Game review: Hades (2020)

What's up, everybody. It's me, the crusty, gamer gunk covered guy who rambles on about video games for the hope of getting money. Back again to ramble on about a video game in hopes I can get money. UPVOTE MY POST, YOU FUCKING SUCKERS. Today, I'm going to be going over a game I was kind of hesitant on playing, called Hades. I mentioned in my Risk of Rain 2 review that I'm not the biggest fan of roguelike games, having usually skipped over most in the genre. Most of them just don't get my nipples popping out of my shirt or anything. But, maybe Risk of Rain 2 helped change my taste a bit because not only did I really enjoy my time on Hades, but I've also found that I now can tolerate the taste of cucumber, my most hated vegetable. It's a day after Easter miracle!

Before I go on, I should probably mention some of the boring technical shit. Hades is a roguelike, action roleplaying game which was developed by Supergiant Games. You might know Supergiant Games from their work on Bastion and Transistor. Currently, it is only playable on PC and the Switch, but it's coming to Xbox Game Pass pretty soon, and more than likely will also slide a finger or two up the rectum of the Playstation Network. Now, lets get into the not boring shit.

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For starters, I wanna say that the artwork and style of this game is really fucking pleasing to the eye. Everything in the game looks great, the aesthetic is very colorful and the world design is pretty cool. The Gods and enemies all have a great design, and I just think the art style used for this was some top tier shit. This is something that seems like a bit of a trademark with Supergiant Games, as both Bastion and Transistor also had a nice style to them that looked really nice. Something else I'll mention here is the soundtrack, the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. Every time you get into an encounter the tunes come on and basically just suck your dick for the entirety of that encounter. It's a nice mash of electronic music meeting rock music, and it's great. Besides the DOOM/DOOM Eternal OST, I think this game definitely has one of my favorite soundtracks for a video game.

The narrative of the game is basically you're trying to escape from the underworld/hell, so you start from the bottom floor of the world and work your way up. While doing so, you'll be going through hordes of enemies and getting new abilities/power ups from the various Gods that you interact with while you move your way up the world. There's a lot of lore to be found in this game, and it actually has a pretty strong narrative. Especially if I'm comparing it to something like Risk of Rain 2. The plot actually progresses the more you die and have to restart over, and the story itself is well written and very interesting. And, of course, because it's a roguelike every playthrough is going to be drastically different from your previous playthrough. So, each of those elements works together super well in this game and it just makes for a solid story and a fun way to explore the narrative.

And, for those times where you do choke on some soggy ass and die, you'll find yourself going back to a nexus hub. In this hub, you'll be able to talk with all of the different Gods in the game and you can present gifts to them for a permanent item being added to your inventory. Each of these items has different effects/bonus stats to them, and you can only equip one at a time. But, wait, there's more. You can also do renovating to areas in the underworld hub that also give you special upgrades/bonuses on top of that. But, wait, there's even more! There's darkness element that you can collect that also gives you even more power up options! Adding all of that into allowing you to choose your weapon for your run, and you'll notice there's a fucking lot of depth to the play style mechanics of this game.

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There's a ton of content here to explore, I would say on average it will take you around 15-20 hours on your first runthrough to successfully escape. And, after you do that there's still 20 hours worth of content to explore and check out. Behind every door you explore is more narrative, a new and improved boss monster, or just some cool items for powering up. And, because it's a roguelike, any other future playthroughs you do will be entirely different. So, there's a ton of replayability to be found here. And, every moment of the game is pretty damn rewarding, and just tons of fun to play. I definitely think this is a great bang for your buck title, and it would be very hard to find something that has so much to consume for the same price.

And, don't expect to be able to beat this game on your first run. It took me around 17 or 18 escape attempts before I actually was able to clear the game for the first time. And, I've seen some people posting they're on their 25th+ run and still have yet to clear it, but they're too addicted to stop. So, more than likely, you'll have plenty of time to figure out the best way to min max your builds and decide what type of build you wanna go for. (There's a shit ton of builds, by the way. Lots of high risk high reward here.) Weapon wise, I'd recommend either the Chaos Shield or the Heart Seeking Bow. You can get some wacky fucking builds going with those.

The only negative aspect of this game that I can really mention is that the auto aim if you use a controller can really butt fuck you. It will snap to an area where there's absolutely no one, unless you're also fighting invisible taint ripping ghosts on top of all the other creatures and beings. You only really notice it at specific times, like when attempting to line up a shot only to have it jerk to the right for no reason and you whiff it. So, it isn't gamebreaking but it can be fucking annoying to deal with. You can turn aim assist off though, thankfully, so you don't have to be a plebian and just grind through with it.

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Overall, I really enjoyed hades. I definitely wouldn't say it's the best roguelike game around, I definitely think Risk of Rain 2 was a better roguelike game just for the fact that each character played entirely different from one another. Where as in Hades, the only thing that changes are your weapons and the way that you try to pull off your fights. The core game mechanics do stay the same through each playthrough, so it's weaker in that regard. However, it has a much, much better narrative than most roguelike games, gorgeous art design, a banger soundtrack and is super satisfying to play. So, big recommend from me, babybois!

Until next time, slutterbutts.

Later!