Hades is an action Roguelike game that was developed by Supergiant Games. It blends features from Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre into one game. The game takes heavy inspiration from Greek Mythology and I myself am someone who loves mythology-based things. Hades does a brilliant job combining the three gameplay features into one to make something very unique.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- A great story filled with amazing likable characters
- Top tier voice acting for each character
- Fantastic combat with awesome weapons to try out
- Tons of Boon upgrades for you to collect that will give you godly powers
- A fantastic soundtrack that is fitting for the world of Hades
- Beautiful art style that is very nice to look at.
Cons
- You are limited on what Boons you can sell at a Pool of Purging
Story
Zagreus is the prince of the Underworld and despite being raised in the House of Hades, he always thought that he never belonged there in the first place. He then decides that it’s time for him to escape from the Underworld at all costs. Zagreus's father Hades on the other hand does not support this idea and will do anything to prevent him from getting out and has hired a few people to stop him. Though Zagreus will stop at nothing, no matter how many times it takes to do it. Being immortal has its perks, I guess. Although if he did really want to get out, he could have just asked Kratos for some advice, he has fought gods before. ;)
The story for Hades is crafted very well and all of the characters have their very own personalities that make them unique. I loved them all and picking a favorite was tough. The voice acting is another thing I must give praise for. All of the characters were voiced really well, and they fit perfectly with each other.
Gameplay
Hades has to be one of the most polished Roguelikes that I have played in recent years, and it has a lot to offer. You will be going through a set number of rooms, and you will be mostly taking out enemies. Sometimes you may even fight a miniboss or come across a few rooms that will provide you with a passive to either give you more health, coins, or refill your health. There are some rooms that will have a shop so you can buy Boons or some healing to help you continue on your journey.
There are also a few weapons that you can use like the Stygian Blade, Eternal Spear, Shield of Chaos, Seeking Bow, Adamant Rail, and my personal favorite one to use The Twin Fists of Malphon, which are fast, short-ranged combo fists that offer a bit of a risky playstyle but the damage output with its combos is nothing to underestimate.
The Mirror of Night is where you can get access to certain abilities that you can use in the game. These abilities can be upgraded with Darkness that you can find scattered throughout the levels. There are two versions of these abilities, red and green. Green talents are not available from the start, but you eventually gain access to them after having a conversation with Nyx. Red and green abilities cannot be used at the same time, so for example you can only use either Shadow Presence or Fiery Presence. You also have to spend Darkness on them separately as both of them won’t be upgraded. To access more of these abilities, you need to find Chthonic Keys and these keys can access more abilities of weapons in the Infernal Arms.
There are a lot of things you can get upgrades for in Hades, and I can’t explain it all in detail, so I recommend trying everything out yourself to see what suits you best.
Boons
You will come across upgrades called Boons, that will help Zagreus out. You acquire these either after you beat a room, or you can buy them at Charon’s shop. Some Boons don’t stack, however, so for example you can’t have Aphrodite’s cast Boon Crush Shot and Dionysus’s Trippy Shot. There are other types of Boons that won’t stack, like the attack, special, dash, and call, any other type has no limits on how many can stack. Although a god may offer to replace your weaker Boon with a stronger one and these exchanges will increase their rarity of them. There are four types of rarities: common, rare, epic, and heroic being the highest form of rarity.
The only issue with the Boons has to be the fact that when it comes to the Pool of Purging, you are only given access to sell three of them if you so choose. I wish I could sell more than that, but I never used the Pool of Purging anyway.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Hades is really well done, each song fits the theme of each area perfectly and sounded very nice. Supergiant Games has shown that they really put in the effort of making something very unique in their own regards, as it does sound very Greek-like.
Graphics and Performance
The art style for Hades is done very well, each area is drawn to perfection and has nice details to them, the designs on the characters fit very well and I honestly liked them all. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, with16 GB of RAM. I came across no issues during my playthrough.
Final Verdict
Hades is honestly one of the best Roguelikes that I have ever played, and I am glad that I took the time to experience this gem. I love the amount of detail in its story, characters, gameplay, and so much more. Hades is a very polished game and is something that I think that anyone who is a fan of Roguelikes should try out.
If you want to see a look into how the game is played, then check out the video I made.
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