Overview
Hades is an isometric hack and slash rogue-like game developed and published by Supergiant Games. Development began following the release of their previous title, Pyre, and Hades was initially released as an early-access title in December, 2018 on the Epic Game Store. This was followed by an early-access release on Steam one year later, in December, 2019. The full version of the game was released in September, 2020.
Dramatic Elements
Hades is an extremely story heavy game. Consider this your spoiler warning, although if you are familiar with Greek mythology, you might not find much that surprises you.
Characters and Story
In Hades, you play as Prince Zagreus, the son of Hades and Persephone. He is an instantly likeable character - he is funny, determined, and interacts sympathetically with everyone he speaks to. Prior to the start of the game, he had been led to believe that Nyx, the personification of night, was his mother, but after discovering that Persephone was his true mother, he determines to escape the underworld and reach her. The game follows his struggle to reach her and learn more about why she left.
Besides Zagreus, there is a huge cast of characters. You will interact with Orpheus, the famous Greek singer of legend, and his muse Eurydice. Your trainer in combat was the famed Achilles himself, and you will also meet his friend/lover Patroclus. Sisyphus will give you aid during your journey, and you will battle against the Furies - Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, the hydra, Theseus and the minotaur, Asterius, and finally against your own father, Hades.
Most of the gods need no introduction, so I shall just mention them here - Zeus, Ares, Athena, Aphrodite, Poseidon, Demeter, Hermes, Dionysus and Artemis. Upon learning of Zagreus's desire to escape, they will all grant you boons during your journey, and you can also receive assistance from Chaos, different companions, and by finding Daedelus's tools.
Of course, you will further a relationship with your father, Hades, and you can pet your dog, Cerberus. The maid of House Hades is Medusa, and you can have friendly competitions with Thanatos, the god of death.
As you try to escape, you will undoubtedly die many times, respawning back in the House of Hades. Once you respawn, you may further any relationships or storylines that you have started with different characters. Once you have interacted with them, they will be locked until you try to escape again.
Eventually, you will defeat your father, escape the underworld, and meet your true mother, only to discover that you cannot stay on the surface for very long, thus forcing you to battle your way out of the underworld again and again in order to reach her and learn more. You learn the backstory of your mother and father: Persephone wanted to get the F out of Olympus, and Zeus arranged for her to escape with Hades. The other gods, however, have no idea that this has taken place, believing her simply to have vanished. Demeter, Persephone's mother and thus your grandmother, is in mourning for her missing daughter, causing the surface to be covered in perpetual winter.
Your continued visits will eventually convince Persephone to return to the underworld, allowing the player to trigger the true end of the game: you will continue to develop your relationship with your father, mother, and the Olympic gods, and you will finally invite all of them to a big soiree revealing that Persephone had eloped with Hades and given birth to Zagreus. As an explanation for why Zagreus would continue to battle his way to the surface, when his mother is back home, the developers have created a great excuse: his escape attempts are basically now penetration tests, and Hades gives you the official task of finding weaknesses in the underworld's defences. After all, nobody is supposed to be able to escape. In anycase, at the party, Hades and Persephone explain that they kept her presence in the underworld a secret from Olypmus for fear of reprisal from the Olympic gods. Through your determined efforts, you become something of a hero for finally reuniting these two estranged families, that of the underworld and that of Olympus.
The game can continue to be played after this moment, since the underworld will always need tip-top security.
Besides the main story outlined above, you can complete several side quests, although reuniting estranged friends or family members remains the main theme. For example, you can reunite Orpheus and Eurydice, Achilles and Patroclus, and Nyx and Chaos. You can also complete "favors" for many of the Olympic and Cthonic gods, which is always some task related to the aspect of the god. For Aphrodite, you must complete the romance option for the three "romanceable" characters in the game, while for Poseidon you must catch 18 fish, and speak to him after catching a fish in that escape attempt.
Formal Elements
Players
Moving on the the formal elements, as is probably clear from the above, you can only play as Prince Zagreus.
Rules
Combat and Movement
Similarly to Supergiant's other titles, Zagreus's movement is restricted to a single plane, essentially controlling the same as an isometric hack and slash game. You start with a single weapon, the sword, named Stygius, but as you play the game you will unlock a spear, a bow, a shield, cestus, and a gun. According to the developers, these are like classes in an RPG: they broadly define how you will play a particular escape attempt. The sword has several broad slash attacks, a thrust, and an AOE ground stomp, while the spear has thrusts, a chargeable sweep attack, and a throw.
Each weapon has a regular attack and a special attack, and no matter what weapon you have, you can cast out a bloodstone to strike an enemy. There is also a dash for dodging. Depending on the weapon, you may be able to do a dash-attack and/or a dash-special. Some weapons also have charged attacks or charged specials, triggered by holding down the attack or special button, respectively.
Combat in Hades is extremely fast-paced, and in the later rooms you will have to deal with larger numbers of enemies than in the earlier rooms. The enemies also come in larger or more numerous waves. The different weapons allow you to use different play strategies. For example, the spear is useful for keeping enemies at a slight distance, as the thrusting attack and the thrown special allow you to deal damage from further away. Although the spear does have a charged sweeping attack, this is less useful for crowd control due to the time it takes to charge it up. The bow breaks the attack pattern of most of the weapons: it's attack is strong, but extremely slow to charge, having no regular quick attack. Its special is to fire a number of arrows in a spread pattern in front of the player, allowing for extremely effective crowd-control. As one last example, the shield has a somewhat slow attack, but charging it allows the player to block attacks in front of them and deal damage through a shield bash upon release.
As you progress through an escape attempt, you have a number of opportunities to create strongly synergestic builds. Although the particular boons and items you receive are randomly generated, by chosing appropriate ones you can create some spectactular builds. For example, once while using the cestus, I arrived at Hades with Aphrodite's Aid, Lightning Strike, Thunder Flourish, Divine Dash, Crystal Beam, Concentrated Knuckle, Stubborn Roots, and a host of other boons. The cestus starts out as one of the faster attacking weapons, but it has quite short range, and adding chain lightning to the attacks, and a thunder bolt to the special increases the range at which you can deal damage to foes. Concentrated Knuckle allows you to increase your base attack damage by +5 for each consecutive hit on an enemy, which is especially useful for enemies with a lot of health like the bosses. Stubborn roots lets your health slowly regenerate if you don't have any more lives left, which again is useful on tough bosses or encounters. Divine Dash lets you deflect damage received during a dash back at your enemy, allowing you to turn their own strength against them and maintain your health. Since you cannot block with the cestus, Divine Dash is really useful. Crystal Beam is a cast boon that alters the behavior of your bloodstones. Instead of throwing them, they drop at Zagreus's location, and fire a crystal beam that deals a small amount of damage every .2 seconds. These make the cast a kind of set and forget emplaced weapon. If you buff Crystal Beam with Glacial Glare (causes cast to inflict chill, which slows down enemies), or further combine it with Arctic Blast (applying ten stacks of chill causes a small explosion) or Killing Freeze (if all enemies are chilled they slow and decay), you have a quite powerful combination that can be used to control enemies in one area while you deal with another, or for a boss encounter, you can drop all of your bloodstones at once to concentrate their damage.
You will probably have different weapons that you prefer, and different gods whose boons match your play style better, but the variety of viable strategies is quite stunning and it is very satisfying to explore the state space on offer.
Regarding the enemies themselves, there is a pleasantly large variety. The first area of the game, Tartarus, features louts, thugs, numbskulls, wringers, and witches, among a few others. Louts are slow moving drunkards who perform a sudden charge attack, thugs are large slow moving enemies who do a telegraphed club smash, and witches are small enemies who float around the battle field and periodically cast orbs that will damage you. Most of these enemies can be killed in a few hits, although the louts and thugs usually take more.
The second area, Asphodel, features gorgons, different bomb throwing enemies, and several varieties skeletons. The skeletons all have different attack styles - bone-rakers are berserk enemies that attack in combos of 2-6 attacks, and wave-makers hurl crescent shaped waves at Zagreus. Many of the skeletons and the bomb-throwing enemies will jump around the battlefield, making it difficult to target the same enemy for an extended period.
Elysium features mostly different warrior types - brightswords, longspears, and strongbows, who when killed become a floating seed that can respawn as a new unit if it finds a discarded weapon. The final section, Temple of Styx, has the only living enemies in the game - rats and satyrs, who both can deal poison damage to the player. In any room in any area, occasionally, enemies will spawn in armored varieties, which means the armor must be chipped away before damage can be dealt to their health. Armored enemies cannot be staggered until the armor is removed, making it necessary for the player to watch for their tells more closely.
In a typical room encounter, you will face an initial wave of enemies, and you will have to use your dash, attack, special, and cast to deal with them effectively - dodging their attacks, slamming them into walls for extra damage, manuvering behind them for a backstab bonus, using room traps against them, and controling the space around you so you can manuever as you wish. After they have been dealt with, a second, third, fourth, and sometimes higher, wave will spawn in.
Once you clear a room, any poison, lava, traps, and enemy projectile attacks instantly disappear, preventing you from accidently taking damage.
Escaping and Choosing gear and boons
You begin your escape attempt by selecting your gear: the weapon, the keepsake and the companion you'd like. Each escape attempt is composed of a number of rooms. Most rooms have enemies in them, which must all be killed before you can progress to the next room. Other rooms hold NPCs that you may interact with and receive aid from. Others will be simple reward chambers, giving you a boon, health boost, or health replenishment. Still others will allow you to purchase items from Charon. After clearing a room, you must claim your reward. If it is a boon, there will be 3 choices to choose from.
Although the sequence of room choices is randomly generated each playthrough, the rooms themselves are hand-designed. The size of the room varies, and there will be well-placed low-walls and columns that can block enemy movement or projectile attacks if placed between the enemy and Zagreus, and a number of different traps as well.
The boons that the Olympic gods grant come in several varieties: each god has one boon for each of your main abilities; Attack, Special, Cast, and Dash, and additionally a Call. Only one of these boons may be equipped at a time, but you are sometimes given the chance to swap boons. The Call ability must be charged up by dealing or receiving damage, and once it has been charged enough, you may call on that god for assistance. This might take the form of transforming Zagreus into a spinning blade that deals damage, in the case of Ares's call, or in calling down lighting strikes that repeatedly damage nearby enemies in the case of Zeus. Besides these 5 boons, each god has 16 other boons. These are organized in different tiers and have different requirements and conditions for appearing. 7 of these boons are duo boons, meaning they require you to have one specific boon each from two different gods. How do we get the number 7? Although there are 9 gods you can receive boons from, Hermes does not have any duos, and he has no boons in the five categories mentioned before, and of course a god cannot have a duo with him or herself. As an example, Demeter and Poseidon have a duo boon called Blizzard Shot, which requires that you have Poseidon's cast boon (called Flood Shot), and one of Demeter's Aid, Frost Flourish, Frost Strike, or Mistral Dash. Once acquired, when you cast, your bloodstone will move slowly, pierce foes, and fire icy shards around itself.
The remaining boons are modifiers of different kinds. They might increase the potency of health increase items or health replenishment items, or they might add their god's signature effect to an action. Poseidon has a boon called Typhoon's Fury, which increases the amount of damage you deal when you slam foes into walls. Most of the gods have a revenge effect - Ares's is called Curse of Vengeance, which inflicts Doom on surrounding foes after you take damage.
Chaos gives you a unique set of boons to choose from - each boon has some drawback that will be active for a number of encounters, and after that the drawback deactivates and you receive the perk of the boon. The drawback or curse is separate from the boon, so you get a kind of randomly generated loot item a la Diablo. You might get Abyssal Soul: Abyssal is the curse name, which means for the next 3-4 encounters you will take a massive increase in trap damage (300%-400%); Soul is the boon name, which indicates a certain gain in max health (between 30-80, depending on the rarity). To get a boon from Chaos, you need to enter a Chaos portal, which will cost some amount of health, unless you have the keepsake from Chaos equipped.
After picking your reward, you must move on to the next room. Typically, you will have between 1 to 3 doorways to choose from, and you can see the type of reward above the doorway. So, you might have to choose between a Zeus boon and Demeter boon, or between a Daedelus upgrade and Obols, or many other combinations. For those mathematically inclined, if you have three rooms, there are 1140 combinations, or for two rooms there are 190 combinations. For one room, there are 20 possibilities.
House Development and Decoration
As you make repeated escape attempts, you will receive several different rewards. The boons from the gods disappear once you return to your house, as do any Obols you've collected. These are the gold coins placed on the tongue of the dead to pay Charon for the ride into the underworld. Gems, Darkness, Nectars, Keys, Titan Bloods, Diamonds, and Ambrosias will stay with you. Gems and Diamonds will primarily be used for improving the house. For example, you can pay 45 Gems to put down an Elysian Rug in the lounge. This has no gameplay effects, but allows you to control the look of the house, and serves as a sink for this resource. Or, you can unlock new songs for Orpheus to play by paying the required number of Diamonds.
Generally, projects that effect gameplay require a number of Diamonds. You can purchase rest rooms that will appear randomly in different regions, giving you a chance to replenish your health if necessary, but there are many other projects.
Relationship Development
Hades has been described as having dating sim elements, and this is somewhat true. Each character you can interact with has a heart meter indicating how much they like you. You can increase their heart meter by giving them gifts - initially nectar, and after you have maxed out their first rank (usually 4-6 hearts), you must give them ambrosia to continue to increase their heart meter. In the early stages of the game, you can also increase their heart meter by having a set number of conversations with them.
Increasing an NPC's heart meter has granular benefits. The first heart unlocked will give you a keepsake from that character which you can carry into battle to receive some perk. Giving them more nectars will unlock additional hearts, and reveal more backstory for that NPC, but has no effect on gameplay. For a limited number of NPCs, once all their basic hearts have been unlocked, you must switch to Ambrosia to unlock the next tier. The first Ambrosia will trigger the NPC to give you a companion keepsake, which functions something like a call. You can use the companion keepsake to receive help on a tough encounter or boss battle. So, Skelly's companion will spawn in Skelly himself, who will aggro the enemies until his health drops to zero. Unlike calls, these companion keepsakes can only be used once per encounter, although by spending Ambrosia to upgrade the keepsake, you can increase the number of times per escape attempt that each may be used.
Similarly to the conversations, giving a Nectar or an Ambrosia can only be done once per NPC per escape attempt, so you cannot farm Ambrosia, then max out your relationship with Achilles, Medusa or another NPC in one go.
Where Hades departs from most dating sims is in the lack of branching paths and in the ability to lose. In typical dating sims, you will be able to take different routes with each character. Some of them will lead to furthering your relationship, while others might actually lead to a loss of connection. None of this is possible in Hades. The closest Hades comes is whether you choose to consumate your relationship with the three romanceable characters.
Inventory
Hades has a very basic inventory system. There are no limits regarding the number of resources of any type you can hold, so you will not have to manage inventory slots or spaces. The most you will interact with your inventory is by trading. A trader shade eventually appears in the lounge, and you can sell gems for keys, keys for nectars, nectars for diamonds, diamonds for ambrosia, and ambrosias for titan bloods. The trader also sometimes has a limited offer, which might allow you to reverse one of the previous trades (selling titan bloods to get ambrosia, for example), or have a better deal (trade ten gem stones for one nectar).
Level up
Although Hades is a rogue-like game, like many rogue-likes in the last 11 years (I'm thinking of the games by FROM Software, Dead Cells by Motion Twin, Salt and Sanctuary by Ska Studios, and many others) not all the player's progress is lost upon death. You do return to the House of Hades, and you do lose all the Daedelus weapon upgrades, health upgrades, Obols, and boons from gods that you had collected during your previous run, but you don't lose Diamonds, Keys, Titan Bloods, Ambrosias, Darkness, or Nectars, and some of these are the key to advancing your character.
The weapons are all unlocked using different numbers of keys. These are one of the randomly generated room rewards, and you can also trade gems to get more keys at the trader in the lounge in the House of Hades.
Titan Bloods are mainly obtained by defeating the Furies and Hades for the first time with a weapon on a particular Heat level (we'll talk about Heat later). You will learn more about each of your weapons as you play, and you will eventually find that there are different aspects to each weapon. These aspects can be unlocked and upgraded using Titan Bloods. The gun, Exagryph, has an aspect called the Aspect of Lucifer. Using this aspect changes the bullets into a continuously firing laser beam, and changes the bomb into a small orb of Hellfire that deals a small amount of damage each second to an area, and if caused to explode deals a massive amount of damage to that area. Each aspect of the weapons change the default attack animations, timing, damage, and even behavior of the weapon.
Another facet of leveling up involves Keys and Darkness. Nyx has given you a Mirror of Night, and you can use Keys to progressively unlock more stat modifiers, and invest Darkness to increase the stat buffs. A buff called Shadow Presence allows you to deal +15% damage to enemies at full health. You can increase this buff 5 times, giving you +75% damage. Other buffs alter the chances of receiving legendary or duo boons, change your maximum starting health, or alter how the bloodstones behave.
Manage Heat Level
When you first defeat a boss with a weapon, you will receive that boss's unique reward: for defeating the Furies at the beginning and Hades at the end, you get Titan Blood, for defeating the hydra you get a diamond, and for defeating Theseus and Asterius you get an Ambrosia. If you attempt another escape on the same heat level, you will receive a reward of darkness instead. In order to unlock the unique rewards again, you need to first complete an escape attempt on the current heat level (from the Furies all the way to Hades) with that weapon, then increase the heat level. Heat is managed through the Pact of Punishment. After defeating Hades the first time, this will unlock. Before leaving the House of Hades on an escape attempt, you can choose from different conditions on the Pact of Punishment. Each condition increases the heat level by some amount. The Hard Labor condition increases enemy damage by 20%, and increases the heat level by 1 for each rank of Hard Labor. It comes in 5 ranks, so you can increase the heat level to 5 just by increasing the rank of Hard Labor. Or you might choose Benefits Package, which gives armored foes one perk for each rank. The first rank increases heat by 2, and the second rank increases heat by 3. There are 13 other conditions that you can choose from. One point to keep in mind is that you can only collect bounties on the lowest heat level which you have not yet completed. So if you have completed heat level 2 with the bow, if you set your heat level to 4, you will only collect the reward for heat level 3.
To belabor this point a little, this matters because you only get the unique reward on the first victory over the boss per weapon per heat level. If you want to get another Ambrosia, for example, there are only two other ways to get it. One is by completing a minor prophey that has an Ambrosia as a reward. As you play the game, you will quickly reach a limit, as you will already have completed the easier Minor Prophesies, and only the more difficult ones will remain. Eventually, you might have no Minor Prophesies left to complete. The other is by completing many escape attempts and farming Gems, then progressively trading Gems for Keys, Keys for Nectars, Nectars for Diamonds and Diamonds for Ambrosias. To get one Ambrosia in this way requires 1000 Gems! Since you can exchange one Ambrosia for one Titan Blood, one Titan Blood also costs 1000 Gems. So if you are not willing to increase the heat level, you need to get yourself ready for a lot of grinding to get the necessary gems to increase your relationship with an NPC, or to get that next aspect of a weapon.
Resources
There are a number of different resources.
- Zagreus's health: Self-explanatory.
Conflicts
There are a number of conflicts in Hades. In terms of story and gameplay, there is the conflict between Zagreus and his father, and by extension the minions that you face throughout your escape attempt. Your father does not wish you to escape, and the minions have been tasked with stopping you.
There are also conflicts between Olympus and the underworld. There are conflicts between the Olympic gods themselves. The former have already been discussed in the story section. Regarding the latter, these appear when you enter a room with boons from two gods. You will have to choose one of them, and then you will have to clear the spawned in enemies to receive the second reward. During the encounter, you will also face abilities from the god that you spurned - waves that seek you out in the case of Poseidon, or an AOE that makes enemies inside it temporarilly invincible in the case of Athena.
There are conflicting choices facing you regarding the encounter rewards. Do you take the Centaur Heart, which increases your health or do you take the Obols for a purchase at Charon's Well later on? The choice depends on your current boons and Daedalus upgrades, as well as how you like to play.
In more detail for the boon rewards, the choices will also depend on the above factors. You will have to choose whether to focus on increasing your critical chance (Deadly Strike from Artemis) or firing a seeking arrow when you cast, attack or special (Support Fire from Artemis), or gaining extra bloodstones (Fully Loaded from Artemis).
There are further conflicts regarding when you can use companion keepsakes. Thanatos, Achilles, Maegara, and Dusa's companions may not be used against Hades, since they are essentially his employees. Later on this restriction is lifted, though. Maegara's companion may also not be used in the Fury boss battle.
Regarding the boons from the gods, there are a large number of restrictions and limitations. To start with, as mentioned before, you can only equip one boon for each of your 5 abilities. There are further restrictions regarding weapon aspects and boons. Normally, your cast throws out a bloodstone, but if you have the Aspect of Beowulf equipped for your shield, you load the bloodstone into your shield, and when you do your shield bash, the attack transforms into the "Dragon Rush," and further gains any buffs that would normally be applied to your cast. Any cast boons that drastically alter the behavior of the cast cannot be combined with this Aspect, such as Artemis's True Shot or Demeter's Crystal Beam. Hades deals with these boon/aspect conflicts by simply preventing incompatible boons from spawning in, so you are never presented with a false choice.
Hades deals with Daedelus weapon upgrades in the same manner. The Cruel Thrust upgrade for the sword cannot be combined with the Aspect of Arthur, but you will never see that upgrade appear while you are using that aspect. Besides conflicts between aspects and Daedelus upgrades, there are conflicts between Daedelus upgrades. So, the Flurry Slash upgrade, which transforms your attacks into all slashes for the sword, cannot be combined with Cruel Thrust, which gives bonus damage to thrusts.
Boundaries
There are a number of different boundary conditions in Hades. You can only use one weapon per escape attempt. After defeating each boss, you will enter a special room where you can:
- replenish your health at a fountain
- sell up to three boons to receive Obols
- change your keepsake
- buy items from Charon's well using Obols
You can also only use one companion keepsake per escape attempt. You are allowed change your regular keepsake, as long as you have not already used it before in that escape attempt.
You cannot give Nectars or Ambrosias to NPC's once you have maxed out their heart meter.
Since there are a limited number of Pact of Punishment conditions, you can only increase the heat level up to 63, although you can only collect the unique boss rewards up to heat level 20.
Despite the conflicts and limitations mentioned so far, there is a huge host of different possibilities regarding builds. Each escape attempt features one aspect of one weapon, and since there are 6 weapons with 4 aspects each, that yields 24 different ways to play. When you add in the gods' basic boons (I mean the ones for Attack, Special, Dash, etc), you can easily calculate that there are 8 gods each with a boon there, and there are no restrictions that your attack boon imposes on your special or that your call boon imposes on your dash etc, so there are 8 X 8 X 8 X 8 X 8, or 32,768 possible combinations. Combining this with the different weapons and aspects gives you 786,432 possibilities. Then there are the duo boons, the second and third tier boons dependent on different combinations of basic boons, and the boons that are not tied to a specific ability, such Demeter's Frozen Touch, which inflicts chill on enemies around you after you take damage. These latter boons can be obtained no matter what other boons you have.
And, we have not touched on Hermes's or Chaos's boons, as these do not take up an ability slot. So, while there is a definite limit on how boons, weapons, and aspects may be combined, there is a large state space for the player to explore.
Outcomes
There is one main outcome for the game, with several smaller ones for each of the side quests. The main outcome has already been described in the story section and hints have been dropped regarding the side quests there as well.
Dynamic Elements
The dynamic friction pattern appears in a number of different forms. The unlocking of different buffs in the Mirror of Night is one example. Unlocking more and more buffs requires larger numbers of keys, and several of the buffs require progressively larger amounts of darkness to upgrade.
The dynamic friction pattern also works together with the static friction pattern in the Mirror of Night. Many of the buffs do not require larger amounts of darkness, but simply the same static payment each time.
The static friction pattern appears by itself in the house customization elements. These cost a set amount of gems and although they do allow you to customize the look of the house, serve mainly as drains for gems.
The slow cycle makes several appearances in Hades. The medium large slow cycle is making a particular escape attempt. You start in roughly the same state each time, and by the end you have gathered a host of different boons and power-ups creating a custom build in order to defeat your father and see your mother. This resets when you die, which happens whether you are victorious or not.
A smaller slow cycle appears in each area of the game, where you first face smaller groups of enemies, before gradually climaxing with a boss battle. Both these scales of slow cycle also incorporate the escalating challenge pattern, as the difficulty increases as you progress through each area, and also as you approach the final boss.
The largest instance of the slow cycle and escalating challenge appears when you have unlocked the Pact of Punishment. As you push yourself to get more unique rewards, you will play through the game multiple times with different weapons and under different heat levels, gradually increasing the heat level as you master different strategies at the lower difficulty levels.
The playstyle reinforcement pattern appears in numerous ways. This frequently appears with the worker placement pattern. One example of the playstyle reinforcement is in the weapons and the Mirror of Night upgrades. Each buff has two variations, and you may choose the one which better matches how you like to play. Personally, I'm not great at avoiding damage, so I usually have the Thick Skin buff and the Death Defiance buff, which increase your health and the number of lives you have, respectively.
Another instance is in the weapon and aspect choices. In the early stages of the game, you only have the sword, but once I unlocked the spear, it became one of my favorites. Now that I've put much more time in the game, I often use the Aspect of Zeus on the shield, or the Aspect of Talos on the cestus. I'm sure other players have other weapons and other aspects that they prefer.
The reason I say this is worker placement is because in between escape attempts you are allowed to switch weapons and companion keepsakes, without consuming resources. You simply move your choice from one to another.
The static engine is used throughout Hades, primarily as the reward generator. You are guaranteed to get some reward after completing an encounter, and you have some influence over what the reward is, since you can choose different rooms as you complete an escape attempt.
The converter engine appears mostly in the trader, where you can trade gems for keys, keys for nectars...you remember how it goes. This is not an example of the trade pattern, because of the limited options for purchases.
The stopping mechanism appears throughout Hades. In terms of combat gameplay, there is a limit on the number of times you may dodge in a row. This prevents the player from zipping around the rooms basically immune to damage.
The requirement to charge up your god gauge in order to use your call is another instance of the stopping mechanism. The calls are quite powerful abilities, and without the god gauge it would be quite easy to spam them and breeze through otherwise difficult encounters.
Similarly, the restrictions on the uses of companion keepsakes function as stopping mechanisms. Sisyphus's companion, Shady, drops a rock on enemies that deals 1000 points of damage in an area, and also spawns in a care package of health, Obols and Darkness. Since this can only be used once per combat encounter and a maximum of 5 times per escape attempt, the player is prevented from abusing it.
The stopping mechanism also appears in the NPC interactions throughout the game. As mentioned before, you can only interact once with an NPC in the House of Hades, and you can only give one gift to that NPC or god per escape attempt. While this is an instance of the stopping mechanism, the brilliant thing is that it actually encourages you to make another escape attempt in order to progress the story or deepen your relationship.
Conclusion
At the time of writing this, I have spent close to one hundred hours with Hades. The controls are smooth, responsive, and the combat feels great - you never feel totally over matched, but you never really feel invincible either.
Throughout over 100 escape attempts, I never came across a build that I felt broke the game, although I have found many builds that I'd like to try to recreate.
As someone who is quite familar with Greek mythology, I had a strong intuition for where the story was going early on, but I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with the characters and the gods. They are voice-acted wonderfully, and the dialogues do not overstay their welcome. And the way that players are encouraged to make just one more escape attempt in order to progress the story or further a relationship is brillant.
Overall, the design of the game is solid, and the mechanics work together to produce a thoroughly enjoyable experience time after time, play after play.
| God | Boon | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aphrodite | Attack | Special | Cast | Dash | Call | |
| Title | Heartbreak Strike | Heartbreak Flourish | Crush Shot | Passion Dash | Aphrodite's Aid | |
| Description | Attack deals more damage and inflicts Weak (enemies deal less damage) | Special deals more damage and inflicts Weak (enemies deal less damage) | Cast is a wide and short blast and inflicts Weak | Inflicts Weak where you end up | Fire a seeking project that inflicts Charm (enemy fights for you for a short time) | |
| Other | ||||||
| Title | Different League | Life Affirmation | Wave of Despair | Dying Lament | Empty Inside | |
| Description | Resist damage from nearby foes' attacks | Any life increase or healing chamber rewards are worth more | When you take damage, inflict Weak on nearby foes | When foes are slain, they inflict Weak on nearby foes | Your Weak effects have a longer duration | |
| Title | Cold Embrace | Sweet Surrender | Broken Resolve | Unhealthy Fixation | Blown Kiss | |
| Description | Your cast crystal fires its beam directly at you for 4 seconds | Weak-afflicted foes are also more susceptible to damage | Your Weak effects are more potent | Your Weak effects also have a chance to Charm foes | Your cast shoots farther and is stronger against undamaged foes | |
| Title | Smoldering Air | Sweat Nectar | Parting Shot | Heart Rend | Curse of Longing | |
| Description | Your call charges up automatically, but is capped at 25% | Any Poms of Power you find are more effective | You cast gains any bonuses you have for striking foes from behind | Your Critical effects deal even more damage against Weak foes | Your Doom effects continuously strike foes | |
| Title | Low Tolerance | |||||
| Description | Your hangover effects stack even more times against Weak foes | |||||
| Daedalus Upgrade | Infernal Arm | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stygius | Varatha | Aegis | Coronacht | Malphon | Exagraph | ||
| N/A | 4 keys | 3 keys | 1 key | 8 keys | 8 keys | ||
| Title | Breaching Slash | Extending Jab | Dread Flight | Twin Shot | Breaching Cross | Flurry Fire | |
| Description | Your armor attacks deal +300% | Your Attack has more range and deals +40% damage to distant foes. | Your Special can strike up to 4 additional foes before returning. | Your Attack fires 2 shots side-by-side, but has reduced range. | Your Dash-Strike pierces foes and deals +900% damage to Armor | Your Attack is faster and more accurate; gain +6 ammo capacity. | |
| Title | Cruel Thrust | Chain Skewer | Sudden Rush | Sniper Shot | Rolling Knuckle | Ricochet Fire | |
| Description | Your thrust deals +200% damage and has +40% Critical chance | Your Special bounces to up to 7 foes, dealing +30% damage for each. | Your Bull Rush charges much faster. | Your Attack deals +200% damage to distant foes. | Your Dash-Strike deals +60% damage; added to Attack sequence. | Your attack bounces to +1 other foe | |
| Title | Cursed Slash | Breaching Skewer | Pulverizing Blow | Explosive Shot | Long Knuckle | Spread Fire | |
| Description | Your Attack restores 2 Health, but you have -60% Health. | Your Special deals +400% damage to Armor. | Your Attack hits twice, but does not knock foes away. | Your Attack deals +300% damage in an area, but charges slower. | Your Attack has more range and deals +10% damage | Your Attack becomes a short spread that deals 40 base damage; lose -6 ammo capacity. | |
| Title | Dash Nova | Vicious Skewer | Dashing Wallop | Flurry Shot | Draining Cutter | Explosive Fire | |
| Description | Your Special makes you lunge ahead, then become Sturdy for 0.8 Sec. | Your Special deals +50% damage; +50% Critical chance on recovery. | Your Dash Attack deals +50% damage in a larger area. | Hold Attack to shoot rapidly, but you cannot Power Shot. | Whenever your Special slays foes, restore 2% life | Your Attack deals damage in an area and briefly slows foes. | |
| Title | Double Edge | Exploding Launcher | Explosive Return | Piercing Volley | Concentrated Knuckle | Delta Chamber | |
| Description | Your Dash-Strike hits twice and deals +20% damage. | Your Special is replaced with a shot that deals 50 damage in an area. | Your Special deals 50 damage to nearby foes when you catch it. | Your Special pierces foes and deals +400% damage to Armor. | Your Attack deals +5 base damage for each uninterrupted hit to a foe. | Your Attack is a 3-round burst; you never have to Reload. | |
| Title | Double Nova | Massive Spin | Minotaur Rush | Perfect Shot | Explosive Upper | Piercing Fire | |
| Description | Your Special hits twice but no longer knocks foes away. | Your Spin Attack deals +125% damage and hits a larger area. | Your Bull Rush gains a Power Rush that does +500% damage. | Your Power Shot is easier to execute and deals +150% damage. | Your Dash-Upper deals +100% damage in an area | Your Attack pierces foes and deals +50% damage to Armor. | |
| Title | Flurry Slash | Quick Spin | Breaching Rush | Relentless Volley | Flying Cutter | Triple Bomb | |
| Description | Hold Attack to strike rapidly, dealing 25 base damage per hit. | Your Spin Attack charges and recovers much faster. | Your Bull Rush deals +400% damage to Armor. | Your Special shoots +4 shots. | Hold Special for longer range and up to +100% base damage | You can use your Special 3 times in rapid succession. | |
| Title | Hoarding Slash | Flurry Jab | Charged Shot | Triple Shot | Rush Kick | Rocket Bomb | |
| Description | Your Attack deals bonus damage equal to 5% of your current Obols. | Hold Attack to strike rapidly, but you cannot Spin Attack. | Your Bull Rush instead fires a piercing shot that deals 80 base damage. | Your Attack fires 3 shots in a spread pattern. | Your Special becomes an advancing kick that also deals 40 base damage twice | Your Special is replaced with a rocket that deals 80 base damage. | |
| Title | Piercing Wave | Charged Skewer | Charged Flight | Charged Volley | Quake Cutter | Targeting System | |
| Description | Your Attack fires a wave that pierces foes, dealing 30 damage. | Hold Special to charge your skewer for up to +200% base damage. | Hold Special to charge your throw for up to +200% base damage. | Hold Special for up to 350% base damage; minimum range is reduced. | After using your Special, deal 90 damage in an area where you land | Foes targeted by your Special move slower and take +30% damage. | |
| Title | Shadow Slash | Serrated Point | Empowering Flight | Chain Shot | Kinetic Launcher | Hazard Bomb | |
| Description | Your Attack deals +200% damage when striking foes from behind | Your Dash-Strike hits 3 times, but your dash has -25% range. | After your Special hits, your next 2 Attacks deal +80% damage. | Your Attack bounces to up to 3 foes, dealing +15% damage for each. | Your Special becomes a charged ranged attack that deals 50 base damage. | Your Special deals +300% base damage in a large area, but can hurt you. | |
| Title | Super Nova | Flaring Spin | Dashing Flight | Point-Blank Shot | Heavy Knuckle | Cluster Bomb | |
| Description | Your Special hits a wider area and deals +20% damage. | Charging your Spin Attack makes you Sturdy and pulse 40 damage. | While you Dash, your Special is faster and deals +200% damage. | Your Attack deals +150% damage to nearby foes. | Your Attack becomes a slower 3-hit sequence, each deals 40 base damage. | Your Special fires a spread of 5 bombs, but each deals -30% damage. | |
| Title | World Splitter | Triple Jab | Ferocious Guard | Concentrated Volley | Colossus Knuckle | Seeking Fire | |
| Description | Your attack is replaced with a big chop that deals 90 base damage | Your Attack strikes 3 times in a spread pattern. | After blocking a foe, gain +20% damage and move speed for 10 Sec. | Your Special deals +3 base damage for each consecutive hit to a foe. | While using your Attack or Special, you are Sturdy | Your Attack seeks the nearest foe and deals +10% damage. | |
| Title | Greater Consecration | Winged Serpent | Unyielding Defense | Repulse Shot | Rending Claws | Concentrated Beam | |
| Description | Your Holy Excalibur aura is +45% larger and makes foes +10% slower | Your Frost Fair Blade Spin Attack travels for +80% longer. | After using your Naegling's Board Cast, you are Sturdy for 3 Sec. | Your Celestial Sharanga Attack creates a Blast Wave around you. | Maim-afflicted foes take +25% damage and move 30% slower | Your Igneus Eden Attack damage to a foe ramps up +100% faster. | |
| Title | Flash Fire | ||||||
| Description | Your Igneus Eden Attack starts firing and fires +50% faster with +15% range. | ||||||
| Title | Triple Beam | ||||||
| Description | Your Igneus Eden Attack fires 3 beams in a spread pattern. | ||||||
| Title | Eternal Chamber | ||||||
| Description | Your Igneus Eden has ∞ ammo, but its damage no longer ramps. | ||||||
| Title | Greater Inferno | ||||||
| Description | Your Igneus Eden Hellfire radiates +250% damage in a larger area. | ||||||
