Rewriting my review a year after the early access release on steam. Wow ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what a game.

Hades is the culmination of 10 years of supergiant games' various experiments with game design, sound design, post game replayability and player engagement. Many of the reasons games like transistor and pyre were celebrated are, to some extent, presented in here in a more refined version of the studio's basic formula of game design, which has resulted in what many consider to be their best game thus far, and even the best game of the year.

This is an action rogue-lite game, meaning that most of the game's progress occurs outside of ordinary rogue-lite runs, and there's always progress to be made regardless of how well you perform. Hades takes an unprecedented amount of advantage of this by offering plenty of activities to do outside of normal gameplay, all of which are not only worthwhile with long term benefits, but are engaging enough on their own that the game could very well be entirely dedicated to them, but its largely an embelishment for dying over and over. A traditionally unceremonious act comparable to taking a ♥♥♥♥ that has been successfully turned into an integral part of the game's system, rather than an arbetrary impediment.

The action gameplay itself is in no way lacking either. Many liken it to its predecesor, bastion for its amount of gameplay variety and for being specially engaging during moment to moment combat, yet hades finds ways to surpass it still, with incredibly responsive controls, just countless amounts of upgrades and variables that are exceptionally compatible, offering tons of unique synergies, great enemy variety and a specially customisable difficulty modifier that does just enough to change things up in an already addictive game.

Personally i do have some things that in retrostpect didn't live up to my expectations, Being a fan of Greg Kasavin's previous stories I was specially looking forward to seeing him tackle a topic as dense as the greek pantheon, so many interesting poems and stories ought to make for an interesting narrative, and while all the in-game dialogue is wonderful, with lots of research behind it. I'm not a huge fan of the story in itself.

The premise of hades' bastard child trying to reconnect with his distant relatives on olympus by escaping tartarus is a captivating story filled with great characters and lots of tragic moments, that wasn't executed to its full capacity and was resolved with a safe and boring ending despite having so many fascinating points of tension and conflict. Lets say this game's writing is enjoyable because of the TV sit-com dialogue rather than for being an epic. The game tries to be both and somewhat succeeds but in my opinion its kind of a letdown since this is the main reason i was looking forward to this game.

Music and sound in hades just reminds me that darren korb is long overdue for a grammy award, but again as a huge metal fan i also have to admit that i'm not super impressed with this game's music when compared to darren's previous works. On its own its without a doubt excellent, supergiant games' OST's play to the effect of a concept album, both in game and on CD, with full length, fully layered tracks that build up gradually with a slow burn crescendo and culminate into some quality ass Thrash riffs, Hades' music demonstrates just how good supergiant are at taking advantage of audio in their games.

Finally, although its self evident, art and presentation in this game are put on a higher pedestal than anything else during development. Every little detail that doesn't involve gameplay is tweaked with such finese and attention to quality this game is as much fun to see others play as it is to actually have your hands on. great animations and visual design, a captivating art style, just an industrial dumpster of voice lines for every extremely insignificant situation in the game you may or may not come across. Hades is an unlikely achievement in a genre so desperate for being innovative and standing out among its competitors. this game does just that, easily asserting itself as one of the best in the genre.


nah ♥♥♥♥ it. 10/10
Get this game.

Rewriting my review a year after the early access release on steam. Wow holy shit, what a game. Hades is the culmination of 10 years of supergiant games' various experiments with game design, sound design, post game replayability and player engagement. Many of the reasons games like transistor and pyre were celebrated are, to some extent, presented in here in a more refined version of the studio's basic formula of game design, which has resulted in what many consider to be their best game thus far, and even the best game of the year. This is an action rogue-lite game, meaning that most of the game's progress occurs outside of ordinary rogue-lite runs, and there's always progress to be made regardless of how well you perform. Hades takes an unprecedented amount of advantage of this by offering plenty of activities to do outside of normal gameplay, all of which are not only worthwhile with long term benefits, but are engaging enough on their own that the game could very well be entirely dedicated to them, but its largely an embelishment for dying over and over. A traditionally unceremonious act comparable to taking a shit that has been successfully turned into an integral part of the game's system, rather than an arbetrary impediment. The action gameplay itself is in no way lacking either. Many liken it to its predecesor, bastion for its amount of gameplay variety and for being specially engaging during moment to moment combat, yet hades finds ways to surpass it still, with incredibly responsive controls, just countless amounts of upgrades and variables that are exceptionally compatible, offering tons of unique synergies, great enemy variety and a specially customisable difficulty modifier that does just enough to change things up in an already addictive game. Personally i do have some things that in retrostpect didn't live up to my expectations, Being a fan of Greg Kasavin's previous stories I was specially looking forward to seeing him tackle a topic as dense as the greek pantheon, so many interesting poems and stories ought to make for an interesting narrative, and while all the in-game dialogue is wonderful, with lots of research behind it. I'm not a huge fan of the story in itself. The premise of hades' bastard child trying to reconnect with his distant relatives on olympus by escaping tartarus is a captivating story filled with great characters and lots of tragic moments, that wasn't executed to its full capacity and was resolved with a safe and boring ending despite having so many fascinating points of tension and conflict. Lets say this game's writing is enjoyable because of the TV sit-com dialogue rather than for being an epic. The game tries to be both and somewhat succeeds but in my opinion its kind of a letdown since this is the main reason i was looking forward to this game. Music and sound in hades just reminds me that darren korb is long overdue for a grammy award, but again as a huge metal fan i also have to admit that i'm not super impressed with this game's music when compared to darren's previous works. On its own its without a doubt excellent, supergiant games' OST's play to the effect of a concept album, both in game and on CD, with full length, fully layered tracks that build up gradually with a slow burn crescendo and culminate into some quality ass Thrash riffs, Hades' music demonstrates just how good supergiant are at taking advantage of audio in their games. Finally, although its self evident, art and presentation in this game are put on a higher pedestal than anything else during development. Every little detail that doesn't involve gameplay is tweaked with such finese and attention to quality this game is as much fun to see others play as it is to actually have your hands on. great animations and visual design, a captivating art style, just an industrial dumpster of voice lines for every extremely insignificant situation in the game you may or may not come across. Hades is an unlikely achievement in a genre so desperate for being innovative and standing out among its competitors. this game does just that, easily asserting itself as one of the best in the genre. [h1] 9/10?[/h1] nah fuck it. 10/10 Get this game.