Hades Review - Page 2
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Feats of Strength
Now that we’re done with the House of Hades, let’s talk about his realm and how you actually escape it. At the very beginning, your options will be limited, but eventually, you'll get access to a total of six different weapons, each with four distinct aspects. With how impactful these aspects are, you essentially end up with 24 basic templates to start things off.
Each weapon has spammable basic and special attacks. You also get a dash that allows you to dodge out of harm’s way and perform unique dash attacks. Beyond that, you also get a Cast, a ranged attack independent from your weapon. These are limited by either a cooldown or a limited supply of Bloodstones. And later on, you can also get access to a Call, a move you can use after filling a special bar by dealing and taking damage. These range from brief invulnerability windows to strong bursts of damage.
All this comes together to create a very smooth and satisfying combat system that gives you plenty of options, rewards aggression, but also leaves enough room for a more meticulous playstyle. It’s just fun, basically.
And while the above can seem like a description of a pure action game, things get really interesting once boons enter the picture. Each time you clear a room, you get a reward of some sort. These range from bits of currency to health upgrades and permanent alterations to your weapon’s move set. But on top of that, certain rooms contain messages from the Olympians.
After a brief chat, your extended family members imbue you with a bit of their power, granting you powerful passive bonuses or enhancing your attacks with special effects. So, for example, Athena helps you deflect enemy attacks back at them. Dionysus allows you to damage your foes with powerful hangover (poison) effects. And Poseidon lets you wash your enemies away.
Each god has over a dozen of these boons that can later be upgraded to enhance their effects. And just to make things even more interesting, after you’ve received boons from two different Olympians, you can get a Duo boon that combines the powers already available to you in a new way.
This character-building system is easily the best thing about Hades. And while there’s never a guarantee you’ll get exactly what you want on any particular run, after you’ve unlocked some stuff at the House, you’ll get to nudge the RNG in your favor in some major ways.
But even if that doesn’t go your way, the number of viable builds and the fact that pretty much every weapon is good in one way or another means that you'll never end up stuck with an unwinnable run.
Another important thing to mention when talking about roguelite games is their longevity. With the exception of FTL, up until Hades, whenever I played a game like this, I would usually get the simplest ending, then maybe do a run or two after that, and call it a day.
With Hades, I was compelled to keep playing, keep unlocking new stuff, keep discovering new boon combinations. In fact, in order to get to what the game considers the “true ending,” you have to beat it ten times. I did that. Took me exactly 30 tries to get there. But then, I still kept playing to complete the second act of the story and get to the canonical epilogue.
Basically, the game is structured in such a way that you keep unlocking and discovering new stuff pretty much all the way till the very end. And not just cosmetics and minor stat bonuses, but entire new systems like fishing and summoning.
