Today I'm talking about one of my most played games of all time: Hades.
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There's a lot of great games I've never played. Despite all of the enthusiasm thrown behind the Dark Souls franchise, Elden Ring and Bloodborne, the steep difficulty curve and deliberate approach to combat has never appealed to me. The closest I got with a Souls-like is Lies of P that I only began playing because it was featured on GamePass, but I ultimately found it too challenging to continue (at least as of writing). And that one is supposedly easier than the From Software titles. It's a matter of what engages or makes my brain happy when I'm playing it. So while I've never vibed with the Metal Gear Solid franchise, I've thoroughly enjoyed other stealth-first titles like Splinter Cell. And as popular as open world madness in Grand Theft Auto is, I've always enjoyed the more cartoonish cousins of the genre like Just Cause and Saints Row or superhero fare like the Arkham franchise and recent Spider-Man games.
But the genres I've always slid off of were role-playing games and rogue-likes ranging from Mass Effect's space opera to dungeon crawlers like Darkest Dungeon. I like big worlds to explore or tightly told stories.
And then I played Hades.
At time of writing, the 2020 game from SuperGiant is probably my most played ever, unseating many of the games I already alluded to. And I'm not alone. Hades is considered by many to be one of the best games ever made, earned numerous Game of the Year awards with players eager to play the sequel Hades II in it's entirety this year.
It's not ground-breaking to say you like playing Hades or got sucked into its gameplay loop of battling your way out of the Greek Imagining of the Underworld. But why did it work on me, where so many others failed? To do that, I'm going to go into the gameplay and loops, story and overall experience that made a perfect game for me....during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It's not ground-breaking to say you like playing Hades or got sucked into its gameplay loop of battling your way out of the Greek Imagining of the Underworld. But why did it work on me, where so many others failed? To do that, I'm going to go into the gameplay and loops, story and overall experience that made a perfect game for me....during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Story (Baseline)
In Hades you play as Zagreus, the firstborn son of Hades who wants to escape his father's realm in the Underworld (for undisclosed reasons). To do so, he's enlisted the help of his adoptive mother Nyx and the Gods of Olympus who will granted him boons/enhancements to his combat abilities.
Hades is in opposition to this, and as such, sends all of his ghouls with varying degrees of abilities after Zagreus.
To completely escape from Hades, Zagreus has to fight his way through four regions of the Underworld, Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, and the Temple of Styx, before defeating Hades himself.
To completely escape from Hades, Zagreus has to fight his way through four regions of the Underworld, Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, and the Temple of Styx, before defeating Hades himself.
While the reasons aren't clear to start, it quickly comes into focus that Zagreus is trying to break out of the Underworld to visit his real mother Persephone, piece together the truth behind her disappearance, and hopefully reunite his mother and father.
All of which is easier said than done and worth a deep dive later...so let's talk gameplay.
Gameplay Part 1: The Worlds
As I mentioned earlier, the gameplay in Hades takes place in four levels of the Greek Underworld all of which are generated at random and feature an escalating level of threat from the foes and a distinct look and feel. Because while Hades is a rogue-like, it is also a dungeon-crawler that features about 8 levels and then a final boss before you can advance to the next world.
We start in Tartarus that more less looks like standard dungeon and features enemies with one kind of attack (usually a lunge or swing) and basic traps. Next we're onto Asphodel which is looks and feels like hellfire, features enemies with more elaborate attacks that cover more distance and deal more damage. Then we're onto Elysium, where a bunch of revised champion warriors will attack you with a series of attacks, many of whom can and will revive if you don't eliminate their core in time. And finally we have the temple of Styx, your final stop, where you need to go through a series of decaying dungeons to find a treat for Cerberus before you can step outside into the real world...but only after you kill your father Hades and send him back to his realm.
After each major world, minus the bout with Hades, you can replenish a bit of your health, maybe purchase an upgrade, or switch out a held item (each of which has its own benefits).
We'll get more into the random generation in a bit (especially when it comes to the boons and weapons), but overall, I love how this captures the feeling of escaping hell and literally fighting to get to the light. It's dark in Tartarus, firey in Asphodel, and finally nice in Elysium and dark and dreariest before the dawn in the Temple of Styx.
Each of these worlds is also peppered with a number of Mini-Bosses, that each present their own challenge, and character interactions that may or may not feature story elements or opportunities for upgrades.
Eurydice in Asphodel is my favorite example.
Eurydice in Asphodel is my favorite example.
If you stumble upon Eurydice's "level," you get to pick from one of three upgrades she offers, all of which provide major enhancements to your current or future abilities. But these interactions also provide opportunities for the player to gain an item if they give Eurydice a gift and also to resolve one of the great Greek Tragedies Eurydice and Orpheus, since Orpheus has recently been tasked as the Underworld's resident entertainer.
The random generation also makes each run unique and uniquely challenging.
For instance, there are plenty of mini-boss' that are extra challenging depending on your weapon selection and boons. Or in the Temple of Styx, only one of the six pathways laid before you contains the item you need, which means you could end up losing a ton of health in a fruitless search for the Satyr Sack (the treat you need to pass Cerebus). It's a crapshoot.
For instance, there are plenty of mini-boss' that are extra challenging depending on your weapon selection and boons. Or in the Temple of Styx, only one of the six pathways laid before you contains the item you need, which means you could end up losing a ton of health in a fruitless search for the Satyr Sack (the treat you need to pass Cerebus). It's a crapshoot.
When I first played the game, I kept running into mini-bosses whose attack patterns I didn't know yet, which meant I lost a health or even got killed learning their abilities. What's nice is that this knowledge is always useful moving forward, because you can always turn around and try another run.
Even at its hardest, a single playthrough of every level at your disposal will clock in under 30 minutes. So if you didn't get the boons you wanted, or just misplayed the items you did have, you can easily run it back and give it another go with almost no down time and see if your luck with boons, items and beyond is any better.
And maybe choose another weapon this time.
Gameplay Part 2: The Weapons
There's a total of six main weapons you can battle with in Hades. All of which have distinctive advantages and drawbacks. The spear is a nice mix for those that want close-quarters and long range attack options that also has an area attack you can charge up. The sword has a touch more range and is much quicker than the spear. The bow can keep foes at a distance, but struggles up close. The fists are devastating in close range, but a problem when you encounter enemies that explode upon defeat or enemies with strong ranged attacks. The shield can block attacks but doesn't have the same punch in close or long range. And the gun, yes the gun, is powerful from range, but features long time between attacks as it reloads.
And regardless of which weapon you choose, you also get a cast or a projectile weapon that either does base damage or takes the shape of the Greek God that grants you a power through a boon. There's also a "call" attack that can be used, but that makes more sense to discuss with the boons.
Each weapon also has 3 variations or aspects, many of which are pulled from other mythology, that come with their own unique abilities. There's an aspect of the sword that comes from King Arthur, which is way slower than the usual sword, but hits much harder and creates a buffer area where attacks are slower and hurt less. There's also a spear you can borrow from Achilles or fists from the epic poem's namesake Gilgamesh.
Each of these weapons can be enhanced (usually once or twice) with one time run upgrades from Hephaestus that can make your preferred play style and then more broadly with "Titan Blood" in the training room before you start your next run.
But why would anyone try different weapons or upgrades? You might ask.
Put simply, the game rewards experimentation at every turn.
Before you select your weapon, the game randomly generates a weapon that will provide a bonus for gems, items that can be used to purchase lasting upgrades to the player. So if you choose the bow over and over again, you're leaving upgrade money on the table that could/should make your runs a lot easier.
And in case that wasn't enough, you kind of need to use different weapons to make you, your weapons, and relationships to other characters as powerful as possible.
The first time you beat a boss with a particular weapon you'll get a highly valued item including "Titan Blood" which can be used to improve your weapons, Diamonds which can used to buy new songs or World upgrades, or Ambosia which you'll need to fully enhance relationships and get the game's ultimate good ending. But once you've beaten the game on normal difficult with that weapon, you don't get those rewards again. The only way to do that is to use a "Pact of Punishment" that makes the game more difficult...or to use another weapon that you didn't beat the game with yet.
So you could keep beating the game with the twin fists, but good luck living up to your potential or even finishing the story in full.
You get the idea. The more you experiment, the more rewards you get. The easiest the game gets, even as it gets harder. But you also get help thanks to some divine intervention...
Gameplay Part 3: The Boons
As you clear different encounters the player is rewarded with a number of items including the aforementioned gems, money to spend on items, boosts to your health total, weapon enhancements, and my personal favorites, the boons.
Boons are enhancements to your abilities, or new abilities, that are granted from Zagerus' aunts and uncles, the Greek Gods, who want to stick it to Hades. Each of which are based around their defining attributes or whatever they're the god of. If you pick Zeus upgrades, you can enhance your attacks with lightning effects to do more damage. If you pick items from Dionysus you can deal draining "hangover" damage to your opponents or improve your health.
Just like the weapon upgrades, you're given a choice of three options to choose from and can make your decision based on personal preference or whichever ones you haven't tried yet. Much like trying out different weapons, you get in game bonuses from trying out each ability at least once. You can also enhance these enhancements with Pomegranates or Poms that will bolster the stats or impacts of the boons you already have.
Just like the weapon upgrades, you're given a choice of three options to choose from and can make your decision based on personal preference or whichever ones you haven't tried yet. Much like trying out different weapons, you get in game bonuses from trying out each ability at least once. You can also enhance these enhancements with Pomegranates or Poms that will bolster the stats or impacts of the boons you already have.
The boons are my favorite addition to the game because once you get an idea for how they work you can become nigh invincible in the game, by increasing the effectiveness of your basic attacks or granting you new ones.
The dash enhancements are my favorite example.
When you first start out your dash can only be used to avoid attacks. It has no offensive qualities. So at some point, you'll have to attack your foes to pass the encounter. But once you've enhanced your dash with one of the boons, your dash can do damage. Now barely dodging a number of attacks all in a row could severely reduce and could even completely KO an opponent depending on its potency. Ares' dash enhancement, for instance, leaves a spinning red blade in its wake that will continue to do damage until it tapers out, even if you're on the other side of the map, far away from the enemy caught in its wake.
One of my favorites is Athena's dash enhancement because it has so many functions and fits nicely into my hit and run play style in this game.
One of my favorites is Athena's dash enhancement because it has so many functions and fits nicely into my hit and run play style in this game.
Athena's enhancements are all about reflecting attacks and reducing damage. So her dash enhancement does a tiny bit of damage, while also reflecting projectiles that would otherwise hit you. Which means, played correctly you can completely weaponize your opponents attacks against them or be saved from taking damage right when you were about to get hit.
Boons can also unlock an chargeable special move called a...well a Call which takes the basic attack enhancements and props it up to 11. So instead of attacking damage to your regular attack like Artemis' regular boons do, you'll fire a giant arrow at your opponent. And if you charge up the call meter to full you can do an even bigger version of the attack called a "Greater Call" that burns through the entire bar instead a single clip.
There's also opportunities to pair up two gods abilities with "Duo" boons that combine two gods abilities and can absolutely wreck even the strongest enemies in the game, including bosses.
Given the opportunity, I almost always pick the Cast enhancement from Demeter since it fires off a cold beam that cuts into opponent's health bars very quickly thanks to the persistent damage of the beam. The only downside is that the beam tracks opponents very slowly so it's best to either predict your opponents move or scatter the casts throughout the level to guarantee damage. But when that beam is enhanced with a Duo boon from Demeter and Artemis, it can track enemies like a hunter and will follow enemies back and forth until it powers down and you cast it again. I've eliminated multiple bosses without a direct attack thanks to these enhancements.
Given the opportunity, I almost always pick the Cast enhancement from Demeter since it fires off a cold beam that cuts into opponent's health bars very quickly thanks to the persistent damage of the beam. The only downside is that the beam tracks opponents very slowly so it's best to either predict your opponents move or scatter the casts throughout the level to guarantee damage. But when that beam is enhanced with a Duo boon from Demeter and Artemis, it can track enemies like a hunter and will follow enemies back and forth until it powers down and you cast it again. I've eliminated multiple bosses without a direct attack thanks to these enhancements.
Boons also come in different potencies with the baseline boons offering the standard upgrade and "Epic" boons offering a much more powerful upgrade.
This is why runs where players either eliminate boon selections or forgo them entirely are god-tier achievements. Because as your opponents get more abilities and health, your weapons and powers stay exactly the same.
Well not exactly the same.
Gameplay Part 4: Growth (In-Game)
If you ever played an old Nintendo or Super Nintendo game, you're probably all too familiar with the feeling of having a perfectly super charged character with all of the upgrades you could possibly want...only to be killed and sent back to zero or an impossible uphill climb from one mistake. The side scrolling spaceship battler Super R-type caused me numerous vocal outbursts after I dodged a boss' giant attack and lost the perfect weapon setup because I drifted too close to a second or single laser blast.
Developers of modern rogue-likes seem to understand this frustration and while the difficulty might never dip, there's always a way to make your next run a lot easier.
Hades is no exception.
When you first start out in Hades you start off with almost nothing. Your health bar is as small as it can be. Your weapons do the minimum amount of damage and you only have one cast. Even movement you'll take for granted later, like dashing twice in a row, isn't available.
But if you collect enough materials, you can invest them to make your baseline more durable, powerful and agile.
When I recently started a new game in Hades I was blown away by how little I started with and how quickly I was able to earn it all back. Soon I was back to spamming 3 casts as my initial attack, dashing around multiple times in a row to dodge bosses and starting off with a much healthier life bar and spending cash.
I also had items.
Before you enter a world in Hades you get a pit stop to regain some health, purchase or sell an upgrade if you wish and select or change and item. The items are all gifts from the gods that you get in return for giving them gifts of nectar (an item you could pick up after a single encounter or trading) or Ambroisa (an item you can either get from defeating the bosses of Elysium (Theseus and the Minataur) or by trading substantially more valuable items).
Each item carries it's own kind of upgrade that can improve the efficacy or grade of your boons, make your attacks more powerful or bolster your health. The more encounters you use these items in, the more powerful they get. Once again, it's dealer's choice.
This slew of choices, both as the game is happening and even before you start, combined with the randomized encounters and level layouts, ensures that the player can never get bored...unless they've made it boring for themselves. And we haven't even addressed the story.
Gameplay Part 5: Growth (In-Story)
As I mentioned, however many minutes ago, the core of Hades story is a son rebelling against his father. You are Zagreus, son of the Underworld God Hades, and you want to get to the surface. What I left out was Zagreus does have a purpose beyond petty defiance of his father. He wants to meet his mother Persephone for the first time.
Not that you find that out all at once.
Not that you find that out all at once.
Something that Hades is so good at is giving you a pieces of a larger puzzle whether it's Zagreus' origins or why Medusa (a flying head of the famed Gorgon) is so damn nervous around Zagreus and immediately runs away after you say hello.
Pieces that can only be put together with the proper number of runs, items acquired or relationships strengthened through nectar and ambrosia.
In other games the first time you meet Persephone would be the game's end. You got to see her. You've accomplished your goal. And wait, why does it look like you're dying?
Turns out that there's a canonical reason for that. Due to the circumstances of his birth and near death, Zagreus cannot survive in the human world for more than a few minutes. Which is not only a great narrative gut punch, but also gives the player one solution to this problem. You'll have to fight your way out again.
To fully complete the game and close all of its narrative threads you need to keep playing the game. Keeping beating it. Keep amplifying the difficulty.
The reunion of Orpheus and Euridice isn't solved with a one time run. You can only do it after you've hacked your way through the Underworld dozens of times and bonded with both of the ill-fated lovers. If you fight hard enough, enough times, though, you can finally give these tragic characters a happy ending.
Something I love about Hades is how it mines the Greek tragedy and characters and all of their foibles for emotionally satisfying payoffs down the line, that are also then rewarded by the game. One of the featured characters in the hall of Hades is Achilles, the famed warrior of Greek mythology, who trained Zagreus and is the reason you can fight with all of these weapons. That's a fun detail that could be left alone.
But one of the possible encounters in Elysium is with Patroclus, a Debby Downer ass version of Achilles' favored friend who will grant you one of three possible enhancements. It takes a lot of runs, but if you finally have enough conversations with Achilles and Patroclus and find all of the necessary items, you can reunite the duo in Elysium where they can say all of the things to each other they never go to say due Patroclus' tragic end without Achilles by his side...and you'll get some diamonds for doing it.
There are no unhappy ends in Hades. Just opportunities to go through another run and maybe get it right this time or right another wrong.
Why I Fell In Love With Hades
I picked up a copy of Hades from my local library early into the COVID-19 pandemic. As much as I wasn't sure that this game would be for me, the reviews on it were so strong and it was free to borrow it from the library so I thought I'd give it a shot.
Which may sound like absolutely madness when I was about to enter a day-to-day routine that involved doing the same 2-3 things almost every day, even more so that before. I would wake up. Take care of our pets. Work. Maybe workout or shop. Maybe go outside. Play Hades and then join my wife on the couch to watch whatever show or movie we weren't sick of yet.
And some days I played Hades an awful lot. An exacerbating factor for the lockdown monotony wasn't just that I was working from home, but also because my wife was in the midst of an incredibly difficult stretch of her PhD. She was working during the day, often doing field work. Only to stop home for a brief break, before she would have to head to her home office and keep working (only on her dissertation this time). It felt rude to blast whatever TV show or movie I wanted to watch, so I frequently retreated to the basement to play Hades as she was working. Depending on the day, I may not have had more than a few sentences of interaction with other humans, Sharon included.
But despite there only being a certain number of things that could happen based on a series of ones and zeros, Hades made the monotonous feel dynamic.
Constant playthroughs is where the randomly generated aspects and the game's upbeat/silly sense of humor really shines. For example, the final boss for Tartarus is one of the three Furies, Megaera (whom you call Meg and can even develop a romantic relationship with), the spite filled Alecto (who comes across like a serial killer) and Tisiphone who has a Groot-like vocabulary. Except hers in one word: murder. Encountering Tisiphone on every run would be, at best, tedious. This is why as much fun as the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and comics have had with Groot's single sentence vocab, they use it sparingly, riff on it (i.e. there's a great book that shows everything from Groot's perspective which is in perfectly comprehensive sentences in his mind) or give variations for emotional impact.
Since you can only encounter Tisiphone one of three times, the joke is allowed to build over time and makes an eventual reveal of her saying Zagreus' name satisfying instead of forced.
Since you can only encounter Tisiphone one of three times, the joke is allowed to build over time and makes an eventual reveal of her saying Zagreus' name satisfying instead of forced.
The random generation means that all of the Hades one note characters play like recurring sitcom characters versus a lead character that constantly spouts a catchphrase.
It's also truly impressive just how much writing SuperGiant did for this game. While there may be a couple of recurring lines used in combat or when you select certain boons, the dialogue options with characters are almost always, even after dozens of runs, new. So if you're stopping by Sisyphus, you can ask him how things are going and get a brand new response that springboards either from your last conversation or action.
It means this pantheon and all of the Underworld feel like a neighborhood where everyone kinda knows each other and you can get to know them better if you put in the work.
Which is, not something I had many opportunities to do in my day-to-day life as I was masking, trying to keep grocery runs as quick as possible, and avoiding any possible point of infection. And while it obviously couldn't replace the real thing, it felt like my time invested in the game meant something.
While the world around me felt like it never changed, I got to watch the house of Hades get renovated and a bunch of tragedies get set right thanks to my tireless efforts.
As much as I still don't get life simulations like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, Hades was my version of it. It just had a lot more stabbing, punching and shooting.
And even that stabbing, punching and shooting came with more variety than my day to day life.
A Hades Run
It's a cliche to say, but each run in Hades is a completely different animal depending on what the game gives you or throws at you and the player's own actions/choices.
Before you even begin the run, the player chooses their weapon, their enhancement item, a companion that they can summon, and how many levels of "punishment" they want to try out, if they've already beaten the game of course.
So even before the run starts the player is already choosing how they're going to play and how hard this run is going to be.
Once you're dropped into Tartarus the player is given their first direction and choice, an enhancement that you select before you start fighting. And it is wild how often this first choice can determine the nature of the player's run.
If you're playing with the Twin Fists and immediately choose the enhancement that gives back health if you kill of foe with your special attack, you've set yourself up for a very aggressive run and have also incentivized yourself to pick a hard hitting boon for your special attack.
If you start with an Aphrodite enhancement, a goddess whose boons predominantly weaken your foes, you're much more likely to use hit and run tactics to whittle down your enemies health and keep their damage capacity low while knowing that blind bull rushes won't work.
That's choice #1 and the first of numerous choices the player will make throughout the course of the run.
Even after you beat one or two enemies you're given your second choice which is whether or not you want the reward in the next chamber. Something we haven't talked about yet is an enhancement that allows the player to change the change rewards a limited number of times. So if you really don't want a certain gods boons, or feel like you need more damage from a pomegranate instead of a health increase, you can change the chamber reward accordingly.
Each of these choices guides the player style for the player moving forward as your skills either evolve and enhance or your health fluctuates.
So if you pick a bunch of Zeus boons, you can take a basic lightning attack in a room clearing series of lightning bolts that rain down on your enemies as soon as you start moving, let alone attacking.
One of the Pacts of Punishment is a simple one that makes the run only a touch harder, the traps in each dungeon do 400% more damage. For the most part, traps are very easy to avoid. But if you do get hit by one, it can shade your entire run. At one point I was in a run with a full health bar and three revive items called "Death's Defiance." An item that's generally good to have in abundance before you go up against Hades.
But in one of the final encounters in the Temple of Styx I got cornered and ended up taking trap damage 4-5 times in a row and shaved off all of my Death Defiance items in a single encounter.
At which point I had two options. Play very cautiously against Hades right away or keep earning power ups in the Temple of Styx with the hope of buying another Death Defiance with the gold I acquired (if an item pool appeared) or being strong enough and not taking much damage so I could better manage the uphill battle.
I took the second option and miraculously, got a boon that gave me back one Death Defiance and purchased another in the final series of chambers. Only to clear out Hades without needing a single Death Defiance.
It's selective gambles like this that make each Hades run so engaging even as you continue to play and increase your run count. When you first start Hades you're learning about the limits and capabilities of each enemy, item and boon. But once you've mastered Hades you're planning far into the future and making selections not based on what's valuable to you as a player now, but what will help you beat Hades after another grueling run through this dungeon set...or what will help you finish up those renovations to the lounge in the House of Hades. Dealer's choice.
A Hades run demonstrates the value and impact of small choices, even in a repetitive existence and tasks better than any movie, TV show or book that I've encountered.
I don't mention this often, but I am a gym rat. I work out almost every day and have a solid routine of weight-lifting, cardio and core workouts to keep myself in shape. Which means that a lot of the evidence of that activity including more muscle definition and weight loss aren't apparent. For most my body looks about the same as it always has and my strength is more or less where it's been for a few years. The two best feelings I can encounter as a gym rat are finding a new exercise that is difficult or truly feeling the workout I just had the day after. I love being sore the day after a gym visit because it means I pushed myself.
A great Hades run, has the same effect. It still feels victorious whether I've beaten my big bearded dad 10 times or 100 because I know all of the work I put in previous runs and the run I've just completed. It's all meant something either as part of the story, as investment in character or in the sheer thrill of beating something challenging.
Before I began writing this, I decided to start an entirely new Hades game to see if it sucked me in the same way the second time around. Would the game still have the same impact when I knew all of its secrets and wasn't limited in my entertainment options. And I'm pleased to say the game siren's song is just as strong as it was in the pandemic. Because I knew what was ahead I was eager to beat the game for the first time, to unlock the weapon variations I loved, to find my favorite item, to try things I've never tried before. It was the same game, but it was different this time.
That's Hades to me. A simple, rapid-fire, fun-as-hell game, that'll give you something different every time. Even if you're hacking through hell for the 300th time.
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