Hades
It is the unwritten rule that there is one Good roguelike every year. It's true! Last year it was Slay the Spire, in 2012 it was FTL: Faster Than Light. 2018 gave us Into The Breach and we had Dead Cells before that. I'm sure the nerds out there would love to talk about The Binding of Isaac in 2011 or Rogue Legacy in 2013 (Risk of Rain, also in 2013, was bad, except from the first ten minutes when you realise the music bops hard) but honestly I never played them because I was busy in maths learning what factorisation was so I could forget it 6 years later when I actually needed it. Anyway, this year it seems to be Hades' turn to take first place. It's quite good!
It's very difficult to talk about roguelikes, because, like ogres, they have layers. My experience with Slay the Spire in the first hour was very different from twenty hours and extremely different from the hundredth because roguelikes are about learning as much as you can and using it to face the increasingly impossible odds. I'm sure, eventually, Hades will be broken down into its optimal elements and I'll know every attack pattern and master every weapon. But I'm not quite there yet and I still want to talk about it. I wanted to make a post about Slay the Spire once I had 100%'ed it, but I never did. The game gets too complex for someone of my salmon-like brain and I stopped playing. And I for one would be absolutely loathe to let any of you miss out on my biting criticism and humour because I have to think about the game I'm playing, so consider this a part one of what is very likely going to be a one part series.
Hades has you in control of Zagerus. Is that how you spell his name? I don't know. Am I going to look up the correct spelling? Absolutely not. Zagerus is the son of Hades, the Greek God of Hell. He doesn't seem all too happy about his current situation in the underworld and wants to escape to see his mother or something. Thus you battle through floor after floor of lost souls and champions alike in an effort to reach the surface. Ok cool, now you know what's going on, what I really wanted to talk about was what Hades does differently from a lot of roguelikes out there, because we can learn a lot from the specific things it does just in case we collectively feel like making video games of our own. Or something. Look, this game is really cool.
Death is Mandatory
The concept of the roguelike is to undertake a monumental task which is made easier by the player learning more about it with every death. While they're not actually gaining anything tangible from dying a bunch of times, they are getting better at the game... hopefully. It's not like your laser cannons gain any more damage in FTL, but your knowledge of what specific rooms to target with those laser cannons means you're going to have a better time.
Hades rightly thinks this idea is a bunch of nonsense, because you're not necessarily getting better with every run. There are many times in Slay the Spire where the run just wasn't going my way - I was dealt a bad hand (literally) by the random generation or maybe I made a small mistake that dominoed into a loss. While it's always possible to minimise such misfortune, it gets to the point where I feel like my time is being wasted. Hades understands that not every run is going to have you play as a crazed axe murderer where you send every foe that dares face you deeper in to the depths of the underworld. Sometimes you're just going to get screwed over by that nearby spike trap and the next room is going to be a Zeus blessing, but your build just isn't suited to getting Zeus blessings and you haven't had any Hermes blessings show up yet and you didn't get Meg on the first boss and you have to play the game knowing that like 100 companies are responsible for the majority of Greenhouse Gas emissions. It's just too much to handle sometimes.
This is okay, thanks to Gems. And Darkness. Gems and Darkness are currency that you collect with every run and is used to make Zagerus stronger. We're not talking flat damage increases or anything here - just subtle upgrades that give you a slight edge. A little bit of starting health perhaps, or maybe an extra dash. A lot of the gems purchases don't even affect the gameplay and allow you to buy different colour walls or whatever. This is really good for two reasons:
One: it makes each run mean something. If you feel like you're going to meet an early end, you can simply go for the chambers that give as much darkness or gem rewards (there's keys as well, thinking about it) as possible and make this run in service of your next. It also lets you experiment and try tactics that you normally wouldn't. What happens if I start dash attacking all over the place? What happens when I use my cast as much as I can? What happens when I take the blessing that lets me deflect projecti...jeez, the blessing that lets you deflect projectiles is SUPER good, what the heck?
There's one encounter where a lot of projectiles get fired at you. Hope you're prepared.
Two: it makes it easier for players, like me, who are bad at video games. Supergiant know that their game is really hard and the capital G gamers will drink that challenge up like it's G Fuel. But there's a lot of people out there that are turned off by roguelikes due to their demanding nature. Through the use of its systems, Hades has managed to crown itself as the most accessible roguelike out there - there's even a mode which makes you more powerful with every death. If you're not keen on the challenge that roguelikes provide, you might enjoy what Hades brings to the table.
Death is Mandatory (but it's in a different context, don't worry)
Supergiant have allegedly spent the last ten years making really good games, I haven't played any of them before Hades, but people out there say they're good and I am a man of the people after all. Supergiant have managed to pool all of their money from making those good games and put a lot of it, front and centre, into this one. This game has polish. But instead of breaking down every frame of animation or every shake of the screen, I want to talk about the story.
Supergiant manage to stack an incredible amount of polish in their game. It feels good
Games have often played around with the idea of death being part of the game's story. Shadow of Mordor comes to mind from the five bored minutes I played of it, but Hades is the first I can think of that really goes all the way. Each time you die, you return back to the halls of the Underworld and the characters there know you've failed. The ones sympathetic to your plight will encourage you, while Hades himself will mock you and the futile quest you're undertaking. There's even one boss where it goes a bit John Wick 2 and you can have a nice "friendly" conversation with them at the bar before you set off again to stab them through the chest earlier. Or get stabbed by them through the chest. I really don't want to spoil too much here but there's new conversations even on the thirtieth run and they never get old. There's little subplots between two estranged lovers or fanatic... fans of legendary champions. Even if you seem disillusioned with your own trial, Hades gives you good enough reason to get out there and explore the nooks and crannies of Supergiant's interpretation of a Greek Mythological universe. It goes beyond the virtual spreadsheet of high damage numbers and optimal paths to take and veers into a world that's just a joy to discover.
The Final Boss Doesn't Suck Complete Ass
There is a disease that goes around in roguelikes where the boss just seems to suck complete, absolute ass? You all know what I'm talking about right? I loved exploring the galaxy in FTL with my unique ship build where I board the enemy, take out their oxygen and watch them all choke to death. I'm on a list now. Anyway. Unfortunately, FTL did not hold up its end of the bargain where it let you do what you wanted and made a boss that Sucked Complete Ass. Boarding the Federation Flagship was pretty much impossible when you had missiles firing at you every three seconds. Did you have a build where you put nothing into engines, but maxed shields? Too bad we're going to fire missiles at you every three seconds. Much of reason the final boss sucked ass was because of the fact that it fired missiles at you every three seconds. But still.
Slay the Spire was my favourite game of last year. It had lots of innovative ideas such as "what if we stopped trying to emulate physical card games and harness the power of video games to do lots of cool things with the genre?" or "what if we let the player just utterly break the game and become God?". Really cool stuff. Final boss? Sucks Complete Ass. I'm not even talking about the Heart where you need to plot out your run, life, D&D character, first University choice and Starbucks order before hand. Even the regular final boss can Suck Complete Ass if your deck isn't ready for the Time Slug or the Bird Wolf.
Hades realises that every single roguelike has a final boss that Sucks Complete Ass and decides to remedy the problem by not doing that. It's still hard and whoops my ass more often than it doesn't, but it feels somewhat fair. There are certain builds that help in taking down dear old Dad (he's the final boss by the way) but they're very easy to stumble upon while doing the build you want to do. At least in the early stages of the game, every build seems viable in taking down the God of Hell himself. The crystals are kind of annoying, but honestly if you don't have any Hermes blessings to help dodge it, are you even a person? He's a good lad, that Hermes.
God tier list. Feel free to leave a comment if you disagree.
It's Really Good
Look, you'll have to take my word, me, the creator of a website called Video Games are Bad, that Hades is a good one. It feels nice to play, has a lot of great characters behind it and has a final boss that doesn't Suck Complete Ass. What more do you want? Go and play it. You can abuse the Epic Games store by getting Rocket League which gives you a ten dollar voucher to get it for like two pence. And then buy it on Switch because your controller breaks from dashing too much. The fandom seem to be thirsting after like 70% of the cast if that's your thing. You can shoot a GUN. Cheers.