The combination of randomly generated dungeons, with a direct and entertaining combat style, coupled with an ever-evolving narrative make the new work by the authors of Bastion and Transistor a must-have game. We tell you about it in the Hades analysis for PC and Nintendo Switch.
These are good times for the roguelite. I recently talked to you about how well Spelunky 2 had turned out and, with the PlayStation controller still hot, I grab the Xbox One controller on PC to find another gem. In this case it is Hades , a title that was in Early Access for a good season and that, with its final version on PC and Nintendo Switch, has not left anyone indifferent. Hades is a game that takes everything learned by the study in previous developments such as Bastion or Transistor , improves it and makes it available to the player. From a zenith perspective, combat responds to the purest hack and slash in which the style of play will be highly conditioned by thewhims of fate , a good strategy and the choice of weapon you make. Because yes, Hades is a roguelite in which the dungeons are generated randomly and in which every time we die we return straight to the starting point.
The title takes a lot out of everything it does. He always knows how to give a good twist to surprise veterans of the genre. However, Hades’s narration of his story draws attention, not so much for the plot, where it is not the panacea, but for how he does it. Every time our protagonist named Zagreo returns from the dead, he unlocks new lines of dialogue with those around him. At first there is not even an explanation given as to why you want to escape from Tartarus and you can spend a few hours playing without knowing the truth. This is probably the place where his success resides, because Hades’ narrative is not based solely on peeling an onion in layers that gives the player new data each time it comes back to life. The program is no stranger to your actions.
The bosses learn from your style of play and when you have already passed the same place several times, subtle changes are established that respond to a plot justification. It’s not easy to have an elaborate narrative in a roguelite, at least not one that justifies itself in such a strong way. This good plot work is based on a gameplay in which you have to adapt as best you can to the tools that the game gives you.
Progress or die, that’s the question
Hades video gameplay, one of the most surprising video games of the year
I love the sense of progression Hades conveys. This is divided into two aspects: the development of the character and your experience as a player within a tactical approach when facing each dungeon. In Hades there are no shortcuts as can occur in other roguelites, and the feeling of repetition or of being able to fall into monotony or satiety is a danger for games that make this decision. However, Hades knows how to do things very well in this regard.
In Hades there are no shortcuts as could happen in other roguelitesThe title has a good repertoire of weapons that are increased as you go further in your escape. To choose from a total of 6 different tools, this point is one of the few where the player has strict decision-making power. Before escaping from his chambers, Zagreo has the possibility to select with which weapon to face the adventure. The really juicy thing is that, despite the fact that you can get comfortable with some of them as it happened to me with the bow, the game encourages you to select a different one in each pass by randomly offering 20% more of obtaining experience with any of them.
We can enhance the blessings we have equipped by unleashing even more power on our enemies.
With your feet in the dungeons, the random configuration of the dungeons or the disposition of the enemies is not something that will greatly affect your progress in the adventure. This is not to say that it is not well worked, nor that the arrangement of traps that you can take advantage of in your favor is not a fresh and entertaining design decision. However, the good work of that section is relegated to the background when it is you as a player who decides which way to go and in search of what reward.
You may be choosing to unlock all of the character’s passive abilities that are not lost upon death. In this way, and thanks to a visual indicator that marks the next loot behind a door, you will give preference in this pass to taking points of darkness and chthonic keys . However, if in another round you think you are in the final or you have a fair life, your choice will go further down the path of looking for Charon and his trading post or expanding your life bar thanks to the blessing of the centaur.
The blessing of the gods
Hades reserves some surprises in its rooms that are worth discovering for yourself.
It is true that the passive developments that you obtain in the mirror of your room are not lost and are the basis on which the title supports its progression, avoiding becoming a tedious experience without becoming too easy. However, this “push” that the game gives you is not enough to achieve success in Hades. During the game, the different gods of Olympus will give you their blessingsthat are nothing other than abilities and modifications for our attacks. The variety is enormous, and each of them is different from the previous one, even with the same weapon equipped. Depending on which gods bless you, each pass can be something completely different from the one before. Your resilience as a player comes into play here because, it is a fact, you will soon find some skills that are going to become your favorites.
However, Hades is not an RPG in which you can equip them to your liking and you depend almost exclusively on luck in each round. And I say almost, because this is where the factor of tactical progression inherent to each player that I mentioned a few lines ago comes in. Once you begin to identify which of these blessings are the ones that give you the best results, it depends on your planning to find those doors that lead you to them. The truth is that you will not always be able to get the perfect build , but at least you must develop enough instinct and knowledge of the different improvements to adapt as best as possible to the conditions of the game.
Zagreo’s attacks can break his enemies’ armor, corner them, or parry his next attack.
Some of these boons conflict with others you’ve already equipped and can be discarded or sold for coins. However, most of them are cumulative, giving rise to a true spectacle on screen when all those combined effects of different gods such as fire or ice come together in the same attack.
In certain rooms you will find some allies ; characters from the mythology of ancient Greece such as Sisyphus or Eurydice who lend themselves to help you greatly and it is always a relief to find them. Hades is not a particularly long game to complete in its first pass: four worlds and a total of six different final bosses that have taken me no more than 8 hours to complete. However, the end of the first round is only the beginning and both its history and its weaponry, skills and possibilities continue to develop later. Completing the game 100% is a challenge that can go up to 80 hours, because Hades has content for a while.
A good example of this is that you can give gifts to the different characters of the pantheon that you meet on your journey. These correspond to some special object that you can equip at the same time as the weapons and that determines some modification in the next round, such as when entering the last dungeon the first three hits do not do you any damage or that the objects you buy have a longer duration. The repertoire is huge. Up to a total of 24 and it doesn’t end there, since we can continue to entertain some characters who can get to free some of the secret objects of the game and that are well worth discovering for yourself.
All this content is accompanied by a well-nourished bestiary, with specific units for each zone and well-designed final bosses that make facing them always a challenge without feeling impossible in any case. Their artificial intelligence is not particularly outstanding, but it is not intended to. It is relatively easy to lead them into traps, although in some moments the use of our standard attacks, specials and spells may not be enough to end the waves that are presented at each level.
The program offers some aesthetic customization options for the dungeon.If you are lucky in terms of blessings you can unlock a fourth type of attack called “Call” , which consists of a very powerful offensive that you can unleash once you have filled a bar based on getting consecutive kills in the level. This is not a resource that I have especially squeezed, especially since the counter resets at the beginning of each new dungeon. This fixed approach in the development of the combats is accompanied by small variations such as time trial modes for reward or surviving for a certain time. Hades recommends you play it with a controller, even in its PC version in which everything works in a polished and precise way as required by the direct and unbridled combat style that it poses.
The program offers some aesthetic customization options for the dungeon. These decorative elements depend on an exclusive resource: gems. These gems may seem unimportant, but nothing could be further from the truth, since in addition to changing the color of the curtains, they can determine the appearance or not of healing points or loot chests in the dungeons. An advantage that you cannot miss.
Hades has three levels of difficulty . However, you have to explore their menus a bit to find them, since the game does not allow you to choose them in the most classic way. This way, you can play your game on standard difficulty or switch to a more complex point in “hell mode” at the start of a new game. If you choose to play in this mode, another option simpler than the standard one called “god mode”, in which you progressively gain resistance each time you die, is disabled.
The beauty of Europe in Jen Zee’s designs
If there is something that calls new players to get closer to Hades, it is his impeccable art section . With settings and characters designed and drawn by hand, it is a real pleasure for the eyes to walk through the rooms of its stages. Varied and rich in colors, Jen Zee’s sketches are impressive, improving on her previous and already fabulous works in games like Bastion, Transistor or Pyre . The recreation of each of the Olympian gods exudes personality and it is a pleasure to admire the designs carefully.
The sound section may not be up to the visual level, but it certainly accompanies the game very well by adding some classic instruments to more rhythmic compositions that give a good framework to the unbridled action of Hades. The voice performances in English are outstanding and the work of translating a huge number of lines of text into Spanish stands out.
It turns out to be a completely satisfying title packed with good ideas with better executionHonestly, Hades is not a surprise. This time that has been in Early Access has served to realize what Supergiant Games was developing. It turns out to be a completely satisfying title, full of good ideas and a better execution that is hard to find fault with. For asking, it would have been appreciated that it was something more extensive in terms of scenarios or that it had incorporated a cooperative multiplayer mode, or some scoring system at the end of each scenario that would evaluate our ability in the Devil May Cry style, but honestly I don’t see reasons to do blood of this when the studio has raised his work as an experience in which narrative and gameplay go hand in hand on a single-player journey.
“Magnificent”
Hades
If you are a lover of hack and slash and do not run away from roguelite, Hades is a video game that you cannot miss. The feeling of progression both in the adventure and in your skills and strategic understanding of it is magnificent, extremely comforting and totally addictive. The experience invites you to be replayed over and over again, turning your narrative exercise into an element worthy of being explored and further developed in the future by Supergiant Games. Hades has already reached the Olympus of video games, that Zagreo leaves Tartarus depends solely on you.
- Progressive and original narrative that grabs the player.
- The strategic component when deciding which way to go.
- The variety of blessings, items, and gadgets is enormous.
- Superb artistic section.
- Challenging without becoming frustrating, a good option for the non-adept
- You could have asked for one more scenario or final boss.
