Clara Williams

I played previous Supergiant games (Pyre, Bastion, Transistor) and liked them fine--I bought them because I liked the art style, mostly-- but the gameplay never struck me just right. Bastion's gameplay was a little slow-paced, I didn't like the upgrade mechanics of Transistor, I didn't like the sports-game feeling of Pyre battles. Hades is a triumph. It takes the wonderful elements of other Supergiant games (the art, the music, the characters, the voices) and adds difficult (rogue-like-lite) playing, interesting semi-random boon mechanics, variable boss fights, and special abilities to call in friends and allies that feels fresh, fun, challenging, but fair. (I played on a Switch, so I can't speak to PC mechanics). I've done over 100 runs and played for about 60 hours so far. Honestly, I think I'm more than half 'played out' of the game. But I think it's well worth the ticket price. Caveat: You can't buy it expecting a linear RPG experience where you're guided through meeting new characters at every step, all new bosses, all new environments. You'll get that experience once. But 'completing' the game once (i.e., getting out of the underworld) is not what Hades is about. It's got an interesting storyline, but it's spread thin; sprinkled along. It won't pull you through the game on its own. You have to enjoy the actual mechanics/feeling of fighting in the game to enjoy this game. If you find subtle twists and tweaks of gameplay and working on getting the best run dull in theory, then you might not like Hades. But for those who like this style of game, it's incredible.