Hi all,
I have been playing some indie roguelikes for some time, and I'm in love with them, my friend absolutely loves indie games, and more importantly, he loves roguelikes, so he suggested me play cult of the Lambs, and I'm having a great time playing that game. then I heard Hades is also a roguelike with a good art style. The excellent art style has to be my top takeaway and most of the indie studios make stunning and stylized art styles so indie game studios have a special place in my heart. Hades is developed by an indie game studio supergiant games, this game is considered to be one of the best games of 2020 and it got several Game of the Year awards from several game awards functions such as Gayming Awards, SXSW 2021, BAFTA, and D.I.C.E Awards, and I can see why they hail this game as the game of the year and I'm having a blast playing this game so far.
The setting of the game is in Greek mythology after defeating Titans and sealing them away, the Olympian gods return to their positions and resume their duties, Zeus rules over Olympia and Hades rules over the underworld, where the game takes place. Zagreus, son of Hades wants to leave the underworld, as such the game portrays it as he's become of age when the children don't listen to their parents and wants to leave. but Hades is a strict, father and a bit protective of his son. hades want to protect Zagreus and he believes the safest place for Zagreus is his home aka the underworld, so he tries to stop Zagreus from reaching Mount Olympus even if by any means such as violence. hades are concerned if Zagrues goes away from the underworld, he might be harmed by other gods or other gods might use him for their own desires, so he tries to stop him by sending some mythological characters and monsters.
The game's art style is stunning, I thought the main character was a 2d sprite at first, but then I noticed it was a 3d model, they made a 3d main character with excellent animations, most of the time, indie games I came across don't have good animations for 3d, but this game even nailed animations and also the rendering of the model made it harder to notice it as 3d at all. also, the color palette of the game was very vibrant considering the game occurs in the underworld. I was skeptical about its music at first since it was upbeat and pop music, I thought the music is not going well with the game, but after clearing a few chambers, I started to enjoy the music, I was having fun at this point.
At the beginning of the game, Zagreus is trying out one of his breakouts from the underworld, when entering the first chamber, we are left with the game's beautiful artwork and the souls that are wandering around chambers were the cherry on top. I am absolutely in love with this art.
In the first chamber, we meet is wretched thug, he is slow but we have to be careful when fighting him since he swings the club really fast when we expect the attack, but beating them is kinda easy if we use dash often. the combat is good but that depends on the weapons though, every weapon has its advantages and disadvantages, but they are personal preferences though.
After defeating the wretched thighs, wretched withes are spawned, they are one of the most annoying enemies in this game so far. they just get into a corner of the chamber and start shooting some dark magic at us, they are very annoying when we fight with other enemies, so most of the time I try to kill them as soon as they spawn. we can also counteract them by selecting traits that deflect ranged weapons while attacking or dashing.
After clearing this chamber, the goddess of wisdom Athena gives us to select a trait or perk, which is called the boons of Athena. other gods from Olympus heard that Zagreus has been trying to break out from the underworld, so they provide as much as power they can to ensure Zagreus' success.
I ended up choosing the Divine strike which increases attack damage by 40% more, and also deflects attacks from enemies.
after entering the next chamber, wretched lout is spawned which is also an annoying enemy, because it has more attack range and attack speed, we have to be careful when fighting it.
the reward for clearing a chamber is indicated in the entrance door of a chamber, after clearing this chamber, we can see there are two doors with a trident in one door and a heart in another. Since I have full health, I chose the trident one.
I thought I'm gonna see Poseidon since the sigil looked like it was a trident and Posieden's weapon is a trident but I made a mistake. it was Ares the god of war who wanted to help Zagreues.
I chose the Battle Race boon, which increased the damage of the special by 100% after slaying an enemy. after clearing several chambers I faced a boss battle, but it was a sub-boss battle I think.
we have to keep moving to defeat them, these guys always come in pairs and have a lot of health too. so slaying them can be challenging but it is possible as long as we keep moving.
After slaying them, we had a chance to meet Artemis, goddess of the hunt, she offered some very rare and good boons to choose from, it was hard to make a choice when every boon was really useful.
I was initially planning to choose Hunter Dash since I dash all the time and this book gives me a chance to dash and strike, but the pressure point boon offered a 4% increase in critical attack chance. I just selected it because it was rated as an epic item, but I didn't notice it when playing tho. after that I cleared 3 chambers, but after that is the fun part.
this is where things got interesting, In hades you can use the world to your advantage, but if you are not careful enough you can hurt yourself. I saw a pink pot-like artifact around the chamber, if you attack it, after a timer it blows up and damages everything around it to a specific distance and I used it to defeat these wretched gouts. since I only had 1 health, I have to keep them away as possible. so I used the world around me to damage them.
It instantly damaged them a lot and stunned them giving me an opening o rush behind them and finish them off. but after that, I died in the next chamber tho.
I had a really good time playing this game, sorry I have to run now, I lost track of time while writing this post. Hope you liked the post,
Thank you and GAME ON!