Hades Is Rather Special (Review)

 this video is brought to you by expressvpn when it comes to media and entertainment we continue to seek our gratification faster in less than 20 years we've gone from icq to snapchat from cds to spotify from dvd box sets to netflix from the broadsheet to the twitter feed from youtube tiktok even within these new platforms every effort is being made to condense things further quibby is a new premium streaming service that aims to deliver you the sort of high production value content you've come to expect from netflix only each show is limited to 10 minutes a pop most of the shows are terrible but the fact that they built this multi-billion dollar platform around this time-based objective  is instructive attention spans are getting shorter so things  are speeding up and it's happening in  video games too mobile games by their very nature have always aimed to deliver a shot of endorphins in the same time it takes to visit the throne room but it happens in core games too league of legends is still among the most popular games in the world and has made  numerous  refinements over the years to get its match time down from 45 minutes when it started to an average of about 30 minutes these days there's a shortage of long games being released today by the way from the 120 hour long persona 5 to the classic mmos which still promise to consume every moment you're willing to give up but what interests me is the way that developers are trying to condense historically long gameplay loops into short session-based styles of play returning to the moba analogy heroes of the storm was essentially defined by its condensed gain rhythm where you could literally get three hots  matches in for every one dota 2 match huts had many problems but certainly one   of the most celebrated features was just  how digestible it was in a genre that often felt drawn out staying with blizzard world of warcraft is about to release its shadowlands expansion where its signature new feature is the tower of torgast a procedural dungeon experience that randomizes layouts enemies and upgrades aiming to simulate and condense wow's glacially slow progression curve into something that can be experienced inside of 30 to 60 minutes the best example of these condensed gameplay loops is the battle royale genre pubg and its contemporaries all took the loot equipment upgrade rhythm we've become accustomed to in loot based games and rpgs and it combined that with the competitive shooter genre we've been playing since doom land parties sure you could grind for 40 hours in borderlands to collect a sweet set of weapons and trinkets and shields that all coalesced to form some build or you could just play a 40 minute round of apex legends or pubg or fortnite which is gonna fire off a lot of the same synapses in your brain it's interesting now to look back at tom clancy's the division which in september 2016 a full six months before the arrival of pubg released its survival update a battle royale game mode that condensed the entire arduous loot grind of the division into a tight 30 minute experience whether it's wow's tower or the division survival of the booming battle royale genre it's notable how much these games all rely on features called to the roguelike sub genre procedural generation randomized loot placement and drops and a massively truncated path to build diversity and varied playstyles no two rounds of apex legends are thev same just as no two runs of dead cells are the same there's obviously massive differences between these two games not least of all the matter of multiplayer but the core dna of those two games is a lot more similar than you might think owing to these roguelike underpinnings so why the hell have i spent this entire intro block talking about roguelike mechanics well the truth is i've been thinking about them a lot this year roguelikes have been around for a long time but it really feels like they're gathering momentum lately spelunky was 2008 the binding of isaac was released in 2011. ftl was 2012. into the gungeon was 2016. prey moon crash and dead cells were 2018. slay the spire was 2019. this year alone we've had dreamscaper neon abyss grifflands bpm risk of rain 2 and spelunky 2. it's a very big year for a sub genre that feels increasingly central to the way that many contemporary games big and small are being designed we're especially lucky then that in a year so full of quality roguelikes we also get hades a game that immediately takes its place within the pantheon of the genre's best regardless of opinion hades is objectively the most refined and polished roguelike yet released every inch of it sparkles with stunning hand-drawn visuals transfixing voice performances crisp elegant writing tight satisfying combat near endless build diversity and impressive suite of enemies and an absolutely banging soundtrack what interests me most about hades though isn't its polish it's the way it inverts one of the core tenets of the roguelike sub-genre the rewards associated with the failure state most roguelikes for ghost story altogether relying instead on the simple thrill of gameplay to carry them forward there may be some lore to broaden out the world but narrative is not a focus some games hint at story throughout delivering more exposition as the player manages to progress further hades is rather unique in that its moments of exposition come in between runs returning to the house of hades after a death allows the player to speak to npcs receiving exposition in bite-sized chunks so tiny that their story to be found after dozens of successful escapes from your father's clutches i liked this a lot it very much reminded me of disco elysium a game which also found a way to successfully invert the failure state in most video game rpgs a bad dice roll is typically just a missed opportunity the door won't open for you or the npc won't let you make out with them in disco elysium a failed role is simply a different outcome typically hilarious but always worthwhile you often welcome failure because you'll know there'll be something good waiting for you at the other side of it it's the same here in hades where each death is almost welcomed because it's a chance to return home and learn more about the characters the world and your own place in all of it stupid boy i told you nobody gets out of here whether alive or dead though how was your want and ransacking of my domain greetings father my round second was a delight thank you for asking other roguelikes seem to swell like a balloon as you play them all the air rushing out of them with your death hades never feels deflated like that because as soon as the thrill of gameplay ends the thrill of exposition begins that's not to say the exposition is reserved for failure alone clearing the game for the first time is really just the end of act 1 in this particular greek tragedy and you'll need to complete the game an additional 9 times for the true and need to be unlocked secret side quests are also buried deep throughout your play through each of them requiring some sort of success or progression to complete hades definitely balances the doling out of its exposition between both the success and failure states such that whatever you're doing whether it's dying or completing a full clear you're getting something from it as successful as this model is it may not be to everyone's taste for starters i found the exposition in the house of hades to be quite slow and often full of filler owing to the strength of the character designs the incredible voice acting performances and my own familiarity with greek mythology i very quickly became invested in these characters and these stories i wanted to learn more about why achilles was down there or what went down between orpheus and eurydice each trip back i hurriedly sought them out only to find they weren't there or they had nothing interesting to say on the topic or if they did have something to say on it it was just another circumspect aloof utterance the likes of which i'd heard dozens of times before when speaking to them much of my time spent talking to characters felt like i was being strung along which felt out of place in a game that was otherwise so tight and focused and immediate it's personal preference of course many people will appreciate this slow pace happy to simply enjoy more of haiti's superb gameplay while they're tossed morsels of story in between runs others like myself will likely feel as though the throttling is just a touch too aggressive i very much value the design philosophy behind a roguelike handling exposition in this way but i didn't love the calibration of it as much as others likely will i imagine a roguelike experience where every single trip back to hq feels like its own breathless page turning chapter where i feel like i just have to run out and die again straight away so i can get back and find out what happens next given how celebrated hades is quickly becoming i imagine we'll get a game like this someday but it's not this game locking story progression behind successful clears of the game is also likely to receive a mixed response from players on the one hand it introduces a compelling character chase spurring you forward towards additional completion so you can find out what happens next on the other hand it introduces a new risk reward equation that the roguelike genre has typically been free of the risk of spending 30 minutes on a run only to see that effort wasted by dying at the hands of a final boss it's of course not entirely wasted if you're there for the gameplay as much as the story but i found it to be a point of frustration as i worked my way towards the ending credits i desperately wanted to find out what happened to hades and zagreus and his mother and i could only do so if i finish the game 10 times on many of these attempts i would fail often on hades himself leaving me cursing my death in a way that i never did in games like risk of rain 2 or dead cells this design also somewhat clashes with the packs of punishment modifiers that become available after your first clear after that point each run begins with this screen where you can add difficulty modifiers that profoundly alter the nature of your run it's not just tuning health and damage numbers it's additional enemies on mini bosses mini bosses gaining new abilities or significant changes to the buffs you can bring or collect it's an absolutely brilliantly designed system that allows you to precisely calibrate your run while also ensuring an extremely long tail progression curve since the rewards for completion exist for every weapon type and at numerous total heat levels the problem is that you're less likely to want to engage this system if story is your goal since they make the game harder when what you really want is to lock down 10 easy clears to hit the credits you could turn on the optional god mode to make the game easier but that feels a lot like cheating you're more likely to simply avoid turning up the heat choosing instead to grind out your additional completions with a greater chance of success none of this is meant as criticism by the way hades breaks new ground and does so with such tremendous confidence and capability that we're left to discuss how much we like those things not whether or not those things are actually good of course haiti's narrative is good it's just that some will find it a little slow of course locking the progression of the most compelling narrative behind successful clears is good it's just that some people will find it a little more frustrating than they would otherwise prefer more so than any other roguelike i've played hades feels highly throttled it cannot be experienced at your own pace even if you're a highly skilled player it all happens at supergiant's pace hades will be enjoyed by almost everyone that comes to it but the degree to which you love it will likely be linked to whether or not you think the calibration of that throttling is right for you

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separate from story i very much felt the impacts of this throttling on the core gameplay as well hades begins with just one weapon unlocked almost no talents available and no structures built to aid you through run after run you'll unlock things that have a significant impact on your power it's of course possible to complete the game with no unlocks available at all but this is only possible after you've finished the game multiple times on another save file and learned it inside out instead you'll likely complete your first clear after about 20 to 30 attempts since that's the point where your unlocks and your game knowledge will coalesce enough to give you a fighting chance those looking for a more free-form roguelike experience where everything is possible from the get-go and only player knowledge holds you back might feel that hades is a little too prescriptive and restrictive as though you're sort of set up to fail rather than giving you a fair chance at immediate success personally i feel like it got the balance right because of how expertly it managed the relationship between player power and enemy power haiti's enemies bosses and encounters all feel precisely tuned for an intended power level you will make steady incremental progress on this journey as you continue to bump into new obstacles that at first feel like brick walls but eventually crumble before you the finally balanced difficulty curve is only possible because supergiant knew how to tune both the encounters and the rewards economy upping its challenge in a way that never feels incommensurate with player power there are many places where the polish and player testing of hades can be felt but none are as important or impactful as the sort of balancing that can only be achieved thanks to hundreds of thousands of hours of player testing during the early access period still i can't help but reflect on my time with risk of rain too a game that opens up much faster than hades does there i felt like i was marching to the beat of my own drum like i was always in control of my experience and how far i could get there were unlocks that could only become available with time but they felt like additional ways to deal damage or survive they felt like options to broaden my arsenal and give me more choice in hades your unlocks like the talents and the renovations all feel like the requisite keys needed to unlock the stage gates in your adventure risk of rain 2 presents itself as a more classically inspired roguelike where almost everything is immediately possible where hades feels more like a contemporary rogue light where everything eventually becomes possible after you've put in the hours i've already briefly mentioned the brilliance of hades combat but i want to come back to it to make sure it gets its due in this video it really is absolutely superb the starting point is the weapon design which across all the six available weapons never falters each swing or shot is snappy and satisfying each move set is a mix of fun and functionality no two weapons can be played in remotely the same way because their uniqueness is all-consuming from the way you engage defend move or dig in each weapon demands that you understand it and master it deeply the sort of mechanical mastery not often demanded in roguelikes which typically rely on more basic weapon designs augmented with interesting stat buffs and utility items it's somewhat mind-blowing that each weapon has four base forms which can radically alter the way they perform and can be further augmented by the daedalus upgrades changing them yet again where many other roguelikes ask what can we add to make you more powerful hades asks how can we augment what you already have to make it both more powerful and more interesting to play with for the most part haiti's enemy design is excellent though it's not without its problems generally speaking each enemy design has a specific set of attacks that are clearly telegraphed deal the right damage and can be easily counted when your game knowledge gets up to scratch some though particularly the warriors in elysium can be frustrating they typically have super armour so they can't be interrupted or staggered they have huge long range attacks that can often hit you from off screen some of them carry shields negating all frontal damage and you have to kill each of them twice otherwise they respawn these chariots also have too much goddamn health obviously the intention was to kick up the difficulty and what is the penultimate zone but these enemies feel oppressive in a way that other enemies don't not even the bosses the biggest problem with hades for me and the reason i don't love it quite as much as everybody else is the amount of visual noise going on and how super giant not only don't do anything to alleviate this issue but actively lean into it in the later levels visual noise is essentially on-screen clutter where too many things are on screen at once and it becomes difficult to discern one thing from the other in hades everything produces these lush particle effects that fly across the screen or simply sit there when they spawn it's possible to have your dash throw out a blue puff of chilling frost your dash starting point be a pulsating purple cloud of hangover your cast throughout some slowly spinning blade your special bounce chain lightning between your foes and your base attacks generating large splashes whenever they hit their enemies all of this is on top of the ground traps the poison and the magma and the bombs and the arrows and the spears that enemies are constantly throwing at you never mind the actual enemies themselves having a lot of stuff on screen at once is not unique to hades since most games like this will get pretty messy but hades just feels even more noisy and i regularly found it difficult to pass the chaos to be clear this is not a problem i have in other games bullet hells are actually a genre that i typically found pretty easy for some reason even recently i played 60 hours of risk of rain 2 a game that can get completely buck wild with on-screen madness and i never once not once found myself thinking well i just can't make sense of this i thought this all the time with hades as i found myself struggling to see everything that was going on so i could react to it there would have been some things supergiant could have done to alleviate this final fantasy 14 has a toggle for spell effects that lets you disable a wholebunch of them or turn them down this would have been a godsend in hades no pun intended even more basic things would have gone a long way my biggest gripe within this category of gripes is that hitting enemies makes them flash white to denote that you've dealt damage but enemies also flash white when they're about to attack you so in fights like this one you can't rely on the white flash indicator because you're constantly making the boss flash white by attacking them the temple of stick seems to double down on all of this where other areas are generally spacious the temple is not so much a temple as it is a rabbit warren-like dungeon tight claustrophobic even with so little room to maneuver to begin with and even less so after the rats are done pouring poison all over the place or the clay pots done hurling their bombs at you and tiny rats which are so small and camouflaged into the background that you're often just madly dashing around and spamming your aoe abilities to avoid them for a game that already struggles with visual clarity many of the design choices underpinning this final section are a little baffling even with all of these shortcomings i'm a little in or of hades because of how sophisticated almost every part of it is hades feels deeper than any roguelike i've played before even though it has less stuff it has fewer enemies fewer weapons fewer areas fewer bosses but within each of those things is this mechanical depth that is so hard to produce and so rare to find in games i mean coming back to risk of rain 2 a game that i personally prefer to hades i think the biggest shortcoming of that game was that it was very reliant on stats and passive damage to alter your playthrough i could get a lot of items that can all proc off each other and do huge aoe damage or apply bleeds or let me use my items more often but the mechanical process of controlling my character and using its abilities remains largely unchanged from run to run hades feels quite remarkable in the way that each weapon and each weapon form and each daedalus upgrade and each boon they all provide the statistical upgrades you'd expect but they also ask me to play differently dashing towards projectiles in one playthrough to deflect them dashing on top of enemies in the next playthrough to zap them with lightning a lot of my playthroughs in various roguelikes have felt similar to one another even when the items i've picked up were vastly different in hades no two runs ever feel the same i mean i could make them feel the same if i wanted to but i'm so incentivized to try new weapons try new boons try new combinations of boons that it just feels like a waste not to coming back to what i discussed at the start of this video about roguelike design becoming more pervasive hades has really got me thinking about arpg design and looter design in general like i think about what it will mean to play diablo 4 when it releases and i'm imagining a process of leveling a character and grinding out their weapons and gear sets for dozens of hours to eventually arrive at something i'm happy with in all that time i've been doing essentially the same thing over and over 50 hours of farming on my barbarian to arrive at a build only to move on to another class and do all that all over again i don't know about that now i mean we've already seen these arpgs move to a seasonal model which aims to bookend your character progression with start and finish it's like a really really long roguelike session that goes for 3 months instead of 30 minutes implied in that seasonal model is the awareness that it's the progression that's most engaging the process of building your character rather than the destination of a final build the goal is not to have a build but to be building one i don't know maybe i'm overthinking all these things but i'm almost certain that this year of quality roguelikes have begun a process of rewiring my brain in particular haiti's isometric dungeon crawling is so satisfying and so refined that it's got me thinking like it's gonna be hard to go back to those more time-sync style games if i can experience the highs and lows that that genre has to offer in so refined and condensed a form here in hades what incentive is there for me to have it any other way i don't know the answer to that yet but haiti certainly has me thinking about it dude it's 2020 are you telling me you're not using a vpn to encrypt to protect your data is that what 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