How long for your first win?

[Shazoo]

Firstly I'd be playing mostly on steam deck. I'm not a twitch-gamer (not the streaming service) so i don't generally do well with games like dead cells, but that's not to say I didn't feel like I got my money's worth out of it.

I love roguelikes with a little difficulty, but with a curve that lets get better without getting demotivated. I played Hades 1 when it was on gamepass around the time it released and don't remember liking it but can't remember why. I'm not looking to buy a game at this price point if I may never win, it took me like 15+ hours before my first win in balatro, and slay the spire, but I never did manage to beat dead cells. (different game genres I know but still roguelikes in their own way) Games like monster train or dungeon clawler, risk of rain 1&2 took me a few tries but I ended up playing those way more.

TIA for the honest opinions!

[Neo NiGHTS ®]

Dead Cells is a game that I enjoyed very much and had played over 70h back then (years ago). Even so I think I've managed to beat it the first two difficulty levels or something low like that.
(as far as I remember, each time you "beat" the game, the game would get increasingly more difficult until you *actually* beat it, right?)

I'm telling you that to say that although I had a blast with Dead Cells I wasn't the best player out there 😅
(and still am not)


With Hades 2 I know it took me way more runs to "beat" the game (have in mind that the game isn't finished yet, so you can't truly beat it... I'm using that word loosely to say "I've beaten one of the final bosses available") than the average player because I took my sweet time to grind for stuff, unlock things, unlock secrets etc.

So I wasn't really trying to beat the game because, as a rogue lite, I knew that victory would come naturally as I unlocked more stuff, became stronger and a better player myself.

It's a bit hard to put it into hours of gameplay, but I would guess that on average people maybe beating it around the 10h mark, maybe from 10h-15h...
Myself I think I probably took over 20h to beat it the first time.

What I can tell you is that both Hades and Hades 2 are easier than Dead Cells.
Of course they play very differently since Dead Cells is more of a platformer for example, but all things considered Hades (both) are easier.

Difficulty wise I'm trying to find another game to compare to, but can't really find something precise... MAYBE I could compare it to Rogue Legacy 1 and 2 where the more you play, the more you unlock upgrades, the more the game becomes easier until you finally beat it.

[XFatedReaper]

I didn't have any experience with rougelikes or lites until I played Hades 1. Although I am a big action game fan in general. It took me around 20 runs to beat Hades for the first time in Hades 1. So my goal was to beat Chronos in less than 20 runs. I beat Chronos for the first time on my 15th run. It was difficult for me to adjust to the different style of combat Mel has. I'm so used to sticking up close to enemies when I play action games. I had to learn that sometimes you just gotta disengage for a few seconds, lol.

As for other rougelikes, I have played Slay the Spire recently. My first win was on my 3rd run as The Assassin (I think that's her name?). She can play very similarly to Black decks from Magic: The Gathering, which I love. So I got familiar with her and her combos really quick.

I don't know if everyone would agree that beating a rougelike on the base difficulty is truly "Beating" the game, buuuuut I'm not amazing at video games, so I'll take whatever dubs I can get.

[Bancho]

5th run, yep I’m the best

[Nick Dipples]

closer to 30 to beat chronos the first time (minus some idle time, etc etc)

[Knavenformed]

So did you ever beat Hades 1?
Hades 2 is harder imo

And if you didn't like Hades 1 for the gameplay then Hades 2 won't probably be any different, and currently the story is not finished and it is not as captivating as 1 in the premise.

[Biscuits! Werewolves!]

I got relatively good at Hades 1. I forgot how many runs it took me to beat that game. But I figured I'd do pretty well with Hades 2.

Nah. I didn't beat Chronos 'til the 33rd night (although I did a number of surface runs too, so that added to my total). I'm nor sure how many runs of just the underworld I did before winning. At least 10. Take that as you will.

[Songbird]

First reached Chronos on run 4 and beat him on run 6 (which happened to accidentally delay Eris until Tartarus, not knowing the mechanics behind her, and also got an active Frosty Veneer in Tartarus).

[Shazoo]

Originally posted by Knavenformed:

So did you ever beat Hades 1?
Hades 2 is harder imo

And if you didn't like Hades 1 for the gameplay then Hades 2 won't probably be any different, and currently the story is not finished and it is not as captivating as 1 in the premise.

This tells me all I needed, thanks everyone!