Hades

The narrative justification for the continued rougelite run structure gets strained after the main story end and becomes even more so following the epilogue, which as Jay says takes quite a grind to get to. While I was very invested in seeing through all of the individual character stories it definitely gets into diminishing returns once your past the main story ending in terms of what is left to motivate future runs, but that's kind of to be expected right?

Aye, it's not like getting to the credits for the average player is an insignificant amount of hours either.

I bought this the other day because it's a critical darling and lots of you loved it and it was 30% off, despite being a little skeptical as I found Bastion and Transistor to be fine, but not amazing... and Hades is a lot more fun! It's really easy to get sucked into it. I think I might end up turning God Mode on though because I think it cooould get slightly too repetitive and grindy. I'm already a bit bored of fighting Meg.

I wouldn't worry about being bored about fighting Meg. The game does a great job of changing things up as you progress. I'd say you'd potentially lose something by not experiencing how death changes things up but having just Googled God Mode and seen that it's not an invulnerability mode but just an easier mode, I'd say there's nothing to lose by going for that!

Woop Woop, frickin love this game. God mode is totes cool to use, its what my partner played on when she went through it. Makes things easier without detracting from a lot of the core mechanics so if thats how you feel then go for it.

It's been such a long time since I played this that I might even wack this on god mode to finish off my full credits run.

I think God Mode might help me progress quicker because I'm not a Gaming Legend by any means, and I want to dedicate some time to other games while also keeping Hades going!

I bought it on PS5 for a second playthrough and once I've managed my first escape I fully intend to turn on God Mode as I've seen the credits on Switch so that's fair right? I managed to escape on my 12th attempt last time around so I've got around 3 more attempts to try and beat my record having made it to the final boss last attempt.

BUMP

Rum wrote:

I bought this the other day because it's a critical darling and lots of you loved it and it was 30% off, despite being a little skeptical as I found Bastion and Transistor to be fine, but not amazing... and Hades is a lot more fun! It's really easy to get sucked into it. I think I might end up turning God Mode on though because I think it cooould get slightly too repetitive and grindy. I'm already a bit bored of fighting Meg.

For me, it was 35% off. I was probably even more sceptical than Rum, since not only did I not get on with previous Supergiant efforts, but... y'know. Roguelite. Surprise surprise, I'm having a decent time!

It helps that the gameplay's leaps and bounds ahead of Bastion, and more real-time than Transistor; and Zagreus is a much better narrator than Mr. Narrator or Sworderson McHuskyvoice III. Also it looks really nice. Still, really it's the gameplay that has actually made this fun. I don't usually like 'kill all the dudes no exploration' games, but give me a decent dash and character who feels quick and powerful and I might be tempted to overlook that prejudice.

The roguelite side of things I remain unconvinced about. I've just fought Meg for the second time (and won this time around), but given that I'm on 9HP I doubt I'll survive many more rooms on my third run. (Ran into a big gorgon head that lopped off half my health.) Oddly enough it's not the procgen that I mind so much: it doesn't bother me so much when it's just arenas for dude-killing. It's the repeated back-to-the-beginning-ness. I don't care that I'm getting slowly stronger all the time, I want to drop a checkpoint after Meg and have my progress saved!

Just remind yourself that how far you get is only one layer of the progression,and maybe use the story beats as little rewards?

Balladeer wrote:

Oddly enough it's not the procgen that I mind so much: it doesn't bother me so much when it's just arenas for dude-killing.  It's the repeated back-to-the-beginning-ness.  I don't care that I'm getting slowly stronger all the time, I want to drop a checkpoint after Meg and have my progress saved!

You know that this is what the vast majority of procedural generation is used for in games right? RnG in the tiles and enemy spawns for an arena of sorts.

Like Jas, I viewed the story beats as my checkpoints and the game is very much balanced around you getting incrementally stronger. Eventually the first few floors become quite easy, more a vector for discovering your eventual build, but there's still stuff that can catch out the greedy. I think the combat being so tight in this game helped assuage feelings of repetition for me. But then I also really like RnG, I like having to improvise a different build than I was originally thinking because of the boons I discover, I like not knowing exactly what's around each corner, and I'm happy to go through that journey multiple times.

I also like the lack of checkpoints though. In good rogue-likes, I find that I want to have another go right away. There's a pressure when you get towards a point that's been tough in the past that tantalises between a frustrating defeat and a proper heck yeah moment. But either way you get to really develop a chemistry with all the enemies as you do multiple runs. I think a lot of the joy comes in the impossible pursuit of perfection. Even if defeating Meg becomes easy, defeating her without taking so much damage that you hamper the next floor is still something that had me happy to go back to the beginning. These are the things that also had me reconsidering what trinkets to bring with me, how to get the most out of each weapon etc. There's an implicit puzzle to rogue-likes. Developing the story beats and your base in tandem with that, I think that's what makes Hades quite special.

The game to make Balla like roguelites, aw yeah

If there was a like button on Muss' post I would hit it several times. Oh man, talking about this game just makes me want to do a few runs right now.

Colour me shocked that Balla likes a roguelite!

I've played it using God Mode which eases some of that frustration Balla. Muss is right - after a few goes Tartarus becomes a piece of piss, and you end up keen to see what boons you stumble across because you know you'll be able to win - just not sure how you're going to do it.

That said, I still haven't managed to do the 10 runs the game asks you to do to get a 'proper' ending...

OrangeRakoon wrote:

The game to make Balla like roguelites, aw yeah

I bet he ends up dropping it and putting in last game didn't finish thread.

Rum wrote:

I've played it using God Mode which eases some of that frustration Balla.

Definitely seconding this if you're feeling frustrated at the lack of progress. For me, I didn't mind as it gave me a few new bits of story or character development to enjoy following a failed run, so death was almost a reward in its own weird way.

Yeah totally forgot about God mode. Such a great addition to the game, my girlfriend used it and it definitely helped increase her enjoyment of the game.

I even put it on for my last 2 required runs, though I think I only had one failed run during me getting to the credits.

Balladeer wrote:

I don't care that I'm getting slowly stronger all the time, I want to drop a checkpoint after Meg and have my progress saved!

I can understand this as a general preference, but here it's used so well as part of a story, loop and overall theming that removing it would ruin the game. Plus, honing yourself on the early stages is how you learn the game for the later ones. A full run is actually pretty short, so multiple loops is how you get in the recquired practice. If it were a linear game but the first section were ten times longer, I think it would be significantly worse.

Still, very glad you're giving it a go and hope you can find a way to enjoy what it is rather than lamenting what it isn't! It does nice stuff with greek myths/ classics, which will hopefully appeal!

masofdas wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

The game to make Balla like roguelites, aw yeah

I bet he ends up dropping it and putting in last game didn't finish thread.

Nah, I reckon he'll finish it just like he did Monster Hunter Rise.

Buskalilly wrote:

Still, very glad you're giving it a go and hope you can find a way to enjoy what it is rather than lamenting what it isn't!

Say it louder for every gamer ever!

Hades or Cyber Shadow, lads? What's your recommendation?

I've never played Cyber Shadow so I can't comment, but Hades is easily the best rogue-like I've ever played and one of the best games I've ever played as a whole.

Hades, Cyber Shadow is really good, tight fun, but it's not an all timer.

Yep, another +1 for Hades. (Cyber shadow is good fun though so pick that up later)