Does this game really need a sequel (small spoilers)

[StuckInWashingMachine]

I really like the ending of this game. The writing is hella good, what with how much dialogue is in this game and how there is very little narrative dissonance. The main character has a reason to keep coming back and fighting through the rogue lite. I hope this aspect of the game doesn't go under appreciated and such grand things are continued in the next game, but seeing that happening doesn't seem likely.

[Aedwynn]

Game has a lot of flaws. They aren't big, so it's still a good game ... but it has ways to improve.
1) Due to overflow of choices during run it's hard to seek specific boons/items.
Overall game feels too random, with little control over it.
I remember runs where there was no fisihing holes whatsoever, or you pick cosmic egg and there is no Chaos portal during entire chapter, nor Ixion lantern to force it.
Or runs where game throws literal trash at you and as a result you deal no damage, cause gifts almost never spawned or were pure bad choices.
Game really needs a form of denial - so you can exclude chosen olympic god or some wares from Haron's choices so you don't have to sift through trash that much.
2) Game visuals are good but at certain points there is too much screen litter. An option to tone down visuals while retaining warnings is much needed.
3) Enemies. I hate bull as his attacks are so weird that even with Afina's dash he still manages to hit me time to time, because while you evade from one part of his attack you land in another. Same goes for a lot of other enemies, where attack zone is done weirdly resulting in attack still hitting you despite you visually evading.
4)Item Balance. There is a lot of keepsakes that are... pointless or too underperforming.
5) Boon balance. Same as above, while there are some good choices you are effectively pigeonholed in specific choices. Like Guan Yu. It's theme is healing, but that's honestly a wasted effort. You need at least two specific hammer upgrades + Demeter boon for it to simply start working. But enemies still inflict too much damage, if you go for more damage mitigation you still won't be able to bring it to level of comfort where you can actually heal yourself enough at Hades fight. While your damage is ... lacking.
I really hope new game addresses this and many other issues to be even better that first.

[OneDeadLombax]

Originally posted by Aedwynn:

Game has a lot of flaws. They aren't big, so it's still a good game ... but it has ways to improve.
1) Due to overflow of choices during run it's hard to seek specific boons/items.
Overall game feels too random, with little control over it.
I remember runs where there was no fisihing holes whatsoever, or you pick cosmic egg and there is no Chaos portal during entire chapter, nor Ixion lantern to force it.
Or runs where game throws literal trash at you and as a result you deal no damage, cause gifts almost never spawned or were pure bad choices.
Game really needs a form of denial - so you can exclude chosen olympic god or some wares from Haron's choices so you don't have to sift through trash that much.
2) Game visuals are good but at certain points there is too much screen litter. An option to tone down visuals while retaining warnings is much needed.
3) Enemies. I hate bull as his attacks are so weird that even with Afina's dash he still manages to hit me time to time, because while you evade from one part of his attack you land in another. Same goes for a lot of other enemies, where attack zone is done weirdly resulting in attack still hitting you despite you visually evading.
4)Item Balance. There is a lot of keepsakes that are... pointless or too underperforming.
5) Boon balance. Same as above, while there are some good choices you are effectively pigeonholed in specific choices. Like Guan Yu. It's theme is healing, but that's honestly a wasted effort. You need at least two specific hammer upgrades + Demeter boon for it to simply start working. But enemies still inflict too much damage, if you go for more damage mitigation you still won't be able to bring it to level of comfort where you can actually heal yourself enough at Hades fight. While your damage is ... lacking.
I really hope new game addresses this and many other issues to be even better that first.

I love this game, and I would actually say it's the best I've played in years. Maybe even one of the best I've played period, but I would agree with all that.

My list of complaints:

1. Every single "alternate" to the starting mirror of night abilities are objectively worse than the starting one. Literally every single one, to the point I would say it was a waste of developer time and resources.

There is no good reason to select "stubborn defiance" over death defiance.

2. The weapon aspects are slow to unlock and most do not provide a significant benefit over the aspect of zagreus, with a few exceptions.

3. Theseus and Asterius are OP. They are actually harder than Hades himself; their sole purpose is to cut down your health and death defiances so that you lose against Hades. You could even sub out Hades for the Bone Hydra and it would probably be as difficult.

4. Only a few builds are truly reliable for actually making it to peresephone, but even they rely largely on luck of getting the right boons and a hammer upgrades.

The most insane build I ever got, which made the game (even with heat turned up) ridiculously easy was: Aspect of hades spear, fully-upgraded doom on exploding special that would afflict all visible enemies, zeus + demeter + dionysus festive fog, and lighting rod duo boon with Artemis.

The only way it could've been better is if I had "stubborn roots" on top of it.

Have never been able to replicate that build though, because RNG.

However, I don't expect that any of these issues will be resolved in the next game, since Hades represents a design philosophy that seems to have been mainstreamed by Dark Souls

That is: "How can we make doing the same ♥♥♥♥ over and over again engaging?" and outside of compelling characters and story; piecemeal progression, randomness, and throwing rewards for time spent playing are really the only way to do it.

[Jalir]

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

Originally posted by Aedwynn:

Game has a lot of flaws. They aren't big, so it's still a good game ... but it has ways to improve.
1) Due to overflow of choices during run it's hard to seek specific boons/items.
Overall game feels too random, with little control over it.
I remember runs where there was no fisihing holes whatsoever, or you pick cosmic egg and there is no Chaos portal during entire chapter, nor Ixion lantern to force it.
Or runs where game throws literal trash at you and as a result you deal no damage, cause gifts almost never spawned or were pure bad choices.
Game really needs a form of denial - so you can exclude chosen olympic god or some wares from Haron's choices so you don't have to sift through trash that much.
2) Game visuals are good but at certain points there is too much screen litter. An option to tone down visuals while retaining warnings is much needed.
3) Enemies. I hate bull as his attacks are so weird that even with Afina's dash he still manages to hit me time to time, because while you evade from one part of his attack you land in another. Same goes for a lot of other enemies, where attack zone is done weirdly resulting in attack still hitting you despite you visually evading.
4)Item Balance. There is a lot of keepsakes that are... pointless or too underperforming.
5) Boon balance. Same as above, while there are some good choices you are effectively pigeonholed in specific choices. Like Guan Yu. It's theme is healing, but that's honestly a wasted effort. You need at least two specific hammer upgrades + Demeter boon for it to simply start working. But enemies still inflict too much damage, if you go for more damage mitigation you still won't be able to bring it to level of comfort where you can actually heal yourself enough at Hades fight. While your damage is ... lacking.
I really hope new game addresses this and many other issues to be even better that first.

I love this game, and I would actually say it's the best I've played in years. Maybe even one of the best I've played period, but I would agree with all that.

My list of complaints:

1. Every single "alternate" to the starting mirror of night abilities are objectively worse than the starting one. Literally every single one, to the point I would say it was a waste of developer time and resources.

There is no good reason to select "stubborn defiance" over death defiance.

2. The weapon aspects are slow to unlock and most do not provide a significant benefit over the aspect of zagreus, with a few exceptions.

I agree with your other points, but these 2 are pretty much flat wrong. Many of the alternate mirror abilities are significantly better than the primary abilities, but the extra benefit only really becomes noticeable/needed on high heat runs/speedruns (which high heat runs have to be, essentially). Particularly Stubborn Defiance, which is almost required to take when you begin pushing beyond 40+ heat due to needing to take higher ranks of Lasting Consequences (at rank 4, Stubborn Defiance becomes your only source of healing) and Hard Labor.

I do agree with you saying the weapons are slow to unlock, but almost across the board even the weakest non zag aspect is going to be much better than the strongest zag aspect, with the only real draw factor of the Zag weapons is the 5 blood cost to max.

[OneDeadLombax]

Originally posted by Jalir:

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

I love this game, and I would actually say it's the best I've played in years. Maybe even one of the best I've played period, but I would agree with all that.

My list of complaints:

1. Every single "alternate" to the starting mirror of night abilities are objectively worse than the starting one. Literally every single one, to the point I would say it was a waste of developer time and resources.

There is no good reason to select "stubborn defiance" over death defiance.

2. The weapon aspects are slow to unlock and most do not provide a significant benefit over the aspect of zagreus, with a few exceptions.

I agree with your other points, but these 2 are pretty much flat wrong. Many of the alternate mirror abilities are significantly better than the primary abilities, but the extra benefit only really becomes noticeable/needed on high heat runs/speedruns (which high heat runs have to be, essentially). Particularly Stubborn Defiance, which is almost required to take when you begin pushing beyond 40+ heat due to needing to take higher ranks of Lasting Consequences (at rank 4, Stubborn Defiance becomes your only source of healing) and Hard Labor.

I do agree with you saying the weapons are slow to unlock, but almost across the board even the weakest non zag aspect is going to be much better than the strongest zag aspect, with the only real draw factor of the Zag weapons is the 5 blood cost to max.

The mirror of night alts suck. Take for example the cast; instead of getting more casts, you get one and it pops out of the enemy every 3 seconds.

What possible advantage could that have over have 3+? Especially when you can get exit wounds, lightning rod and quick reload?

Your example of stubborn defiance at 40+ heat is such an extreme, case-specific example that it's more fair to say it is an accidental exploit given that massive difficulty spike from your specific heat with something that is normally useless.

Only slightly under 1/4 players has even beaten the game. Most aren't playing enough to get to 10 heat, let alone 40. In all those cases, there's just no way that death defiance isn't better. Combined with lucky tooth, it's multiple lives and they are rechargeable instead of 1 retry per room that barely fills your health back up.

As for the weapons, I still say that most upgrades are not significantly better. The Zeus shield is no easier to complete a run with than the basic Aegis shield; I'd actually even argue it's harder.

The aspect of Lucifer for the gun is just outright trash.

And I don't know that I've ever failed a run with any incarnation of the bow.

[Aedwynn]

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

The aspect of Lucifer for the gun is just outright trash.

I would say that aspect of Lucifer has a glaring issue of extremely thin beam that doesn't actually deal damage all the time but instead in ticks.
Which means it's practically impossible to destroy/deflect enemy projectiles, and forces you to take Afina's dash to be able to survive some encounters (like lair of witches) that are bullet hells. I once managed to build it in a good way with Artemis primary for crits / Afrodite special for massive damage on exlploding and debuffs. Support Fire generated a lot of arrows on primary fire (with infinite ammo). Duo boon for improved criticals and it was melting everything at the end. Lost 0 lives at Hades.

[Jalir]

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

Originally posted by Jalir:

I agree with your other points, but these 2 are pretty much flat wrong. Many of the alternate mirror abilities are significantly better than the primary abilities, but the extra benefit only really becomes noticeable/needed on high heat runs/speedruns (which high heat runs have to be, essentially). Particularly Stubborn Defiance, which is almost required to take when you begin pushing beyond 40+ heat due to needing to take higher ranks of Lasting Consequences (at rank 4, Stubborn Defiance becomes your only source of healing) and Hard Labor.

I do agree with you saying the weapons are slow to unlock, but almost across the board even the weakest non zag aspect is going to be much better than the strongest zag aspect, with the only real draw factor of the Zag weapons is the 5 blood cost to max.

The mirror of night alts suck. Take for example the cast; instead of getting more casts, you get one and it pops out of the enemy every 3 seconds.

What possible advantage could that have over have 3+? Especially when you can get exit wounds, lightning rod and quick reload?

Your example of stubborn defiance at 40+ heat is such an extreme, case-specific example that it's more fair to say it is an accidental exploit given that massive difficulty spike from your specific heat with something that is normally useless.

Only slightly under 1/4 players has even beaten the game. Most aren't playing enough to get to 10 heat, let alone 40. In all those cases, there's just no way that death defiance isn't better. Combined with lucky tooth, it's multiple lives and they are rechargeable instead of 1 retry per room that barely fills your health back up.

As for the weapons, I still say that most upgrades are not significantly better. The Zeus shield is no easier to complete a run with than the basic Aegis shield; I'd actually even argue it's harder.

The aspect of Lucifer for the gun is just outright trash.

And I don't know that I've ever failed a run with any incarnation of the bow.

You know, I was typing up a response to this, but actually deleted it all, because there's no point. This really just reads like a 5 hr playtime know-it-all post.

Lucifer is easily one of the strongest aspects, btw

[OneDeadLombax]

Originally posted by Jalir:

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

The mirror of night alts suck. Take for example the cast; instead of getting more casts, you get one and it pops out of the enemy every 3 seconds.

What possible advantage could that have over have 3+? Especially when you can get exit wounds, lightning rod and quick reload?

Your example of stubborn defiance at 40+ heat is such an extreme, case-specific example that it's more fair to say it is an accidental exploit given that massive difficulty spike from your specific heat with something that is normally useless.

Only slightly under 1/4 players has even beaten the game. Most aren't playing enough to get to 10 heat, let alone 40. In all those cases, there's just no way that death defiance isn't better. Combined with lucky tooth, it's multiple lives and they are rechargeable instead of 1 retry per room that barely fills your health back up.

As for the weapons, I still say that most upgrades are not significantly better. The Zeus shield is no easier to complete a run with than the basic Aegis shield; I'd actually even argue it's harder.

The aspect of Lucifer for the gun is just outright trash.

And I don't know that I've ever failed a run with any incarnation of the bow.

You know, I was typing up a response to this, but actually deleted it all, because there's no point. This really just reads like a 5 hr playtime know-it-all post.

Lucifer is easily one of the strongest aspects, btw

Yes, indeed some of us do have much less shameful amounts of time in the game than 200 hours; I'm "only" at 50, which is pretty sad unto itself.

But you know — that supports my argument. When someone with 1/4 of the time invested can much more reliably escape the underworld, even factoring in the game's luck factor, with all of the default mirror settings maxed, a couple of different keepsakes, and 1 or 2 weapons, even with increased heat, but it's like a fool's errand with alternate settings...

...it means the former settings are superior.

And it has to be this way in this sort of game. There have to be outright trash options and unreliable builds or else the game's replay value would greatly diminish.

[Z]

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

Originally posted by Aedwynn:

Game has a lot of flaws. They aren't big, so it's still a good game ... but it has ways to improve.
1) Due to overflow of choices during run it's hard to seek specific boons/items.
Overall game feels too random, with little control over it.
I remember runs where there was no fisihing holes whatsoever, or you pick cosmic egg and there is no Chaos portal during entire chapter, nor Ixion lantern to force it.
Or runs where game throws literal trash at you and as a result you deal no damage, cause gifts almost never spawned or were pure bad choices.
Game really needs a form of denial - so you can exclude chosen olympic god or some wares from Haron's choices so you don't have to sift through trash that much.
2) Game visuals are good but at certain points there is too much screen litter. An option to tone down visuals while retaining warnings is much needed.
3) Enemies. I hate bull as his attacks are so weird that even with Afina's dash he still manages to hit me time to time, because while you evade from one part of his attack you land in another. Same goes for a lot of other enemies, where attack zone is done weirdly resulting in attack still hitting you despite you visually evading.
4)Item Balance. There is a lot of keepsakes that are... pointless or too underperforming.
5) Boon balance. Same as above, while there are some good choices you are effectively pigeonholed in specific choices. Like Guan Yu. It's theme is healing, but that's honestly a wasted effort. You need at least two specific hammer upgrades + Demeter boon for it to simply start working. But enemies still inflict too much damage, if you go for more damage mitigation you still won't be able to bring it to level of comfort where you can actually heal yourself enough at Hades fight. While your damage is ... lacking.
I really hope new game addresses this and many other issues to be even better that first.

I love this game, and I would actually say it's the best I've played in years. Maybe even one of the best I've played period, but I would agree with all that.

My list of complaints:

1. Every single "alternate" to the starting mirror of night abilities are objectively worse than the starting one. Literally every single one, to the point I would say it was a waste of developer time and resources.

There is no good reason to select "stubborn defiance" over death defiance.

I can't agree with this point. Stubborn Defiance is infinite (at least if you don't die twice in the same room). This perk for me, is one of the best in the game.

[Fourlamas]

I guess story wise, Hades devs want to say more which is fine, gameplay wise there are things to improve ( spear aspects are ) that could be in the sequel, outside of that, if you really like this game you can do run or two once in a while or farm higher heat or speedruns.

[C4RNIVOR3]

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

Your example of stubborn defiance at 40+ heat is such an extreme, case-specific example that it's more fair to say it is an accidental exploit given that massive difficulty spike from your specific heat with something that is normally useless.

"accidental exploit" lmao For players that die a lot and need the extra buffer, death defiance is obviously infinitely more useful to them. For players that are experienced and skilled with the game, they may find stubborn more useful because they don't die in a run often enough to warrant the extra death defiances. Just because a perk is not useful to YOU and YOUR play style does not mean it has no merit in the game.

[OneDeadLombax]

Originally posted by C4RNIVOR3:

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

Your example of stubborn defiance at 40+ heat is such an extreme, case-specific example that it's more fair to say it is an accidental exploit given that massive difficulty spike from your specific heat with something that is normally useless.

"accidental exploit" lmao For players that die a lot and need the extra buffer, death defiance is obviously infinitely more useful to them. For players that are experienced and skilled with the game, they may find stubborn more useful because they don't die in a run often enough to warrant the extra death defiances. Just because a perk is not useful to YOU and YOUR play style does not mean it has no merit in the game.

Yeah except this line of thinking fails because there is literally no drawback to using death defiance at all except there are a couple of duo boons I think that require you to be using stubborn instead.

If you don't die in a run that often, then why the hell not just have multiple backups in store anyway? It's not providing you with any sort of debuff to do so.

This is like refusing a buy-one, get-one-free deal on burritos because "Well I'm usually only hungry enough to eat one." and trying to argue that just buying one at full price is AKSHULLY a better deal or at least as good because of that.

Throw the other one in the fridge or find a gf to feed the other to lol jesus

The case that the other guy made for stubborn defiance involves a situation where the game becomes so broken and you are so handicapped that your odds of dying at least once in EVERY ROOM becomes greatly increased, and so stubborn defiance becomes a way to maybe balance it a bit more, and I seriously doubt this was the intention rather than simply trying to create replay value and give the player different options. I.e., just because you found a case-specific use for it, doesn't mean it's actually good overall.

But even then, DD is fully-refillable, and I've been able to do so on almost every run.

As I said in my OP: The mirror of night alternates are all objectively worse than their starting positions, and nobody here has provided any sensible argument to the contrary.

Like whatever if people want to use it, but It is something that hopefully they improve in Hades II

[WitheredRose]

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

Originally posted by Jalir:

I agree with your other points, but these 2 are pretty much flat wrong. Many of the alternate mirror abilities are significantly better than the primary abilities, but the extra benefit only really becomes noticeable/needed on high heat runs/speedruns (which high heat runs have to be, essentially). Particularly Stubborn Defiance, which is almost required to take when you begin pushing beyond 40+ heat due to needing to take higher ranks of Lasting Consequences (at rank 4, Stubborn Defiance becomes your only source of healing) and Hard Labor.

I do agree with you saying the weapons are slow to unlock, but almost across the board even the weakest non zag aspect is going to be much better than the strongest zag aspect, with the only real draw factor of the Zag weapons is the 5 blood cost to max.

The mirror of night alts suck. Take for example the cast; instead of getting more casts, you get one and it pops out of the enemy every 3 seconds.

What possible advantage could that have over have 3+? Especially when you can get exit wounds, lightning rod and quick reload?

Your example of stubborn defiance at 40+ heat is such an extreme, case-specific example that it's more fair to say it is an accidental exploit given that massive difficulty spike from your specific heat with something that is normally useless.

Only slightly under 1/4 players has even beaten the game. Most aren't playing enough to get to 10 heat, let alone 40. In all those cases, there's just no way that death defiance isn't better. Combined with lucky tooth, it's multiple lives and they are rechargeable instead of 1 retry per room that barely fills your health back up.

As for the weapons, I still say that most upgrades are not significantly better. The Zeus shield is no easier to complete a run with than the basic Aegis shield; I'd actually even argue it's harder.

The aspect of Lucifer for the gun is just outright trash.

And I don't know that I've ever failed a run with any incarnation of the bow.

the benefit of stygian soul over infernal soul is that you don't have to collect the cast to get it back, you can just fire every 3 seconds. other mirror of night alts can be pretty good as well, such as fated persuasion and family favorite

[dynatierchen]

why would it not "need" a sequel ?! weird question thread

[KingOfSauce]

because yes

[Fourlamas]

Originally posted by OneDeadLombax:

Yes, indeed some of us do have much less shameful amounts of time in the game than 200 hours; I'm "only" at 50, which is pretty sad unto itself.

But you know — that supports my argument. When someone with 1/4 of the time invested can much more reliably escape the underworld, even factoring in the game's luck factor, with all of the default mirror settings maxed, a couple of different keepsakes, and 1 or 2 weapons, even with increased heat, but it's like a fool's errand with alternate settings...

...it means the former settings are superior.

Weird argument considering some of the alt mirror options are much better for someone with low playtime aka still needs darkness, still needs titan blood etc.

Dark Regeneration healing is pretty nutty as it can completely replace fountains even the guaranteed ones after a boss.

Golden Touch makes more sense for players with low playtime as you want to have a shot at buying the titan blood at Styx ( and you are going to need a lot of those bad boys )

High confidence is good for speedrunning, which is usually at low heat anyway and casuals/new players are more likely to try and beat the game under 10 minutes instead of 32+/40+ heat.

Family favorite is better pick here unless you are on low/0 heat and plan to pick 2 specific effects that guarantee a proc. You will get more of out FF than PS in the long run as you play the game more.

Dark foresight - much better to have a shot at specific rewards over "you might get a rare", as rares compared to commons arent a huge deal since epics exist.

And finally Fated persuation is way better once you mess around with it, so playtime is irrelevant. While the cost is higher, rerolling 3 boons and their rarities is more usefull than rerolling 1 reward from 1 pool ( e. g. boons will always reroll into boons )

edit: and dont hate on stubborn defiance, its cracked at high heat