What can I say? Hades is a game of the year contender in a year packed with The Last of Us Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Doom Eternal, Cyberpunk 2077, a Resident Evil 3 remaster, and several others. Some aren’t bad, some were just disheartening, and others were just damn fine in a year of bleak and tasteless tripe. Hades is not just another game that worked all throughout early access, limped into a full release, and was later lauded for it. It has, in no shortness of words, reinvigorated the Rogue-like genre.

Telling a story, one with depth and subtlety is near impossible for such a genre, as by nature, it is a very tangental form of gameplay. Built to randomly generate one thing or another, games tend to be extremely vague and light in their Rogue-like stories. The Binding of Isaac is one, with a story that is very simple to understand thanks to the gameplay restricting it. Isaac is the butt of every edgy 2005 Newgrounds “Joke” and his mother is the villain, as every disgusting taboo is your weapon, the walls, or your enemies. For the most part, stories stayed like this for some time.

FTL: Faster Than Light‘s story is that you are the Fed, and you are trying to get a distress signal to the heart of power to stop the rebellion. Enter the Gungeon is about your leads going into the titular gungeon to get a time machine that gets rid of their past. If I were to drill down Hades, it is a little more complicated than that. Of course, the core concept is still there, but there is more subtlety and detail entangled throughout Supergiant’s visually beautiful and mechanically satisfying 2020 release of mythical proportions. You play as Zagreus, and do as Kratos did at least once, though with fewer sex-based QTEs and a lot more listening to My Chemical Romance.

Upon its release in Early Access, I heard the rumblings of Mount Olympus shaking and trembling as everyone I know who not only enjoys Rogue-likes descended upon it but others too. I did my best to avoid it from there on, because I know what I am like with a good Rogue-like with satisfying mechanics: I play them until I’m told to stop for fear of health concerns. Not that the phrase addictive should be applied, I can and do stop when I need to. However, by design, they all have this “one more turn” quality that makes them all the more satisfying. I’ve been playing quite a bit of Hades lately.

I have been slowly progressing, but progressing nonetheless. That, I think, is the reason many who might not entirely love the Rogue-like genre found love for it. There is still the challenge, the endless maze of encounters splayed throughout Tartarus and above in a neverending collection of annoyances getting in the way of the story. Every time, you fight Megaera and her sisters with the same disdain or hatred they have for Zaggy Stardust and his emo guitars. You begin to know her every move well enough to dash away but not well enough to avoid the hits. Bowie reference aside, this is the point. The bosses are going through the motions like you are in the early dungeons.

As I bow to the East and offer myself to the gods of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, I’ll say, death isn’t just a consequence of failure, it is a reward in Hades. With each death, you get to go back and yell, “Ugh! You don’t even know me, dad.” You talk with friends, love interests, or all those ghosts hanging about the underworld. Each time you learn a new bit of story, making you want to stab Hypnos for mentioning how you died and having a pleasant conversation with a skeleton bloke from New York. The point is, you get to have some chats and pet your three-headed dog, sometimes offering nectar and getting a reward for that too.

You aren’t just talking with some of the gods of the underworld and Olympus while fighting the demons on every layer of hell your dad puts in front of you (usually bad jokes and puns). The gods of Olympus and the chthonic deities are aiding you while you connect with many members of your family. This is beautifully telling the story of a fractured house of Hades breaking apart at the seams. With your every attempt to break free from the pits of this netherworld, you are doing more to reveal the rips and tears. Never before has a Rogue-like put such an emphasis on the story, and tells it without getting either lost in the tangental shuffle or feel as if it drags the game to a crawl.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t just want to continue because the gameplay is tight and fun, á la The Binding of Isaac or FTL: Faster Than Light which I mentioned before. The gameplay feels impactful thanks to the story, which is something only games can do. I feel like I am tearing the family apart because I choose to go back through Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, and the Temple of Styx. Do I have the same feeling as when I once again attempt to get the message across the stars in FTL? No, despite the fact I still hold up the game as one of the greatest of all time. However, Hades does this by the bucket load.

This is where I make the turn and say that I don’t have the same feelings I do with other Rogue-likes I enjoy so much I’ll play for hours. Instead, I’ll drop into Tartarus and smash things up only a couple of times before stepping away again. I nibble away at the story rather than taking big meaty three-headed chunks out of it at a time, appreciating it when I want to rather than devouring it all. I enjoy it the best I can, before dropping it when I’m uninterested. I don’t know why, either with music on, just playing the game alone or with some other “distraction,” I don’t want to play for more than an hour and a half, maybe two hours.

Do I think Hades is bad for that as if it is an issue? No, of course not. As I sit here writing this, I’m thinking about how I’m going to sit and talk about it some more at the end of the year when I do a follow-up to my Top Three of 2020, rounding up the year and my thoughts on some good games. If Hades does not make that list, even as an honorable mention, I want to have some conversations with myself. Supergiant has crafted a game that is not only beautiful to play but gorgeous to stare at. Everywhere you go, despite this being the many worlds of the dead, the colors and vibrancy of the world are very much alive.

I hate the fiery pits of Asphodel, as I swear like my dad when he’s surrounded by lava in Minecraft. Everything is so red and hate-filled, as if the world itself hates you or wants to kill you, and not just the many colorful undead inhabitants stabbing, hitting, or chucking bombs and other projectiles. Each level of Hades‘ tower of doom brings a sense of self, feeling distinct from the last and yet all being somehow familiar. They bring their own challenges but really it is all the same. It seems odd to say it, but despite the characteristics of their hatred for you, they are still oddly inviting with their distinguished architecture that you just want to look at because of Supergiant’s world-class art department.

I mentioned it in the Death’s Door review and I think it is notable for similar circumstances, albeit a different outcome based on better design. I am on a roll of getting killed by bosses and killing them in the same blurry moment of trident/shield throwing or sword swipes. Multiple times I’ve gotten that split-second death that the game overrode when it realized I’d killed Meg. It was always Meg, and suddenly Zag wasn’t about to punch a new hole in Hypnos, it was Meg’s turn. I mention this because while Death’s Door made me want to chew on the controller having to fight a boss again, every time I’d encountered this odd moment in Hades, I’d get about 30-health points back. No, I don’t know how I did that multiple times either.

Ultimately, Hades is the closest you get to the perfect Rogue-like, melting gameplay, visual storytelling, and its general exposition-filled dialogue that feels natural in the mythical setting. I could see some saying that the gameplay gets repetitive, but that’s de rigueur for the Rogue-like genre. Though I guess that’s what God Mode is for. It may not be a game that could be, metaphorically, eaten in one sitting nor two or three; It is far more something that should be savored and enjoyed. That said, it can be rather long in the context of the “am I going along with this because I like the gameplay and the story?” or “Ok, get to the point, I want to see the end of this before another big release comes towards us like a boulder down a hill, again.”

Every character feels distinct not just because of one single thing, but a collection of things. There are voices that give you a sense of world, different visual styles, and while a family member might look similar, they all generally speak distinctively enough that they all feel individual. Once again, the same could be said of weapons, except the gun which can get in the bin. They all have different play styles attached to each of them. Do you think I’ve showered enough praise on it so that my editor will stop telling me how it is perfection itself? Yeah, me too.

An Xbox One copy of Hades was provided by Supergiant Games for the purposes of this review.

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Hades

$24.99

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Beautiful art-direction.
• Gameplay and story working hand-in-hand.
• The God Mode, for anyone who just wants the story.

Cons

• Minor performance effects during some battles.