Hades - Review — Maxi-Geek

Being honest, rogue-like games have never been my thing, I never really found a sense as to why, just I didn’t like replaying the same thing over and over again and hoping that randomness was in my favour this time. Hades, from the initial reveal trailer had my attention, not only because of the use of the Greek Gods, but also the visuals, so the question is, was that enough to keep me playing, or was the run not in my favour?

The story of Hades is a true Greek tragedy, Zagreus, son of Hades, the Lord of the Dead, and his attempts to escape the depths of Tartarus. As Zagreus makes his way out, he will discover his mission is supported by the Gods of Olympus, Zeus, Athena, Ares and so on. But that support means little as the forces of the underworld are there to stop him, from lowly little demons to the Furies themselves and when you die and you will die, you have to face them all over again. The story is told in microbursts, with each run providing more details about one or two characters at most, sometimes a third, but that is rare. The longer you survive, the more chance you have of meeting folks and discovering more of it, but each time you restart your escape, you will discover more about the folks that call the Underworld home and that is perhaps the reason to want to die.

Each of the characters that you encounter are layered in ways that I wasn’t expecting, your father, Hades, Lord of the Dead, seems like just a giant prick to begin with, but the more you play and the more you talk with him, the more you learn that there is more going on. The other characters that you encounter are much the same and then even on top of that there is Zagreus himself, who grows more as he discovers things, rather than just being a one note character. That is not to say that there is a lot to discover, there are only a half dozen or so folks that you can have a conversation with, the Gods outside of the underworld are just one way chats, so you won’t spend hours between each run trying to find someone new to talk with. The fact that the characters are all based on Greek mythology is also a treat, most gamers these days would be familiar with them based on the God of War series on the PlayStation consoles, but these are not your average characters. There is a good blend of the gods and the monsters, as well as those in between, nymphs, dryads and such and the more you talk with them, the more your logbook expands with details, it is quite a nice touch.

Of course the runs are where the real meat and potatoes can be found, each time you push through the world and get a little closer to your goal, things change and you can easily finding yourself demanding one more go. As you begin a run, a random blessing from a god will appear, with it you can pick one of three choices and that can impact how well you are able to progress. On one run, I obtained a blessing from Poseidon and it let me push enemies away with a wave of water, whenever I dashed, which as you have to do that to dodge, meant enemies rarely got near me. This let me get to the first boss, with almost no challenge, but it was when I was able to get a blessing from Zeus that let me zap people with lightning with my weapon, that would also zap nearby enemies, I felt like I was unstoppable. Clearly, I was stopped though, thanks to a massive Hydra, but it just mean with the next run, I got a different set of blessings and had to try a new approach.

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That is where things can get interesting, the randomness of the blessings means that even if you somehow got the same layout twice in a row, your experience is going to change, just based on what gifts the gods have bestowed upon you. Of course, you won’t get the same layout twice, that is not how the game works, but you can start to learn the doors pretty easily, to ensure you pick the options that work for you the best. The doors have icons over them and if the room only has one door, you have but one choice, but when you have two doors, you need to way up the options. Some will take you to rooms, that once cleared provide you with a blessing, which can be very good, if you score something impressive or rare, but others might be an upgrade for your existing one, or some coins for buying and more. These choices that you have to make, will constantly have you questioning your decisions, there was one room that had two blessings already waiting and I honestly spent a few minutes waying up the choice, did I go with Ares the god of war, or one from Hermes, known for his speed. I went with Ares first, because I felt I was underpowered for my upcoming fight with the first Fury, but it was still a choice I am unsure about.

This sadly leads to the downside of the game, the randomness and yes, I know people will state that random is the entire point of the game and to a point I understand, but there needs to be more than that. Some runs are just brutal, purely based on what blessings you are given, there was one time when I was offered three blessings, after paying good coin for it from Charon’s shop and I didn’t like any of the options, but the game doesn’t let you say no. The upgrades that are good, that you can keep are only obtainable before your run begins, in your room or via the artefacts in the training space and while some artefacts are good, others seem a little pointless, but not as much as some of the ones from the mirror. The mirror upgrades vary between quite helpful and not really worth investing in and given that a section of them is all about one of your attack options and they are not good, is a little sad. But it ties back into the randomness, you can obtain a really great blessing, but then never get it again, because of the randomness and while I couldn’t help myself in doing more runs than I thought, just a few fixed options would have been nice.

On the presentation side of things, there is almost nothing bad to say about it, the game has a wonderful style that permeates almost every aspect of the world, from characters to enemies and of course the locations. Zagreus is the one that you will see the most and he sports a style that blends a bit of Hades and his mother, but he has a touch or two his own. The denizens of the Underworld also seem to have a bit of style, those born to the depths like Nix and Hypnos are darker in their design, where as Achilles and Sisyphus enjoy a more traditional Greek warrior look. Where the art style shines is with the Gods, while they all look like you would expect them to, no nerdy looking Zeus here, there is a twist to them all that looks great. The examples are plentiful, such as Aphrodite’s hair falling down and yet still somehow looping back into heart shapes, but it isn’t until you see them in the game that you will realise what I mean, the downside to their looks, is how they are shown in chats. When you interact with anyone that you can speak with, you get the old character cut out shown on screen, the problem is, they only appear to have a few poses, which means you had better get used to it.

That is not the only odd thing, the character models are detailed and look amazing in 2d, but when you see them in 3d, they look clunky, it is not a bad thing per say, except those 3d models don’t exactly blend with the 2d backdrops. There are also times when you can get stuck on objects in the world and while not a constant thing, it did happen to me far more often that I would have expected or liked. On the audio side, things are slightly worse, which is a shame and it is not in the quality of the audio, because the voice work and score is fantastic, but it is sadly in the quantity of voice work, with a number of Gods sounding quite similar to one another. I honestly can’t pick a reason as to why this was done like so, the game has so many characters and making them completely unique would have gone a little further in making it something really special.

Hades is not a game that I thought I would like at first, rogue-like games are something I tend to avoid, but as someone who loves the Greek myths, I had to give it a go and I am glad I did. The loop of running through the underworld in the hopes of escaping is wonderful, but more than that, the characters and the story is what makes it fun, because each time I died, failing in my ultimate goal, I was able to learn more about the place I was trying to leave. That inspired me to want to try again and the cycle kept on growing from there, a few hiccups with the visuals and some odd sounding voices don’t mare this otherwise wonderful experience, now if you will excuse me, I need to try one more run.