Why Hades Is The Best Roguelike (And Also The Worst)
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- Hades might be the best roguelike ever made, and somehow it also might be the worst. Let's take a look at what makes both of those claims weirdly true at the same time and see what can be learned from studying this phenomenal game!
This is my critique/analysis of Hades. It focuses on analyzing the different design choices of the game to figure out how Hades succeeds (and fails) at being a roguelike, and also what causes Hades to have a perceived variety and replayability issue despite having a crazy amount of depth.
It's also the fourth video of this type that I've made, and I tried to do something different from the first few, so any constructive criticism or feedback is greatly appreciated!
I plan to make more of these kinds of reviews / video essays, so I appreciate all of your feedback, negative and positive, and I will do my best to improve!
If you want to follow me on Twitter: / outofnickels
Here are some buzzword sentences to make the video more searchable:
This video essay contains footage from the indie game, Hades, by Supergiant Games published on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC. This was one of the best games of 2020 and really moved the roguelite genre forward in a lot of ways!
#Hades #Critique #longformcontent
![ARGENTINA vs. CHILE [3-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 7](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/De3AWmXzhuA/mqdefault.jpg)
Hades is only really bad if you want it to be. If you keep mixing it up and challenging yourself, which I find there is plenty reason to, it remains fun for 100+ hours
yeah but you could also say that it is a bit weak that you need to challenge yourself and do heat runs for a game to stay replayable. You could easily but in 200 hours in binding of isaac before even starting challenge runs....just playing the normal game mode without any variation. I still find new combos and builds in the binding of isaac while You pretty much played everything in Hades in 30 hours.
I have less than 100 hours and my runs feels all the same with few exceptions and no I will not increase heat past my weapon cap, the game for so many buttons it justs keeps en being just spam dash and press any attack button the boons feel like just dmg up of a different flavor, it feels like it centers too much on micro management but at the same time the only combat movement is dash, just walking in combat is bad.
Other rogue-likes focus on the macro, isaac different characters have a different gameplan, with isaac you want to spawn an item in the secret room and reroll until you have one of the absurd items, maggy wants to go to sacrifice and cursed rooms to get powerful using her heals, judas just wants to kill with his high dmg and that's not even talking about the gimmicks of tainted characters
That is such a stupid idea.
If someone doesn't like the game, them forcing themself to try to like it isn't going to change much.
@@altrivotzck6565yes this is my main problem , the game should provide it itself
@@alkair422except in 30 hours you haven't nearly run out of bespoke voice acted lines. It may not be huge for every player but the narrative was one of the things that made me like the game. Not the first roguelike I tried but the first one I enjoyed and I have since gone back and played games that I dropped of after a few hours and put dozens more in.
On the subject of “never feeling truly godlike”, I have to hard disagree as I occasionally find myself in insane runs where all the stars align and I feel unkillable, and melt every single encounter in seconds. Even my roommate managed to beat the game several times despite never playing games outside of some cozy ones by making a crazy thorns Revenge damage build on god mode, or getting like 5 dashes and a super power Tidal Dash. My favorite part about this is that you feel really smart when you pull it off, like you’ve crafted this crazy build yourself somehow.
When you get stygian blades cursed slash, just get some health upgrades and you feel unkillable, which you probably actually will be.
I don't think you are disagreeing with me haha. You're more making the claim that the game is too easy, and that there are stronger builds than others. (Both statements I agree with!) It's still within the game's standardized space.
But you're definitely spot on the money with the positive feeling of having crafted the build yourself. You haven't really; everything in the game was deliberately polished and tested, but the tools of player intentionality still let you _feel_ like you've created this yourself. Hopefully I made that clear in the video :)
@@OutOfNickels I for one don't like the idea of god runs. When you mentioned 3 types of players you missed a group, completionists or challenge runners. I play rougelikes for the challenge, for the 30 heat runs or for streaking wins and god runs can invalidate a lot of the hardest challenges in a rougelike. If you can win by simply trying enough times to get a god run and them boom you literally cant die anymore, then what's the point in trying to push for harder and harder difficulties?
I managed to get 6 duo boons and 2 legendary boons
Hades spent more time in his shield and cutscene then actual fight
19:53 "Maybe you'll get lucky and find Zeus naturally" accidentally buys health 💀💀
I'm glad someone noticed that, I was dying when that happened lmao
Just quit the game and reload lol the chamber resets.
1. Based of you to put Griftlands among the great rogue-likes.
2. ,Monster Train really deserves to be on that list too.
3. I really disagree with the notion that Hades would've been better if it was a tragedy. I, for one, would never forgive it if it did that.
I really think Griftlands is excellent when I play it, my only real gripe is that runs take so long that I never want to start another one :(
I didn't love Monster Train when I played it, maybe I should give it another chance?
I'm glad you enjoyed the ending! But to me, the story not being a classic Greek Tragedy is possibly my biggest disappointment about the game haha
@@OutOfNickels As someone looking forward to how the story and characters develop in Hades 2, I commend Supergiant for using what is famously one of the most dysfunctional families to have ever crossed human consciousness to explore the wholesome yet still complex facet of family.
Haven't gotten through the whole vid yet so you might've mentioned it, but are there any classic greek tragedies you'd recommend? I'm not super familiar with the form aside from vague AP Lit memories of Sophocles
@@quandary23 you can check out the stories of sisyphus, achilles, prometheus, icarus, theseus. These are the ones I just remember right now but pretty much most greek stories are tragedies. From the ones Ive mentioned that also appear in the game, little is told of their life stories so yeah youll discover new things with their stories as well
22:42 good job on the video, but i mean, merciful end can break the game with most weapons, beowulf on the shield can trivialise everything with a good cast boon, chiron bow is just op, chaos is chaos, crits go insane, and if you have not yet tried divine dash from athena, you should
I really agree that it's quite a shame there's no real alternate bosses. I understand why, narratively speaking, it can really only be Hades himself at the end, which also means there's no real room for some final secret boss, but I still feel like they could've done something. If I were to imagine a way to implement alternate final bosses, I would tie it into the weapon forms. Instead of the special unlock just being "upgrade enough things then talk to people until you get the special dialogue," it would be some kind of secret quest you can do when you bring the weapon on a run, which awakens it, meaning that when you bring it to the surface, you embrace its memories (or something vague like that), and you can actually fight the legendary figure who wielded it, unlocking the special form upon defeating them.
That's an interesting idea! Personally, I think Hades is a great final boss, and I don't think there needs to be alternatives for him. It's the bosses along the journey that could use some changing up. Perhaps just through randomness, or perhaps based on which (alternative) path through Hades you choose to escape would determine the boss of that area i.e. choosing to go through Zone A or B and having a set boss for each. Like choosing to go through two different sections of Tartarus and having the Furies guard one, and some other mythical creature on the other.
One I would have loved would be Achilles and Petracles as alternative Champion of Elysium or Thanatos as the final boss. (Both unlocked through 'complicated' actions hinted at by the game)
I mean Charon is a sercret boss. But not really final
I think Hades II gonna have someone else as we have two routes in there..
@@Makareno94 not really. There is nothing secret about him. He is just an optional boss who pops up from time to time
@stinky9067 well you get to play with him in hades 2.. a big rough play tbh
I have beaten Hades, at least five times over to 100% and the only repeated dialogue I ever saw was during your interaction with Cerberus near the surface as far as what it says when you beat him
There's truly an insane amount of unique dialogue!
@@OutOfNickels and it looks like Hades 2 is also following that trend. I have beaten it several times over already and haven’t heard a single repeated line of dialogue.
@@tommyherrick8220 my feet are clean at least. I don't mind this cause I like feet lol but just pointing out
If i had a nickel for every time there's a title that is described as both best and worst, I'd buy 3 360Xbox controllers (around 15$)
So *you're* the guy stealing all my nickels!
the gag where you play a character quote to further your point was rlly cool
42:23 - “Difficulty options that make players engage with mechanics LESS highlight design flaws and make a more generic game.”
Well said. I remember playing Uncharted 4 on crushing and thinking exactly this. I felt actively dissuaded from using the grappling hook, aka one of the biggest selling points of the game. It felt both wrong and unfun.
Thank you, I'm glad you agree! I think there are ways you can make that kind of difficulty work, (and some people will still enjoy trying to win with the limited options), but often it simply leads to the player being forced into a very boring play pattern.
Fully agree. I have only played with each of those difficulty options once, to complete the Fated Prophecy
Great video! Interestingly, a lot of the systems you critiqued actually play nicer for mediocre players who doesn't tend to enjoy rogue-likes. Specifically, the resource situation and the heat system.
Tl;Dr: you're right that these systems probably make for a bad pure roguelike experience, but they make strong hooks for people who are normally turned off by them
((I nearly added the prophecies/achievements as well, before realizing that was more tied to the part of my brain that latches on to games like Pikmin/early harvest moon/Pokemon legends Arceus. I like managing tasks.))
Obviously, this is all anecdotal to my experience, but:
So, I experienced three stages with this game. The first couple runs where I was getting grips on the controls and systems, a plateau where nothing about my skills was improving, and the point where the whole thing finally "clicked". That middle plateau stage is where I normally bail in rogue-likes. I don't tend to find the main gameplay engaging or motivation enough to keep struggling and failing until I figure it out.
But here, even besides the dialogue system you mentioned, when I was getting frustrated by my lack of straight-forward progress, the resource system let me change my goal.
I was no longer trying to reach the end, I was trying to get as much of [x resource] as possible, and so I avoided the demoralizing feeling of failure when I couldn't get any farther. It was a brain break that also let me get better at combat in the background, because I still had to fight along the way.
The heat system was similar. As a mediocre player, I had no interest in upping the challenge for the sake of it. But I wanted those rare resources for the quests. And because I wasn't good enough to turn on very many challenges options, I HAD to switch weapons to have any chance at completing heat runs. Where from your perspective it could pin people to one weapon, for me it forced me to change things up.
I've seen Hades refered to as "the rogue-likes for people who don't like rogue-likes" and yeah. Yes. The mechanics you critiqued fix everything I find exhausting about rogue-likes.
That is to say, the dichotomy in your title is very accurate. Your reception of and experience with a lot of these mechanics is extremely affected by your skill level in, familiarity with, and opinion on rogue-likes.
Again, very engaging video! It game me a lot of food for thought. I knew why I liked the game, but I hadn't thought of those aspects from people that love true rogue-likes before.
Thank you for making that point so I didn't have to!
I disagree with the god like statement, my very first run I beat the game was because all I did was spam cast and everything would automatically die. I had to do nothing else. The only difference being the bosses where I’d still have to dodge attacks
That's not really in disagreement with anything I said though. That's just the game being too easy haha. Finding an OP build is not the same as feeling like you've broken the game with something outside the intended design space.
I think the idea of there not being a busted, OP build is a bit wrong. There are builds that can one-shot Hades phases, like Beowulf trippy shot or cluster rockets. And it takes a lot of rng for these to really feel powerful, but even if it's only once every 10 runs or even rarer, once you get to that point of killing everything in one shot, it really feels exactly like that "god amongst mortals" sensation you were describing.
Loved the video.
Glad you enjoyed the video! To be clear, I never said there aren't strong and weak builds. I explicitly agreed with that, in fact haha
Awesome video that balances the praise with mostly fair critiques! But man I cant help but feel like a few of the expectations were a little unrealistic. Hades has over 300,000 lines of unique dialogue which takes over 100 hours of gameplay to exhaust, and that's not enough?! But completely agree with the lack of implementation of new enemy types and checklists in favor of questlines!
I definitely wouldn't say there's not enough haha. I think the point is that there's so much that you take it for granted that it's always happening, so when it inevitably does run out, the feeling of emptiness is exacerbated in comparison to a game that never set up the expectation in the first place. Still far preferable to have tons than none, which is why I praise the game so much for that :)
I mean, I get some of the problems you have with the game, but I think that you're trying to base the game too much on needing to unlock everything at once for it to be fun. You made it seem that progressing through the game itself is a pain in the ass, when it's not.
You nailed it. Great review and analysis. I didn't really like Hades yet played it for 50+ hours and somehow found it fun. I couldn't explain some of my feelings and you made me realized some of the stuff that were wrong. (And the good too). Thank you !
Nice video man, you have some very interesting points. One thing I would like to say is that the game doesn't gets easier with meta progression because it has dynamic difficulty built into level generation. Some minibosses and buffed enemies only spawn if you have been doing good in previous runs or after some story beats. The game also can reduce the number of enemies if you are having a hard time.
I liked your point about how Hades can be a bad rougelike and still be a great game, my conclusion from it is that maybe rougelikes should be less like rouge and more like Hades. That may be too hot of a take tho
This was an extremely well put-together video! I loved your analysis on how Hades fits in to the roguelike genre, even if I didn’t agree with it all.😂 I look forward to what you put out next.
I love this video! You touched on all the important stuff I care about and had well thought out takes on each. I really sympathized with lots of the gripes like the pact encouraging 1 heat at a time or the fated list of prophecies not having things like “Deal 500 doom in a single hit” unlocked a new cool doom related ares boon. I also am so happy other people appreciate the amazing enemy design and game art/music/theme. I only have some small objections in truth.
I think you can feel like a god tbh. Merciful end builds with impending doom and athena dash feel insane especially if you get hermes extra dashes. Beowulf shield with aphrodite cast and mirage shot can just instantly make hades go invulnerable again with one bull rush. I also think the well of charon items can be nuts. Extra cast stone? That makes my crystal clarity build double in damage! 20% extra movement speed? Since movement speed is multiplicative if you have hyper sprint and rush delivery get ready to oneshot enemies and go zoom while doing it.
All in all, amazing piece of content - be proud of this
amazing video! I have been discussing about how good hades is with my friends as of lately and this video really helped to point out all the dislikable features of the game while also showing the undeniable good parts, but i couldn't help but notice that you don't have the repentance DLC in the binding of isaac and would like to recommend it to you, really changes a lot in the game and could change some comparisons that you made between the two. any way, great video, got a subscriber😁
Great explanation of why I really hate roguelikes but consider Hades the best and dearest to my heart game (now franchise) that I’ve ever played. It’s its own thing and doesn’t limit itself to how true it is to a genre.
Glad you liked the video! As for Hades, it's like I said in the intro... It's truly unique within the gaming landscape :)
Good point about the secrets. It really feels like there are none at all. Love hades but the paradoxical linearity with mini bosses sticks out as well.
Hades is an amazing game that hides its very real flaws behind its very real strengths. Whether or not it hides them well enough is up for discussion, but at the end of the day, the game is very clever about it at the end of the day.
My thoughts exactly!
Your commentary interspersed with the in-game dialogue is so fun!
Thank you! I think it's fun to have the characters make meta comments on themselves :)
I agree with a lot but I have a few key disagreements which i believe are the main arguments for it being the worst roguelike.
1 You say that there is a variance in build power but the lows arent as low and the highs arent as high in other roguelikes because of the design choice of allowing only 3ish gods. I will say that, there are some builds that are absolutely disgusting that you can feel unstoppable. Those runs don't happen super often unless you try to force the same build, but they can and do happen. I think that just because there is a somewhat forced level of synergy doesnt make it bad design choice. I think they do such a good job with synergy that most games just have never been able to reach. You can make the argument that allowing players to make the same/ similar builds is bad as they will usually choose the path of least resistance. I think that can be problematic, but i would argue that some players have fun doing the same run over and over and it isn't inherently bad to allow players to play the way they want. It takes a while to level the boons up enough and your mirror enough to be able to force the same run. By that timr i would argur you have probably already tried many different boon combinations that i dont think it is a bad thing to allow players to eventually choose the type of boons they would like especially as with higher heat you may feel like you need a really strong build to beat it.
2 You say that making players weaker is bad because it is less fun. I think the fun is accomplishing something harder. A lot of players don't like that strike style of play but i like that Hades allows players to choose their poison and for players that want to do less damage and still manage to win that could feel incredible to win knowing that you early on you couldn't complete it at full power.
3 I will also take one point of contention that the bosses in Hades do progress as you beat them. You will face different sisters as you get stronger and beat them over and over until you are facing all 3. Unless i am mis-remembering and the only way to change is through heat system but i believe they did get harder naturally the more they were beat.
4 A last small thing i think you missed mentioning is how good SGG is at the small details. I don't remember any from Hades at this point but in Hades 2 there is a possibility to increase our decrease your characters size and when you shrink your voice gets squeaky and if you grow bigger then your voice gets deeper. The next is a very slight spoiler, not exactly but if someone wants no details of any boss then it's a slight spoiler. The 2nd boss as you defeat the different band members then their part in the soundtrack goes out. Which is such a small detail but it makes complete sense and helps immersion. And they do this so often with so many things.
Anyways, thank you for a thoughtful video. I disagree some but i think you did a great job laying out a lot of what makes Hades great. It definitely has a few flaws but i think it's such a good game and you seem to also really like it but wanted to highlight what you see some players don't like.
Hi I found your critic quite interesting and thoughtfull. Especially about the lack of secrets and tasks, which I agree, unlocking stuff sometimes feels more like a chore. And i fully agree that the tasks or rewards sometimes fail to encourague the player to try fun and different than what they are used to. However I disagree with the asessment that there is not real variaety especially in playstyle and builds. And i hope it doesnt come as mean, but the discussion about god synergies and powers, and the believe that the charon consumables are worthless, makes me think that there is not as a great of a review in those aspects. Hades is the only roguelike I've played and only from seeing some gameplay from isaac for example, it is pretty clear that Hades does not have ways to make the game as wild and crazy. But there are defenitly some very quirky weird and overall different ways to beat the game. My easiesr example are the afk builds, but evert cast build, merciful end. Weapon aspects (another point where you mentioned the lack of variance) even apart of the legendary, unlock quite drastics ways to play the game. Only to mention the example that you brought up, sure all bow builds end up with u shooting the bow, but the gameplay loop of chiron and hera (not mentioning rama since you did said that secret weapons feel different) are vastly different, even within the same aspect but with other gods. My point is, I imagine that Hades doesn't have as many ways to breake the game as Isaac, but to say that it doesn't have any at all, is not a fair assesment in my opinion. You can watch creator that stucked with Hades like Haelian finding new and quite weird ways to beat the game till this day. But, i completly agree that that variaety comes from the active choices the player makes, and the game couldve implemented more ways to encourague it within the game itself and not have it be so community driven. Still I liked the points that you made and found the video to be really good.
Thank you for the praise!
To be clear, I do no think the game lacks variety. A large chunk of the video is explaining why Hades is perceived as having little variety despite having a lot, especially at the build level. That's why I spent so much time praising Hades's boon system and explaining why that puts it above and beyond other games. I think the boons are possibly the best version of upgrades in any roguelike I've played. The flaw is that the variety is all placed on the player side, and very little on the environment side.
The _player_ has a vast array of variety, however, what you encounter is markedly less variable.
An absolutely astounding video, completely encapsulating all of Hades virtues and pitfalls that even so come together to make an incredible game.
As someone who recently returned to Hades after a 2 year hiatus (a few runs after getting the 10 run ending) and finally "beat" it, I want to comment about 3 things:
1.- The heat system is definitely, I like that it encourages to use other weapons, but I really hate that in turn, we are pretty much forced to "Just add a level each run" to get the rewards necessary to advance the story/upgrade your gear, it should be possible to, lets say if you prove to be able to beat 9 heat, you should get all previous rewards by default, because "going down" to get them becomes boring pretty quickly.
Furthermore, although the"difficulty customization" is nice on paper, not every modifier is created equal, I actually found it easier to do a 10 heat run by just maxing the boss modifier than doing some 5-8 heats mismatching other modifiers.
I think it would have work a little better if, lets say, there instead were heat "presets" presented as challenge runs by hades in context, like "Heat 3, we are testing increasing the security by locking each section after a certain time, see if you can escape in the time limit" and it was a run with the time modifier and maybe the armors/life ones to fit the theme. This would make for some interesting combinations, it could work better as a "hard selection", and most importantly, the devs would have to make sure that each preset is beatable without the shenanigans of higher heats on normal play, and after you finish everything, then the "Custom run" mode unlocks, as more of a "fun reward that you can mess with".
2.- Unless I missed it on the video, there is a pretty bad issue with the game "Dialogue progression" that can become a game killer for some if you have bad luck:
Each run (if we take a run as both the underworld ascent and the conversation on the lounge that follows/precede it) you only get ONE dialogue per character, and the issue here is, the system that determines what that single dialogue will be since to be pretty messed up on its priorities.
If the dialogues were only "flavor text" there wouldn't be any issues, but a lot of characters have "story progression" that needs you to get a chain of specific dialogues, and depending how you play and how the system desires to treats you, you may spent dozens of runs without getting any of the important dialogues.
For example, to get the Epilogue, you need to raise most of the Olympian gods affection above the nectar lock point, to unlock that point some gods need those special interactions, and in my file, the game really fucked up some progressions.
Case in point, after 60 hours of gameplay, I still had to "hard reset" (aka, get killed as fast as posible) to get artemis dialogues (a god that 8 out of 10 times, if she appears on a run I would select her) a lot of times, the game infuriatingly refused to give me those Calisto dialogues.
Or lets say another example, I couldn't unlock Achiles sidequest until near my final hour on the game, even though I already got every other "Pardon sidequest" by the 40 hour mark, Achilles just has tons of dialogues in regards to your progression and everyone else, getting those Patroclus dialogues were a true pain for me
(I already wrote a lot, don't know if I was near the size limit, just in case I decided to Split the comment)
3.- Sadly, though the video Is amazing an you sir, just gained an instant sub, I have to strongly disagree with one of the core Thesis of this analysis: that roguelikes and roguelites are a "frivolous" distinction (not your words, but what I understood from that Little disclaimer at the middle)
I wholeheartedly agree that genres aré subject to a lot of changes depending on the developer without necesarily changing the genre (I mean, as far as I know we don't have single categories like "multiplejumpplatformer" to distinguish old Mario from Crash, or "BattlingRhythmGame" to distinguish Osu from something like Muse dash or theathrhythm, or to Fit with the video, we don't treat Isaac as anything but a roguelike, ecen though It isn't a turn base game like the old ones).
But in this specific case, what the internet has come to name "Roguelites" do play with the genre's, how do we call theme, atributes? Values? Spirit? Objectives?... Whatever It Is, in such a way that, though They come from the same origin, aré quite different in their own right to warrant the distinction.
Both genres in the end want to do different things and appeal mainly to different sectors of the market, what you expect
in a roguelike you will not find on a roguelite, and viceversa.
While watching the video, before and after the disclaimer, I couldn't help to feel a little annoyed when quite a few of the critics (definitely not all, roguelite or no Hades has issues beyond its genre cores) could be answered as "Because its not a roguelike, its a roguelite", ad nauseaum.
To do an example of related but different genres, once I saw a discussion regarding a new comer to Junji Ito works, the guy expressed how "dissapointed" he was Because he got recommended His works as "Terror manga", but he never got Scared, and then someone replied to him "Because Junji Ito's works arent Terror manga, They aré Horror manga" explaining that "Terror Is to induce fear, Horror Is about inducing strong emotions (like discomfort or unnease) by experiencing something frightening or unknown (so scaring you Is not exactly the goal, though It can happen)". After explaining that, the original poster understoods, and commented how in retrospective, he did felt those strong emotions and looking through that lens, he like the manga, but as he was expecting to get Scared, His first impression was just puré dissapointment. That experience taught me the importance of proper gente categorizing.
Anyway just wanted to get that out of my chest, loved the video nonetheless.
P.D.
And for some bonus comments, I would have loved if the bosses and mechanics unlocked worked as you say.
Before finishing my Old save file, I played a new one on the Switch to get the hang on on how to play again, and boy, the bosses got boring extremely fast after the first clears (and changing the fury sister or the hydra head later on wasn't enough), and I was surprised by how long It took to get the God Call (And if you want to count It, due to how the dialogue and the relationships work, you can finish the game and play a lot of runs on the "postgame" without never seeing a Cthonic summon, which feels pretty weird since It leaves a "useless" button for most of your playthrough (And can be a bit anxiety inducing if you checked the controller settings at the Start, saw there Is a Summon mechanic, AND never finding It).
Give Hades 2 a try. They've listened to feedback about a lot of this. I'm hoping they'll listen to accessibility feedback I gave them so more of us disabled people can play it too.
Yes. God mode is the way I am able to experience the game and just because it gives you a defense boost doesn't mean the game is going to be easier for it. Although again I am hoping they're able to improve on the system. Hopefully when Hades two is out of early access. In full disclosure I'm completely blind I play the game based on sound and positioning and a screen reader to choose bones
@@shaekelley6500 They need a lot more audio cues for sure but how're you liking the base layout? Heck of a lot easier to memorize a southeast line pretty much, eh? What's been your favorite weapon as a blind gamer? Being legally blind myself, the axe has been my favorite. That wiiiide sweep.
@@shaekelley6500 giving a generic defense boost you would not otherwise have by definition makes the game easier...
I have been playing isaac for over 500 hours now. And recently I have given hades a try. I love the narrative and the story especially the interactivity from characters however as a rogue-like it lacks. I have played more then a couple hundred of isaac runs I am on my 60th hades one and for now I still haven’t found all the aspects and didn’t talk to all my favourite characters, however I feel that after unlocking all the weapons Hades will just be stored on my steam library as a cool game that I will play once in 6 months at most.
O had a blast with it but because i dont think about the genres when playing, i just enjoy it or not, and hades i enjoyed a lot till heat 32 and everything unlocked so its a perma recommendation i make for people asking for good gamea
This was a really conprehesive video! I love Hades, its my favorite game ever as of right now, put 300+ hours into it. So it was bitter sweet taking a look at the mechanics negatively but i did end up agreeing with most things you said.
One exception i wanted to highlight is for me personally i love the straight forward map structure. Like yes it changes but i get the same bosses everytime which i like on a narrative (in Hades' case) and gameplay level. I love slay the spire for this reason too, different paths/ options but same end point per stage kinda thing (1 or 2 boss options for slay the spire case). Dead cells is a game i like but have a hard time getting into because of the different biomes. Like yes, it does tell you where it goes and you can have a few options but not all of them are available all the time so i think that RNG is not great personally. I also thought that rouge-likes and rouge-lites RNG exploration and trying to beat the game with what you are delt. Meanwhile map exploration tied with mechanics is more in line with a metroidvania.
Again, great video and analyze of Hades mechanics I never thought about!
Glad you liked it! I had a longer section about exploration where I talked about StS's map system and some related stuff, but cut that for time in the final draft. In short, I like StS's map structure and think it has some cool advantages. I think having a few bosses for each floor helps StS a lot (in addition to telling you at the start which boss it will be)!
@@OutOfNickels That's too bad about the StS comparison being cut. Hades and it have more in common than what I'd originally think. Makes sense why I love both then!
What do you think of god of war Ragnarok Valhalla? I thought of it when you where talking about the control Hades gives you with your builds.
Funny you mention that, I actually spoke about that in an older version of the script! I didn't play a lot of it, only 6 or so runs to complete the story of it, but (and I mean this only in a positive way) it really felt like the devs said "Let's make Hades but in our game."
You yourself said that you're very experienced in playing roguelikes, so I think you beating Hades before even meeting Thanatos is not a game issue, but a "you issue". Like most people wouldn't be able to pull that off. I wouldn't list something like that as one of the game's faults that you're - apparently - a uniquely skilled player. Some of your points, particularly about the heat systeam are from the pov of a very good gamer, and thus feel more subjective than objective.
Superb analysis. Not sure if you thoughts on whether the game feels over reliant on dodge as defense. Also when can we expect Hades 2 early access deep dive?? :)
Thank you! The dodge is a core gameplay mechanic; I've yet to hear any argument around this that doesn't sound like "Shooting guns is overpowered in Call of Duty compared to melee!" The game is designed around it, and it is fun to do. In my eyes, I see no problem there.
As for Hades 2, I think I would not make a video until after early access is over. These video take me several months to create, and by the time I put one out, my analysis could be entirely outdated. Plus I don't want to fully judge a game that is still in the testing phase.
@@OutOfNickels I understand on both points. Thank you!
I've heard this misconception about the bounties before. A lot of people told me playing Hades they thought they had to play each level of heat to get all the bounties, which you actually don't. If you havent cleared your Heat 1 bounties but play on Heat 20, you do still get the bounty credit for Heat 1 (and then you can also do that for each level after).
So the player does not have to grind out levels of heat to earn bounties. If they wish to, they can play on 32 heat for every bounty, assuming they win each time, and get their bounties that way if that's how they enjoy the game.
You are correct though that doing that does not merit any extra reward. You will still have to do 20 runs at all the heat minimums to clear the bounties. The game also doesn't make this very clear (hence the confusion) so I think critiquing it there is valid. But just an interesting note that the game doesnt actually force you to play at a level that you consider "too easy" to obtain rewards, though the game admittedly does not make that clear.
I think extra player influence is a great thing. You can choose to play hades like a true roguelike orrr more like an action rpg.
I know that sometimes when i play a roguelike i wish i could return to a standard build and just enjoy that a lil. Hades lets you enjoy the fun of mastering a fun build you like with minor variations to warm up. And then jump headfirst into something completely different.
The player chooses how roguelike hades is. And that means the most devicive/worst parts of the genre can be stepped over by peope if and when they like
Hades is one of my fave games, and a lot of the systems you criticized are part of why, but I think most of these critiques are totally fair and just represent different tastes/player approaches (hades was my first and still only rogue).
My one gripe is that I really disagree that the final aspects of the weapons are the only meaningfully different ones. A lot of these aspects fundamentally change the weapons in ways that especially change which boons synergize with them. In the bows for example, something like Dio’s special is terrible on zag bow because it’s spread makes it hard to stack things, whereas it’s one of the best builds in the game on Chiron bow, which is the only bow really built for fast boons and stacking. Hera bow completely changes the weapon to be cast-centric, which I think is especially important given how many players (myself included) I’ve heard overlook the cast in early game. I honestly had to google the final bow aspect for this comment because it’s the one I find the least interesting lmao. Similarly, zag shield is kind of the default. Chaos shield is great at hitting many enemies with slow attacks, which makes it a great doom weapon, whereas Zeus shield is kind of terrible for slow boon effects like doom but amazing with stacking and things like Zeus’ aoe (it was the only weapon deemed able to beat max heat, too).
I think the completely new moves the final aspects give might be more flashy and make the base weapon itself most different, but I’d honestly argue that in terms of synergy with the rest of the game, the middle two aspects often open up way more synergies for their respective bases than the final aspects do.
I hope that made sense! This was a great video! I really loved the interspersed dialogue from the game!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
It seems many people have brought up the weapon aspects, which is interesting as I quite like them and only barely mentioned a minor gripe about them, so I'm not sure how this is being perceived that way haha. But if that one small thing is all that people disagree with then I'm very happy to hear it :)
hades 2 has a lot of the things that hades misses like longer routes and you can go up or down and i think that later it will get even better
I mean it took most people like 20 hours to max out Hades 2 (besides fear runs or something). Not saying it is bad but that is very little content for a rouge like.
@@alkair422I feel like Hades 2 could be just a DLC if the early access was released by the time the first game rocketed. And I do expect at least 60% more content on Hades 2 because as for the early access, it's just Hades 1 with different things and a tiny bit of new things. Not the entire sequel (yet)
as someone who thought hades was kinda bad (mostly due to the metaprogression), you do make a damn good case, especially the boon system which yeah, in retrospect it's pretty good.
i personally didn't mind the game's consistency, people say that run variety is important, but i feel like resource build up and some rewards for mastery can go a long way to make the game TRULY replayable. not that hades has good rewards from mastery anyway.. yeah i still think hades is bad but you argue for your point well. great stuff.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, and happy I could provide a compelling alternative perspective!
To me the different in my mindset happened when I realised that it wasn't the Rogue-lite gameplay that was the focus of the game, but the Narrative gameplay.
Which I just fell in love with
@@natanoj16
That killed the game for me
I am the type of person that always puts gameplay above history, most of the times I just wished that there was an option to completely skip every dialogue in hades, it just felt like it kept interrupting gameplay, which, comparing to other roguelites, is lacking is some parts
I guess that is way I like Dead Cells so much lol
The audio seems really low but great video
I'm positive that Hypnos isn't mocking you. He's like autistic coded and is just stating what Zagreus actually looks like. He actually feels for zag when he says something is too bad.
That's an interesting thought, and very well could be true! Thank you for sharing
24:48 have you tried cluster bomb + rocket bomb on the rail or flurry slash + cursed slash on the sword? The first gives you a rocket launcher shotgun that can melt any enemy in seconds and the second gives you a rapid hit attack that heals on every hit letting you face tank bosses.
Oh wow! Being able to reach the true ending before unlocking everything xD
Yea that is a skill issue (But the opposite way of normal!) I am impressed. Don't know anyone who had that happen to them :)
the character rooms offer less powerful rewards than boons? They are different and I guess that makes sense for sisyphus, but I would argue about the other two. Restoring death defiances is situationally the most powerful offer in the game.
I agree with most of this, you make some great points about the fact that the game tends to discourage you from using its variety, I felt that too at times but couldn't quite put a pin on it. But I will say I was really surprised about what you said about the weapon aspects - the vast majority of them are interesting and different from each other, not just the last hidden aspect as you say, and you didn't really explain your reasons for that, so I'd be genuinely curious to know.
I threw it in the grab bag section because it's not that big of a deal. I'm more just noting that the final aspects are major changes, feeling like almost different weapons, whereas the other aspects are just a slight tweak to one move. It kind of encourages focusing on only using the one thing that's changed instead of using the full weapon and it's not bad, but it's a bit weird.
@@OutOfNickels Agree. I wish all the aspects were as unique as the Secret Aspect.
My main critique of Hades is that there is only one path through the game. You should be able to take a second path so that you can argument your builds weaknesses with a path.
But there are plenty of god runs in Hades. I don't know what you're talking about.
It isn't always duo boons too. Like i love a full dot build with Poseidon dot, demeter dot, and then zeus, ares, or dionysus for another dot. I end up with 500 extra damage after a single hit. Then i keep rotating to keep the buffs up.
There's also that sword boon where you stack gold for ridiculous damage, and then you get crit going too.
Then there's the dodge stuff with hermes trinket where you get 75% dodge and then figure out damage.
You can even run without boons, and stack other things with sysiphus trinket.
You can run just ares curse of pain with persephone trinket and keep selling off your other boons so curse of pain levels super high.
You can actually do a lot of interesting things that definitely make you feel like a god.
I think it's actually really interesting to figure out how to build something you dislike into a god build.
Okay, ive put in tons of hours and I dont think ive ever run in to Demeter a single time 💀
She only appears once you've reached Hades for the first time.
As they said, once you reach the final boss (not necesarily beat It) Deméter Is forced to appear as the first boon in the run
It's one of the best, but it's 1 fatal flaw is the heat system. There's no max difficulty to work up to and beat, the difficulty just goes up to the point of literally having an actual impossible difficulty, which is terrible game design, and demotivates continued play (which is the exact opposite of what a roguelike and the heat system is meant to do). Unfortunately, Hades 2 will have this same fatal flaw, but I'm sure it'll be just as good otherwise
I personally needa disagree with you here, I really like the heat system myself. Usually games that have adjustable difficulty just pump up enemy stats or throw more at you. The heat system not only lets you choose how hard you want a run to be, but lets you alter what aspects specifically are more difficult, you can forgoe enemy buffs entirely and give yourself a time limit, or boost specific bosses, and combining different pacts lets you have your own difficulty exactly how you want it. It lets the player control exactly how hard they want their own run to be, and exactly what is hard about it
64 heat has been beaten, just cause its impossible for mere scrubs like you and me doesn't mean its not beatable...
@@aspreedacorejust because someone wins the lottery does not mean you should also try
@@gabriellemos2491 winning the lottery is luck based not skill based, fail analogy
@@aspreedacore I sure love getting the sack only at the last door lol, 64 is completely luck based, no amount of skill will win the run for you without luck
I wish It had a weapon combo enhancement tied to the weapon upgrades
>plays slay the spire
>talks about “going infinite” in Isaac
>”the Timmys of the world”
I see you
🤫
Great editing adding in all the quotes!!
Caling it worst roguelike in any way is luffy kind of stretch. Yeah i agree with most things you said especially dialogue being weirdly pace, introducing mechanics etc... tho it has so many flaws on its own. It's still one of the best games (mostly among story driven games). And i think its negatives and positives what really makes it unique in its own way.
I've had 40 runs on hades and haven't beaten the 'casual final boss' even once.
Not having FTL in the great category is wild
there are definitely ways to break the game by stacking buffs and you can get up to 3000-4000 damage per special (which is enough to one shot anyone or any boss fase)
I feel like with roguelikes, content has way more weight than art, story, or witty voice lines. Especially content that adds more difficulty after your first win should be balanced accordingly. So I would never say Hades is the best Roguelike, it's probably the best at all the things that don't matter for the people that will invest 100+ or even 500+ hours.
The heat system is extremely lackluster, and just shows that it wasn't thought out properly. Why does the maximum possible difficulty need to be grinded out with one specific build with one specific boon rarity to even have a floating chance of beating it? At that point it no longer becomes a challenge of player skill, even though it's still necessary to have. But even the most skilled player in the world would still need a very specific loadout and rooms. Many other Roguelikes still have a balanced "final" difficulty, because it was always intended to be beatable. My best example for that would probably be Dead Cells, where literally every weapon (out of the 100+) and skill can beat 5BC (the final difficulty) if you're just good enough. While there are some balance issues there in other ways, player skill is still the most important thing to clear a run, which for Hades stops 2/3rds of the way through Heat.
The Aspect system is interesting, and I like the variety within a weapon, but the unlock system for them is ridiculous. Worst example in my opinion in the Chaos Shield or Hestia Rail - you unlock the weapon and the base level introduces the gimmick, but it needs to be fully upgraded to actually do the gimmick itself well? Other aspects like the Nemesis Sword already work well on base level, because the gimmick isn't tied to base damage or projectile amount.
Never before have I found a comment I agree this much lol
The problem is that you're trying to compare 64 heat to something like eclipse 8 from RoR2 or Ascension 20 from StS, when they're not really the same thing. Those systems progress very linearly to a final point that they stop at, and are very much designed to be played at the first step, the last step, and every step in between. Hades' Heat system is a completely different thing because it lets you fine tune how the difficulty increases to suit whatever pleases you the most. It would be like if Slay the Spire let you pick and choose precisely which Ascension effects you wanted to apply to a run, but there were also 20 more Ascension effects to choose from.
Even if you're a completionist, the game only ever asks you to beat 32 heat, and that's just to unlock a cosmetic statue that the game itself lampshades is for pure vanity. You get the last gameplay benefit from the bounties at 20 heat (25 heat on Hell mode). Sure, 64 Heat is practically unbeatable. But 32 Heat really isn't. Just because the game gives you a bunch of sliders, doesn't mean that setting them all to the most extreme settings will be a fun time. The game literally gives you full control to find what's most fun for you. If that's bashing your head against 64 Heat, cool. If you don't find that fun, good news, there's literally no reason to do it.
I bought slay the spire ! Its good 😊
One of the best!
What is the best supergiant game then ?
24:30 tell me you never got Athena + Ares murder boon fest or dyionesus being himself
i thought this just a bad video and wanted to give a dislike and leave (cuz hades is my fav game) but damn not even a single dislike! I'm going to back to watch the video because it looks like it's a hella of video
Thank you for giving it the chance. I'm curious why you would think this would be negative though? Hades is one of my favorite games of all time, and I made this video explicitly to talk about what makes it so good.
@@OutOfNickels I don’t know because in the title it says “the worst” so I thought you don’t like it also
Ah, okay, I see how it could be read that way. Thanks for explaining!
@@OutOfNickels np!
yesssss new Out of Nickels video let’s gooooooo!!!!!!!
I don't get this game.
It was superb, until Heat becomes a requirement. I'm at a point of like 5 heat or so and, UNLESS I finish the run and lol Hades, I get no new dialogue and feels like all progression is stopped. I can't always beat Hades, no matter the weapon, which is why I stopped playing cause I get no new Ambrosia to further friendships and the main story doesn't progress cause I can barely beat Hades.
It was a great game until then. Am at 40hrs playtime, not much I know, but it gets really frustrating when before, each single death moved things forward and now no death moves anything forward.
And I can't unlock new weapon aspects because all the new titan blood drops are locked behind Hades, all the earlier bosses (or most of them) I've cleared.
The fuk am I doing wrong 🥴
not to be that guy but defs sounds like a skill issue.
try different builds with the mirror, different strategies, builds etc. a part of it does come down to rng of getting the right boons and stuff, but theres so much broken stuff it shouldnt be hard.
also doing just like 5-6 heat on each weapon is still tons of ambrosia
While I understand, that the lack of interesting rewards can make the achievements feel pointless, I actually like that no major game elements like extra boons are unlocked by their completion, because you can ignore them, without missing much of the game. With other games, especially Issac, I often feel forced to play characters I don't really enjoy playing (like Jakob & Esau) just because they have a bunch of cool items locked behind them. This creates these runs where you don't really have a lot of fun and just want to win as quickly as possible so you where I don't really enjoy myself and just want to win as quickly as possible, so I can go back to playing something I actually enjoy. If you don't like one specific weapon in hades you can just ignore it without feeling like missing much of the game because of it. Maybe the perfect middle ground would be if minor things like the trinket upgrades would be unlocked by achievements, or for bigger things like extra boons if they would also give the possibility to also buy it with gems or something. That's of course only my opinion and I understand that others enjoy the incentive to play something you normally wouldn't.
I know breaking the game is fairly common in roguelikes, but I wouldn't say its a letdown to not have it be possible, and plenty of roguelikes stay more linear in power progression in that way. Crypt of the Necrodancer doesn't really feature breaking the game, for instance.
It definitely is a bad roguelike, because it's a roguelite, not a roguelike, DUH
Second best game, next to Hades 2
"Hades will not let you become truly godlike" this is very silly . . . are you playing on 20+ heat every run??? game is VERY cheesy on zero heat or even EM2.
it is true though. Comparing to other rouge likes you don't get too strong in Hades 1 or 2. There are no insane game breaking combos and everything is relative grounded.
I kinda disagree with the problems you brought up about the Heat system.
Sure, the game makes remarks about overhearing a run, but you can just choose to ignore it. 3 heat is too easy for you? You can crank it up to 16 immediately and keep playing at 16, getting the rewards all the same.
You don’t have to slow it down. You won’t get the rewards for all the heat you skipped immediately, but its also not necessary. You are going to play it multiple times anyway. The rewards will keep coming
The only thing I’d partially agree is that adjusting the conditions for each weapon before each run can feel like a chore.
It would feel better if each weapon saved their heat preset individually and change automatically so you wouldn’t need to do it everytime
Your video is great. Hades is the best for newbies jump into genre. But the gameplay has nothing special for exquisite roguelike players.
Your supposed 'issues' with the game make little to no sense to me lol. Good video nonetheless.
If hades didn’t have god mode and the dark mirror, I never would have bought it
fucking AWSOME video
Another point for why Hades is bad as a roguelite is that too much of the power you get is tied to the metaprogression and not enough of the power you get is obtained mid-run. I honestly feel Hades would be slightly better if the god-specific boons were solely for increasing rarity and couldn't be used to brute force builds. Not helping matters is how long it takes to get through the metaprogression...Crypt of the Necrodancer already solved the "Not everyone likes doing metaprogression" by having an entire mode where everythings unlocked, being the All Zones mode, and some more recent roguelites have even just given us a toggle for it.
There also isn't *that much* variety between builds. A lot of the status gods play pretty much identically. Yeah, you're working with different statuses and those statuses may interact with things differently, but they don't change how you, the player, end up playing. The lack of variety is then compounded by the rather terrible balance for boons. Zeus is well known for being one of the best gods, and there's only a handful of boons worth putting on the dash slot.
Honestly hades is a game of made on trade of because everything that is lesser in hades than other rougelites hades does way fucking better than others perfect example can be seen with the bosses being the same with only slight deviation allowing for more interaction and story with the only part I dislike is some off the pact of punishment restrictions because fuck any difficulty increase that just takes opinions from the player
Imho, I don't think that a lack of obscure objectives to unlock everything is a bad thing. I think gating unlocks behind some stupid bullshit a player would never want to do of their own volition is actually quite detrimental to ones motivation to play. A perfect example of this is the crystal ship in FTL. I've heen playing that game on and off for like, a decade. I have never been presented the conditions for it's unlock. I have every other ship unlocked. It has single-handedly made me put the game down on several occasions. Another game that does this is risk of rain. The game starts in a less fun, harder to win state. Given most players will have interacted with some kind of content surrounding the game before picking it up, it can be jarring to not have everything unlocked from jump. It can be demotivating to have to accomplish some stupid task just because you want to unlock some of the best items in the game. Notable is the 57 leaf clover. Looping is boring as shit. Unlocking it forces me to complete at least 4 loops. I hate that. I wish fewer roguelites would do this nonsense. It's why I love hades so much. It's very straightforward, has very straightforward objectives and is almost entirely dependent on your own skill rather than the whims of rng.
hades is the best
First of all, rogueLITE. Hades is max 7. Gameplay always same, levels always same
great video so far but please stop with the in game dialouge in between yours. it is weird and probably took forever to actually make
"Less useful rewards than another boon" WHAT?
GOOD SIR ARE YOU FEELING ALRIGHT?
Please invest in some better audio equipment when you can. This subject matter is interesting to me, but I'm not going to listen to an hour of what sounds like mumbling.
I think this may be on your speakers end? I use an Electro-Voice RE20 which is a pretty standard mic, and the audio quality seems fine when I play it on multiple devices. Or perhaps you might accidentally have your audio software profiling for a different type of balance.
Exact same problem, listening via airpods that i’ve been using for every other video perfectly fine
Hmm... That's frustrating. It sounds perfectly clear on the three different devices that I just tested, so I don't know how to help you :(
@@OutOfNickels It sounds good to me, maybe a bit quiet but I just turned the volume up a little and there's no issues
@@OutOfNickels I agree with the @JohnTheBarber. It sounds fine to me, just a little on the quiet side