Hades is an amazing roguelike RPG, and a testament to good game design. Its engaging, has a great story you tease out over multiple runs, great gameplay that doesn’t punish you unnecessarily and an amazing soundtrack and vocals. I can’t recommend this game enough, if you haven’t played it you should.

Story
You play as Prince Zagreus, son of the god Hades who is desperate to escape his father Hades, and his infernal realm. After the gods of Mt Olympus become aware of your existence they make contact with you, and offer boons in order to help you in your efforts to escape. Each run has different gods contact you and bestow different blessings, and slowly introduces a wider range of side characters you can interact with and explore their stories as you get closer to the surface and escaping. After my first escape (after many failed attempts) I thought it was a great story, only to find out that it’s really only the beginning of the story and as you complete more runs and converse with the NPC’s you expose all the secrets that gods have been keeping and start escaping to help avert a war between the entire pantheon. Most of the creature and locations lore entries are expanded by visiting or encountering them enough times, however NPC’s need gifts after a set amount of visits.

Gameplay
The gameplay while not being unique, is extremely rewarding. Essentially you start off in Hades palace where all the dead arrive, where you can converse with NPC’s (which moves their stories forward one conversation at a time), get scolded from Hades for being useless, trade items for rewards, spend money to upgrade the Palace and edit the weapons, perks and difficulty of the next escape attempt before setting off.

While every escape attempt is different, the premise is the same, with you having the clear 3 layers of the underworld and the temple of Styx you have to trek through, defeat their guardians and inhabitants who are being ordered by Hades to stop you. It’s a neat idea that by “killing” the inhabitants you are meting out the punishment they deserve, and that by stopping you they are ensuring the security of the realm (no dead souls have ever escaped), or in the Satyrs case killing the heathens who defile the temple of Styx and don’t venerate the gods.

Everything useful to you during a run is lost upon escaping (or death), and it becomes a balancing act of deciding picking boons that help you in the current escape attempt, or items (gems, darkness, gifts) that will be used for future upgrades or conversations with the NPC’s and various gods.

Replayability is very high and hasn’t just been tacked on as an afterthought as the whole story revolves around completing multiple escapes. The game actively encourages you to increase the difficulty (after a successful escape attempt) by limiting the items required for permanent weapon upgrades and different weapon aspects (each weapon has multiple forms that all change how they function) to only be awarded by each boss once at each difficulty level. When making runs harder you have full control over what setting you increase (it could be extra enemies, standard enemies have abilities, harder bosses, you lose boons as you progress ect), and you eventually get to a point where you need to have multiple of these selected. The game also keeps a record of the highest difficulty you have escaped with for each weapon, and the fastest attempt for those who limit to compete.

Each of the god’s boons can affect your primary moves in different ways (dash’s, attacks, magic casts, dodges and summons), and have different effects depending on which other boons are selected or what weapon is being used. Each of the boons have different tiers and levels, with a higher tier boon having better effects (say increase in damage %) over a lower but higher level boon. The Gods (while sounding friendly) are jealous and can offer to replace an existing rival’s boon with a higher tier one, or very rarely combine boons together so you get unique abilities that combine the best of both gods.

Graphics
For a game that’s essentially a display on family dysfunction the graphics are crisp and colourful in a way that cel shading exploits. Each arena has an abundance of hues that help define each layer of the underworld, with Tartarus having a darker dungeon setting, Asphodel being the traditional hell of bubbling lava and Elysium having softer blues and greens where the righteous live in dead. As the relationships expand you can tweak the house with different upgrades
Characters and enemies are all animated extremely well (enemies have tells to advise you of their attacks), and secrets are hidden in plain sight in the fishing games. The UI is minimalist so it doesn’t interfere with the action happening on screen, and each character really stands out. Traps aren’t hidden, though will catch you unaware if you don’t pay attention and the action can be quite hectic. The De-motivationals that usually play at the start of each run are hilarious (basically Hades musings on how you will fail, or why everything sucks).

Music
The vocals and music are amazing. They absolutely nailed the soundtrack for the game, with plenty of string and percussion tracks that align with the action happening on screen, with the more sombre music or tracks with vocals playing in resting areas or after certain events. The vocals are also amazing, with the dialogue between Hades & Zagreus being a standout. Hades put-downs are quite humorous to listen to (of you, when you change items around the palace and when he’s berating having useless minions or those in his court who displease him).

Achievements
Getting 100% achievements will take multiple runs through the game due to the random nature of stage rewards and conversations, but is highly worth it and nothing too strenuous, though time consuming

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Hades is an amazing roguelike RPG, and a testament to good game design. Its engaging, has a great story you tease out over multiple runs, great gameplay that doesn’t punish you unnecessarily and an amazing soundtrack and vocals. I can’t recommend this game enough, if you haven’t played it you should. [B]Story[/B] You play as Prince Zagreus, son of the god Hades who is desperate to escape his father Hades, and his infernal realm. After the gods of Mt Olympus become aware of your existence they make contact with you, and offer boons in order to help you in your efforts to escape. Each run has different gods contact you and bestow different blessings, and slowly introduces a wider range of side characters you can interact with and explore their stories as you get closer to the surface and escaping. After my first escape (after many failed attempts) I thought it was a great story, only to find out that it’s really only the beginning of the story and as you complete more runs and converse with the NPC’s you expose all the secrets that gods have been keeping and start escaping to help avert a war between the entire pantheon. Most of the creature and locations lore entries are expanded by visiting or encountering them enough times, however NPC’s need gifts after a set amount of visits. [B]Gameplay[/B] The gameplay while not being unique, is extremely rewarding. Essentially you start off in Hades palace where all the dead arrive, where you can converse with NPC’s (which moves their stories forward one conversation at a time), get scolded from Hades for being useless, trade items for rewards, spend money to upgrade the Palace and edit the weapons, perks and difficulty of the next escape attempt before setting off. While every escape attempt is different, the premise is the same, with you having the clear 3 layers of the underworld and the temple of Styx you have to trek through, defeat their guardians and inhabitants who are being ordered by Hades to stop you. It’s a neat idea that by “killing” the inhabitants you are meting out the punishment they deserve, and that by stopping you they are ensuring the security of the realm (no dead souls have ever escaped), or in the Satyrs case killing the heathens who defile the temple of Styx and don’t venerate the gods. Everything useful to you during a run is lost upon escaping (or death), and it becomes a balancing act of deciding picking boons that help you in the current escape attempt, or items (gems, darkness, gifts) that will be used for future upgrades or conversations with the NPC’s and various gods. Replayability is very high and hasn’t just been tacked on as an afterthought as the whole story revolves around completing multiple escapes. The game actively encourages you to increase the difficulty (after a successful escape attempt) by limiting the items required for permanent weapon upgrades and different weapon aspects (each weapon has multiple forms that all change how they function) to only be awarded by each boss once at each difficulty level. When making runs harder you have full control over what setting you increase (it could be extra enemies, standard enemies have abilities, harder bosses, you lose boons as you progress ect), and you eventually get to a point where you need to have multiple of these selected. The game also keeps a record of the highest difficulty you have escaped with for each weapon, and the fastest attempt for those who limit to compete. Each of the god’s boons can affect your primary moves in different ways (dash’s, attacks, magic casts, dodges and summons), and have different effects depending on which other boons are selected or what weapon is being used. Each of the boons have different tiers and levels, with a higher tier boon having better effects (say increase in damage %) over a lower but higher level boon. The Gods (while sounding friendly) are jealous and can offer to replace an existing rival’s boon with a higher tier one, or very rarely combine boons together so you get unique abilities that combine the best of both gods. [B]Graphics[/B] For a game that’s essentially a display on family dysfunction the graphics are crisp and colourful in a way that cel shading exploits. Each arena has an abundance of hues that help define each layer of the underworld, with Tartarus having a darker dungeon setting, Asphodel being the traditional hell of bubbling lava and Elysium having softer blues and greens where the righteous live in dead. As the relationships expand you can tweak the house with different upgrades Characters and enemies are all animated extremely well (enemies have tells to advise you of their attacks), and secrets are hidden in plain sight in the fishing games. The UI is minimalist so it doesn’t interfere with the action happening on screen, and each character really stands out. Traps aren’t hidden, though will catch you unaware if you don’t pay attention and the action can be quite hectic. The De-motivationals that usually play at the start of each run are hilarious (basically Hades musings on how you will fail, or why everything sucks). [B]Music[/B] The vocals and music are amazing. They absolutely nailed the soundtrack for the game, with plenty of string and percussion tracks that align with the action happening on screen, with the more sombre music or tracks with vocals playing in resting areas or after certain events. The vocals are also amazing, with the dialogue between Hades & Zagreus being a standout. Hades put-downs are quite humorous to listen to (of you, when you change items around the palace and when he’s berating having useless minions or those in his court who displease him). [B]Achievements[/B] Getting 100% achievements will take multiple runs through the game due to the random nature of stage rewards and conversations, but is highly worth it and nothing too strenuous, though time consuming For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/