing the game quickly thwarted by getting your ass kicked in the second phase. Man that must sting. Even in my case it was rough. Just because I wasn’t super shocked doesn’t mean I didn’t get my ass kicked a few times. It’s a challenging fight after all. Especially if you’re low on Death Defiance from all the damage the rest of the game throws at you. But every time you die you learn something. You get better at avoiding attacks. You have a better understanding of which boons work well for you. You get some generous help from Nyx’s mirror. And quite frankly, I have defeated harder video game bosses before. Hades ain’t a pushover, but he ain’t Orphan of Kos either. He’s got a hell of a runback though, I’ll give him that. And if you’re a less seasoned gamer you can probably get past him with God Mode.

I never enabled God Mode so I don’t know what it’s like to play it. But as far as I understand you get an increment of damage reduction each time you die. This seems like a pretty reasonable way to ease the difficulty of the game. If you’re dying a shit load you’re obviously struggling to some degree, so you get a way to experience the story to the full extent. If you got all the easy mode buffs upfront you’d miss all the story aspects repeat deaths allow for. A clever design, I don’t mind it but never felt compelled to use it myself. Mirror of the Night is all the handicap I need.

So yeah, I managed to defeat Hades eventually. Took me 24 runs to beat him, and I died to him 4 times before I managed to notch that W. Not exactly an Omega God Gamer tier performance, but I think I did alright.

As a reward for your victory you get to see your long lost mother to get some answers. When we do, it’s a rather touching reunion. And we learn that apparently Persephone thought her kid was dead the entire time. Zagreus was a stillborn initially but some divine something or other lets him live and grow with Hades’ realm. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy for him to stay alive in the living realm. So if Zagreus wants to see his mom again he needs to climb back out a second time. Welp.

So not only does this game ask you to redo everything when you die, it throws a whole ass plot twist your way the first time you notch a W. They tell you to do the whole ass thing again. Wow. Is this normal for a roguelike? I’m impressed they could give such a convincing plot explanation for having to repeat this so many times.

In my case my good friend Spartan only required that I defeat Hades 4 times for this review. Rather gracious of him. Of course when you only win 4 times there’s still some dangling plot threads. And frankly, if I defeated Hades one time I knew I could do it again. I didn’t mind seeing the game through to the credits.

So I did.

There’s this mechanic called Heat in this game where you can mix and match additional challenges for additional rewards. You increment one heat at a time until you run out of game. Each weapon has its own set of rewards. So even if you clear the Underworld with 20 heat on your main weapon, you can still get a reward from playing just 1 heat from a weapon you don’t normally use. It incentivizes mixing things up. And honestly it takes a lot less than 20 heat to give me some trouble, so I did mix things up occasionally.

Thanks to this decision I had 20 more runs past my first victory to reach the credits. So 44 runs to clear Hades 10 times. I’m satisfied with that. It’s not something that’s going to top any leaderboards, but it’s still a competent performance. I’m not going to nail it instantly and I’m not going to come out on top undamaged. But I can keep at it and it usually doesn’t take me too long to get a hang of it. Since Hades is so considerate as to keep archival records of your gameplay stats, I’ll share some evidence of that. Here’s how many times I’ve died in this game in order of first occurrence.

Cause of Death	Times it Happened
Something in Tartarus	4
Bone Hydra	2
Megaera	1
Bull of Minos	2
Megagorgon	1
Soul Catcher	2
Something in Elysium	1
Champions of Elysium	6
Something in Styx	3
Hades	11
Charon	1
Total Deaths	34

I played most of this game using the Eternal Spear, 33 out of my 44 runs were with it. I also used the Stygian Blade that one time you’re forced to at the start of the game and never again. I tried the Shield of Chaos once and didn’t feel inclined to try again, and similar can be said about the Adamant Rail. That being said, the one time I used the Adamant Rail I got a clear. It’s kind of fun to use, the reload’s annoying, and the hammer upgrades can make it a lot more fun to use. My second most used weapon was the Heart-Seeking Bow, which I got 8 runs with and 1 clear with. The range is nice and it feels decently balanced, but using it doesn’t always feel fluid. Sometimes you get caught in awkward positions and you just kinda have to dash around until you can get the space again. Which is fine, but I like the spear’s consistency more.

I often resort to a spear or spear-like weapons in FromSoft games and similar titles. I like the scythes in Dark Souls 1 and 3, I like the extended form of the Church Pick in Bloodborne, I ran Mohgwyn’s Sacred Spear for late-game Elden Ring, and I liked the City Longspear in Lies of P. This choice seems like a natural extension of that pattern. I like those medium range weapons that let you keep some distance without being damn near helpless up close. They’ve got speed I can handle and the spacing is a fun challenge. So it brings a sort of satisfaction I’m used to, but it has layers beyond that.

First of all I’ll have to note its special, which makes you throw the spear as a projectile and then call it back to your hand. It deals damage both on the forward and return path. That last detail comes in clutch against Theseus I can tell you that. I often like to equip Ares’ Curse of Pain on my special, ensuring the damage output from the long distance snipe is worth the downtime not having the spear in my hand. This is especially true if you get the Vicious Skewer hammer upgrade. The Chain Skewer one is fun too, making your spear bounce around the field like Zeus’ chain lightning. I bet they’re programmed to work roughly the same way. It’s really fun watching this play out in Styx against a group of small rats. The spear just bounces around and then boom they’re all dead. Not quite as useful against Hades himself but oh well, it helps clear out the minions and skull bomb things.

Each weapon also comes with some different forms they call Aspects, which changes up how you play with it. In the case of the Eternal Spear we’ve got the Aspect of Zagreus, Aspect of Achilles, Aspect of Hades, and the Aspect of Guan Yu. Aspect of Zagreus is simple enough, just boosting the range and speed of your special for the people who like to spam it such as myself. I also found good use of the Aspect of Achilles, which has you follow along with the spear in a rushdown, giving you quite the strong movement option. Want to get behind your enemy reliably? That’s a strong way to do it. It’s pretty fun too just flying around the screen with it.

As for Aspect of Hades I never messed with it. It increases the power of your charge attack/spin attack, but I hardly ever use my charge attacks. I prefer to go for the light jabs, and I only occasionally remember the charge attacks is even an option. Then finally there’s the Hidden Aspect of Guan Yu, who isn’t exactly a Greek figure but it’s cool that they branch out a bit. If you equip this version of the spear the moveset changes drastically. Your charge attack becomes a spinning projectile that can heal you as it damages foes. The special becomes a single hit projectile. Honestly I equipped the spear, hit Skelly with the different moves a few times, and went back to the normal form. Guess I preferred to stick to my comfort zone.

While I wasn’t super adventurous with my weapon choices, I mixed things up a bit more with the Boons. You can equip a Keepsake to guarantee you’ll encounter a specific God once, and you can do that a few times each run if you please, but otherwise things are mostly randomized. As such, I don’t think I ever ran the exact same build on two separate runs. I figure it’s highly improbable to do so. Which is cool in a way. It means you’re playing a somewhat different game each time you try. The arenas may be roughly the same, but the way you clear them won’t be.

Let’s start our discussion of boons with the one that kicked things off for us, the Goddess of Wisdom Athena. I’m never going to complain about running into her, though there’s some variance in how useful her boons are. She gives you the Divine Dash, which lets you deflect while you’re dashing. It makes an already strong dash ridiculously strong defensively. Arguably a bit too strong. Even so I don’t find Deflect as useful when it’s added to my attacks, specials, or that weird ball thing you throw as a cast. When I’m attacking I want ways to boost my offensive output. I don’t need those lightsaber laser deflections so much. Still she has some good miscellaneous boons to boost your survivability. Pretty much all of her boons are good for defense one way or another. Some more than others. Like I’ll get that Divine Dash any chance it shows up, but I usually don’t go out of my way to find her. Yet she ended up in 6/10 of my successful escape attempts so clearly she managed to find me any way. The first god to show up protected me throughout.

Staying with the A’s there’s the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite. I’ve got a complicated relationship with love in my real world. There’s part of me that yearns for romance and there’s also that part of me still feeling that burn from previous attempts and my observation of others. Not going to unpack all that here, so let’s unpack my ambivalent feelings about Aphrodite instead.

When you first meet Aphrodite she’s perfectly charming, and she’s certainly got an interesting choice of costume. The Olympians aren’t exactly known for their modest clothing but she’s not wearing any at all. OK, she’s got some jewelry adorning her hair and arms. That’s something. She’s got pink nail polish, pink hair, and slightly unsettling pink eyes. Also her hair curls into heart shapes. There’s still a lot of thought to the design. As erm, unconventional of a design as it is, it inexplicably works.

As for how she plays gameplay wise, hmmm… Aphrodite’s Boons don’t necessarily feel as strong as some of the other Gods’ off the bat. She can give you strong base damage boosts, but Weak doesn’t do any extra damage inherently. It just makes your opponent do less. To be fair, that can be rather useful. Especially against beefy hitters like Hades or Asterius. Also her cast has a rather short range, which limits its usefulness. I’m sure it meshes well with the Heart-Seeking Bow, but still. Yet she’s also got some crazy deadly duo combos, like Curse of Longing which just keeps spamming Doom if you apply Weak to an enemy. You can start putting up ridiculous damage with that equipped. So all in all she’s helpful. She’s stronger than she appears at first glance, much like love. She helped me through some of my successful runs. 4 to be precise.

Then there’s Ares, the God of War. Can’t say I’m huge on the whole war thing. I would think most people aren’t, but nevertheless it keeps on happening. I’m sure Ares would like my home country, America. We don’t worship him by name, but it sure seems like we do in practice. We’ve got no shortage of ways to keep the weapons contractors happy. Now we’ve got an attempting dictator that wants troops in our own cities. My country is going through it. Perhaps one day Ares’ favorite activity will become my downfall. Can’t rule it out. Also sorry not sorry to anybody reading this that gets annoyed that I’m getting too political in a video game review. This is my personal blog that I make negative money on to keep online. I get to go on tangents ranting about whatever’s on my mind in blog posts with semi-related topics if I damn please. Don’t like it? This blog probably isn’t for you. Any ways, for all my negative feelings about Ares’ real world implications, he was quite helpful in this game!

In Hades Ares is an intimidating looking dude with destructive Boons befitting his title. Where the previous goddesses specialized in damage reduction, Ares is all about damage output. His main thing is inflicting Doom, which makes your attack do extra damage after a brief delay. With the right investments that Doom damage can do a hell of a lot more than the attack by itself. So you effectively get two attacks in one. The downside is he doesn’t help do much of anything besides more damage. I made use of his gifts frequently. Through many successful and unsuccessful runs. More runs than any other god on the roster. He’s not an instant win button but I surely would’ve taken longer to clear this game without him. Thanks Uncle.

Next up we have the final A in the game, Artemis. I guess Apollo wasn’t in the mood to help. She’s the Goddess of the Hunt, which is not exactly the most useful thing to be a god of. I guess hunting was pretty damn important to the people of Ancient Greece. I figure people needed a good hunt to survive. Seems like it’s not much more than a glorified hobby for most people these days. Like, if you’re in a position where you need to hunt to survive, sure fine. If you just like shooting animals for the fun and challenge; just to have a stuffed corpse of a big animal on display to say I did that? I don’t have much respect for that.

Suffice to say I’m not a big fan of hunting. Not a big fan of the Goddess of the Hunt’s boons either. Her main thing is dealing crit damage, which means you get a chance of a crazy damage boost on your attacks. Majority of the time it doesn’t do much. Such is the way with crits. While I wasn’t huge on using her she can be helpful sometimes. Use the right Boons and you can do crit damage on attacks from other gods. You can turn a beefy Doom attack from Ares into something even beefier. So she can be very good under the right conditions, but most of the time I’d rather use literally anything else. I used her Boons less often than anyone else. Did I even use her at all on my successful runs? Hmmm… let me check.

OK I used her Boons in 2 of my 10 successful runs. On Attempt #32 I used Artemis’ Aid and Hunter’s Mark that time I used the Adamant Rail. I think I got some good crits in that run, so sure that counts. I also happened to use Hunter’s Dash on my final Attempt #44. It makes your dash attack do more damage. Not especially crucial either, but it sure didn’t hurt. So sure, that’s something. I’m probably underrating her. I bet she has better synergy with certain non-spear weapons. Guess she just wasn’t for me.

Now I could keep going to cover the whole ass God alphabet, and that would make sense because that’s what I’ve been doing so far. But it’s getting a bit repetitive. If I’m bored of what I’m writing how can I possibly inflict it on you guys? So let’s take those four A’s as sufficient examples. Beyond this I’d like to shoutout Dionysus and Zeus for helping me out through 6 of my runs. Naming the game’s resident poison status effect Hangover is a great bit. I do like using poison effects if they’re strong enough, and his fit the bill well enough.

If you get into the weeds of meta you’ll find certain gods are better to have on your side than others. However, every god helped me get to the end. And my guy Hermes helped me in all 10 of my successful escape attempts. Thanks dude. Messing around with mixing and matching boons is fun. Different builds can dramatically alter how you play. This mechanic is the core of the game’s strong replay value. I escaped the Underworld 10 times, and I honestly wouldn’t mind doing it again. I periodically reopened the game during the process of writing this blog to check certain stats and such. I knew I didn’t need to go out there again, but the thought crossed my mind.

That being said, I don’t think the boons alone would’ve motivated me to keep going past the first clear. They’re a big part of why I don’t mind the repetition too much, but they didn’t drive me forward. That honor goes to the story that told me I wasn’t done yet. I had to see how the family drama concludes.

I won’t say I directly relate to Zagreus’ family problems. I don’t think it’s physically possible for someone to be a perfect match for his. How often do stillborns end up sort of coming back to life but only within the realm of the dead? Except they can briefly enter the land of the living, talk to their mom that thought they were dead, and then die. And then they have to climb up from the Underworld yet again to see her again. I’m pretty sure that has actually happened zero times in the real world. To be fair, given that I don’t know what happens after death, I can’t objectively disprove it. Hmmm… Clearly Zagreus has unique circumstances, but I think anyone with some sort of trouble in their family can relate to aspects of this story. I know I could.

I can’t claim the godly elements of Zagreus’ story, but my family structure’s kind of like his. I’m an only child with a sizable extended family. I didn’t see my relatives growing up super often because my parents and I lived a fair distance away. I don’t want to go too deep into my own personal family matters, but my parents got divorced while I was young and the extended family isn’t always getting along at all times. So when I see the Olympians having their dysfunctional aspects as well, I can relate. They don’t always get along, but they’re perfectly happy to help Zagreus out.

As Hades’ story progresses we gradually peel back the layers of how their family situation became so complicated. What started out as a rebellious attempt to see his mother turned into an effort to reconcile broken bonds. Hades and Persephone didn’t separate because they hate each other. It’s just that various circumstances made it seem like the best option to them. Thanks to Zagreus’ persistence they come to realize there’s a better way forward. So when you successfully escape for the 10th time Persephone decides to return to the Underworld with Zagreus and reunite with her estranged husband. A family that was separated for… however long Zagreus has been alive reunites at last. Like a dream come true.

Unfortunately I don’t think such a clean resolution happens very often in real world family situations. When a relationship is broken it rarely gets rebuilt. Such is my experience. Even when they do get rebuilt, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will last. But there’s something uniquely powerful about seeing a family able to put their differences aside and come together. So much healing and possibility. So while I can’t say I relate to all these family issues seemingly getting wrapped up with a nice bow, I take it as something people can take inspiration from. Wonderful things can happen when family relations are strong. Yet when it gets twisted family can become a major source of trauma as well. There may be times where distancing yourself is necessary, but some damaged relationships are worth fighting for. I appreciate how this story represents both the dark and light sides of family. And it’s not like every family matter got 100% resolved. After all, Hades II exists.

Rodent Quota

Before I wrap up this blog I must attend to a couple things a certain Spartan wishes to see me write about. Starting with the rodent quota, which has to be a whole section apparently. The rodent quota started as an inside joke because I sometimes text the word “mice” instead of “nice” and that somehow became a thing where we have to note the presence or lack thereof in any game we review. It wasn’t that funny to begin with, and it’s arguably been run into the ground at this point. Nevertheless, it has become part of the ritual that keeps the Game Trade Review alive for… however long its been going on. I think we started around the summer of… 2019 maybe? I was still in college back then. The reviews came in the form of long strings of texts written out over the course of a day. Those reviews are deeply buried in the text archives now, and I don’t think you non-Spartan readers are ever going to see them. I must say I like the blog format more than the text dump they used to be. There’s a lot more work involved now, and you don’t get the active component of texting back mid-review, but still. It’s nice that I have a reliable way to look back on them now. As long as I keep giving WordPress money that is. Any ways, rodents.

This game not only meets the rodent quota, it exceeds it. All thanks to Styx. Not only do we got regularish rats as enemies, but we got big rats and rat people too. Take it a step further, we got rats as mini-bosses. You cannot overcome Hades without overcoming rodents. They’re not your basic early game enemy either. They’re a late stage obstacle. It is rare to find an entry to the rodent quota be such a threatening presence. Nice to see a game give the rodent quota its due.

Tiny Vermin is one of the toughest rodents I’ve ever encountered in a video game. He’s a little guy but he’s got the power to command big rat armies. Usually it’s the other way around. It’s like the bunny from Monty Python, but to be honest, not quite as intimidating. I wonder who would win a Death Battle. The Killer Bunny has more confirmed kills to his name, but the Tiny Vermin’s strong enough to be a threat to Zagreus. Zagreus is definitely a more impressive thing to scale against than Monty Python King Arthur’s men, so by that logic the Tiny Vermin is likely the strongest. I bet Tiny Vermin could survive a holy hand grenade.

Area Ranking

Another less consistent tradition we have in the Game Trade is the area ranking. Here I divulge which major areas of the game I like the most or least. Some games don’t delineate their areas clearly enough or have too damn many to make a proper ranking for. Not this game. We have 4 major areas you need to clear every time to escape the Underworld. Well, there are 5 areas if you count the outside world as separate, or 6 if you count whatever realm Charon sends you to when you duke it out. Oh! We could count 7 if you consider House of Hades, the hub area to be a distinct place too! I’m going to disregard Charon’s arena and consider the outside world part of the Styx package. House of Hades is a lovely hub area with fun customization options and interesting conversations. I’m not sure how the hell I’m supposed to compare it to combat areas so I’ll disregard it too. Also I’ll say upfront I don’t dislike any of these areas so bottom rank is still good. With that being said…

#4 Tartarus

Let’s be real, Tartarus is the training wheels of this game. It’s impressively well made, but the bunny hill’s never going to be the best experience. Or if it somehow is the best part, that means the video game’s probably doing something wrong. Tartarus serves its purpose well, and the later stages do too. Thus why Tartarus is last place.

That being said, Tartarus is an unusually harsh training wheel. As I mentioned before this place got me its fair share of times. The enemies you fight at this stage could easily be an intermediate level enemy in a different game. Honestly I think that’s a good decision. I don’t mind a gentle tutorial, but throwing you into the fire just feels right for this game. This ain’t a meadow, it’s fucking Tartarus. It’s teaching you to get used to the game’s difficulty level. Because you know if you can’t handle Tartarus you’re definitely not getting any further. You’re forced to stay stuck with the training wheels until you overcome them. In later runs it gives you some space to warm up and get your build started before shit gets real. Either way it has an important purpose.

Also I must mention that Out of Tartarus and the Furies’ theme are both damn good songs. This soundtrack’s strong in general. I like how they give these areas presence with acoustic instruments and then turn it into a metal song. Really fun to listen to and helps sell the intensity of the gameplay. They play a similar trick with much of the soundtrack, but it doesn’t get old. Simply put the acoustic instruments provide atmosphere and the metal provides aura. Nice to have both available in the soundtrack.

#3 Styx/Outside World

First comes the starting area, next comes… the ending area? The land of the rodent quota? This speaks more to the strength of the other two areas than the weakness of Styx. That being said, this area goes by pretty damn quickly. It provides some moderate-ish roadblocks in claustrophobic arenas. Its got an abundance of rats, an abundance of ways to get poisoned, and an abundance of traps. If it wasn’t for how much Mirror help I got by the time I could reach Styx, I bet it’d kill me a lot more. The only reason this place feels manageable is because you’ve already got a strong loadout by the time you reach it. I think the spear’s probably uniquely good for this area. It lets you strike the rats without getting close enough to be poisoned and without being super vulnerable when you’re cornered. At this point you have nothing to prove that the Champions of Elysium didn’t make you prove already. Styx just makes you go through the motions a bit before you fight the boss man.

Then the boss man comes and he’s… well, I already talked about him. He’s a well done final boss. Really puts all you’ve been through to one rough ass final test. I died to him more than anyone else after all. Then I had to climb all the way back up to meet him again. At least the snowcovered arena’s pretty and the soundtrack’s nice as usual. As demoralizing as going all that way just to lose can be, it can be fun to fight him even when you lose. It’s tough but mostly fair. He’s not that fast. If you die that means you got hit by something you could’ve seen coming.

#2 Elysium

If we just went off aesthetics alone this would probably be #1. I like the greenish blue hue and it has a lovely dreamy atmosphere to it. All the enemies have nice colors to them too. They can be a pain to take down, but I never expected anything less from the third area. This is the place where fallen great warriors roam, why would I expect pushovers?

Of course as we’ve touched on earlier, the boss(es) ain’t pushovers either. They’re second only to Hades himself in their ball busting skills. Earlier on I wondered if I was ever going to be able to beat them without taking heavy losses. As it turns out I ended up having some rather successful death conserving victories against them down the line. Even so, I never truly got consistent against them. Even in my later runs these guys could take some stocks off me. Especially when they get that heat upgrade, sheesh.

Of course I need to mention that the Exalted soundtrack is a fine specimen of a brainworm and the King and the Bull is a damn good boss track. I don’t think this game has any weak tracks. At worst it’s kinda boring on its own but still fits the atmosphere of the occasion very well.

#1 Asphodel

I can’t say I’d usually call the lava level my favorite. They often look a bit same-y, they’re usually not the sites of peak creativity. Indeed if I was just going off looks alone Asphodel wouldn’t be this high. It’s not the most challenging area either. The lava doesn’t even do that much damage because Zagreus is too tough or whatever. So what does it have? Well…

First off, Through Asphodel is the best song in the whole ass game. Is that a hot take? There’s some strong competition so it might be. Not my concern, I’m standing by it. It’s an almost 9 minute song that builds up in intensity beautifully. It seems strange to describe an intense metal-y lava level song as beautiful, but somehow it fits. After all, underneath the flood of lava this placed used to be an ethereal meadow. The song represents its fiery present and the underlying meadow in equal measure.

What else? It’s got kung fu skellymans, that’s a plus. It has Eurydice, the best of the resident buff gifters. Or whatever you’d call the group Sisyphus, Patroclus, and Eurydice fall under. I just have to appreciate how Eurydice makes you feel at home among the flames. And her buffs ain’t half bad either. I suppose she’s a thematically appropriate presence too. Zagreus is trying to escape the Underworld, something Eurydice also attempted at one point. Her lover Orpheus took her to the door, but he wasn’t supposed to look back at her along the way. He messed up right at the end. That sure put a damper on their relationship. Eurydice could have behaved jealously towards Zagreus, but instead she gives him a gift for his journey every time. Even when she’s angry with him. I didn’t play the game long enough to see their estranged relationship get a resolution. I wish them the best though.

Another reason this area ranks on top is that it has my favorite boss in the game, Lernie. Megaera and her sisters go down a bit too easy. She can knock a Death Defiance off me occasionally, but still. They’re the first major boss, it makes sense. Hades and the Champions of Elysium feel too much like remixed versions of FromSoftware bosses I’ve fought before to take the top spot. To be fair, I think the Champions manage to be a more fun fight than Smough and Ornstein. But Smough and Ornstein will forever be the OGs. As for Hades? Well, I’ve seen better final bosses. Including the one from the game my Spartan friend’s going to release a review of later. I’m thankful he’s easier than that guy because otherwise taking him down 10 times would be roughhhhhhhhhh. To be fair, I haven’t tried his upgraded heat version. But Lernie? He feels more unique. Perhaps I’m just less aware of the video game bosses he’s derivative of, but I always enjoy fighting Lernie either way. He’s a fun chaotic ride. That’s something this area has multiple instances of.

Conclusion

It struck me very early on with this game that it’s incredibly well put together. From an artist’s perspective I have to admire the way damn near everything is rendered. There’s a strong attention to detail with this game, they attended to aspects both major and minor. It’s an impressive piece of work. From what I gather there’s some AAA experience in the dev team, but they got the artistic freedom Indie status allows. The polish and technical know how of a AAA title matched with the mostly untethered creativity the Indie space allows? That’s the dream, and they made it come true. No wonder this game popped off. My chronic hipster instincts kept me away from Hades for a while. I rarely like mainstream media to the extent Everybody seems to. Even when I do like it, I usually don’t think it quite matches its hype. I don’t really like having to say, “yes the Big Thing people think is The Shit is in fact, The Shit.” Still, I mustn’t let such biases cloud my judgement too much. I try to take art on a case by case basis.

It is rather fitting that Sisyphus is the first buff helper guy you meet on the journey. This game made me feel just like him quite a few times. You push that boulder forward, muscling through whatever stands in your way. With enough experience you may get further than last time. Yet no matter how far you travel, if the boulder slips your ass has to start from the bottom again. Such is his fate for eternity. And yet he’s still an affable fellow when you meet him. How does he not break completely with such a punishment? By learning the thrill of the climb.

I had my share of frustration with Hades, particularly early on. I felt the pressure of having to do it all over again. I felt the pressure from Spartan to put my skills to the test. If I got stuck in the game for a very long time, or got forced to use God Mode, or anything like that, it means Spartan successfully got one over on me. That he truly gave me a taste of my own medicine for the crime of making him play FromSoftware games multiple times. Indeed this game ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s no sunshine at all in the Underworld. Unless you’re talented enough to successfully escape early on you’re going to be seeing Tartarus quite a few times. That means I had gaming sessions where I tried multiple times and ended the session losing every time. Not knowing how long it will take. It’s a tough feeling to take. Still I persisted, and all in all I honestly didn’t mind too much.

I have never played a roguelike in my life before this one, but I have experience with tough games. I have played much of FromSoftware’s catalogue. I platinum’d Bloodborne. I wrote a blog about Elden Ring’s DLC. I like a well designed challenge. I have experience powering through the frustrations of repeated deaths from a boss. I’m a bit addicted to that rush you get when you finally overcome them. That rush is always stronger if I had to really fight to get there. I got a certain feeling after defeating Orphan of Kos for the first time that no game has managed to replicate since. I have cleared multiple bosses more difficult than anything I encountered in Hades. To be fair I didn’t try Hades on Max Heat, I’m sure that would be rough. Souping up all the enemies in the game makes the game very difficult, what a shocker. Point is, I was never worried that I couldn’t beat this game. I may have worried about how long it would take me. I may have felt exasperation that I had to do it all over again. But I knew I could do it. I handled stronger bosses with a weaker character. Zagreus can be absolutely busted beyond belief if you build him right.

That being said, this is an incredibly popular game. That means it’s going to attract some more casual players that have never touched a FromSoftware game or anything comparable in their life. I’m willing to bet a lot more of those types stuck around to the end for Hades than they would on something like Sekiro. Is that just because it’s an easier game? Well, that helps, but it’s still at a level where a lot of players would struggle immensely. It wasn’t a walk in the park for me either. Offering God Mode for players that think they need a handicap certainly helps keep the retention. It lets some people play to the end that would’ve otherwise given up earlier on. Thus they get to experience the whole story play out. That’s a factor. Another one is that this game is just really good at coaxing you into continuing.

In this game you are quite literally meant to die. If you’re the Super Saiyan Supreme Gamer that can successfully escape in one try you’re going to miss a big part of the experience. Every time you return to the House of Hades there’s a new dialogue to be found. There’s the exchangers with your dad where he’s usually being a hater. That can give you the “fuck you dad I’ll get it next time!” energy some people need to win. You can get encouraging words from Achilles and an insightful conversation from your goth mom Nyx. You can talk to Megaera in the lounge and watch her get annoyed at you for talking to her. You can see subplots like the one between Eurydice and Orpheus play out. You can say hi to Cerberus again. This game’s story is built up from quick exchanges over the course of multiple iterations. Quick enough that people who prefer to skip dialogue can get on with it, but substantial enough for story loving folk to have something to get engaged with. Story wise I can think of plenty of games I much prefer, but it has a better story than you’d expect of an action focused game.

So yeah, I had fun with this game. If you were hoping for a crash out review Spartan I don’t know what to tell you. I like a well designed challenge. I got one. It’s a very solid game with no major discernible flaws as far as I’m concerned. Maybe someone can bitch about it being too woke or whatever but that’s not me. There was a lot of cultural mixing in the Medditeranean historically (and presently). Whoever designed the characters in Hades did an incredible job breathing new life into them. Some characters like Zeus and Hermes look pretty much exactly as you’d expect them to, but others mix it up. If everyone was all light skinned and clothed in conventional traditional garb like an 1800s painting it would look awfully stiff. Everything in the Hades world is so colorful, it’d be strange if the gods weren’t an exception. These creative liberties help make the game the gorgeous modern art piece it is. No complaints on that front.

Hades does just about everything well, and some parts incredibly well. There are people that consider it the greatest game of all time, and I can’t really blame them. But for me personally, it’s not quite that level. I prefer marathoning through a larger selection of bosses than having to take down the same guys repeatedly. I can think of multiple games I’ve enjoyed the gameplay of more. Hades gameplay can feel a bit too spammy at times. I can also name quite a few games that have better story/characters. To be fair, I struggle to think of any game that manages to beat Hades on story and gameplay simultaneously. Maybe the Hades developers should’ve shed their AAA influence further and made the game freakier. Perhaps I would’ve given it a 10 in that scenario. I guess it wouldn’t sell as well, alas. As is I’m thankful for the acknowledgement. 9/10.