What Did We Play Yesterday?

It feels weird to have so few video game posts this year, so... here's more Hades.

I wasn't sure how long I'd play this one. I played a few quality roguelikes this year (Dead Cells, Undermine) and got tired of the loop/grind after several hours. This was especially disheartening with Undermine, since by all appearances it should be a game I really get into. I liked the art and premise, but felt it was ultimately a bit too grindy with not enough progress between runs. I'll probably pick it up for Switch eventually because I think my kid will get into it, but I've read a few arguments that Hades is a fundamentally a better roguelike than Dead Cells and, considering my own experience, I'm inclined to agree. I don't think Dead Cells would keep my interest at this stage.

For Hades, I think the two things that keep me coming back are a clear sense of progression and the character stories that are unfolding. There are a lot of things to unlock and upgrade as you go along, so most runs I have something to show for it, and here lately my runs have been exponentially more productive in terms of loot so it feels less grindy that it probably should.

The game loop does feel a little long when I'm tired, and I wish there was a way to save between levels (and understand why there isn't), but I am definitely improving and getting faster. I got to the Temple of Styx, which is the last biome, yesterday.

I glanced at Steam cheeves just now, and the rarest cheevs are at 6% which is pretty amazing considering they are completionist cheeves. (16% fully unlock Olympian codex, which is just... wow! That's engagement.) 50% clear one escape attempt. So I think it's safe to say people who Like Hades really like Hades, and compared to stats I have reviewed in the past, most players Like Hades.

Also, aside. A few weeks ago I visited AO3 just to see what the top pairings were. I guessed it would be Dionysus/Zagreus (entirely based on a Tumblr meme where Dionysus says "nice cock"), but I discovered it was Zagreus/Thanatos by a landslide (1200 fics, the next most popular pairing was 350). I got confused and thought Thanatos was Zagreus' brother and I was like... well I mean they're Greek Gods or whatever they're not like... brother-brother...

Having finally met Thanatos like twice, I uhhhh get it? And I know Thanatos' brother is actually Hypnos. But I still have Zagreus/Hot Brother stuck in my head now, so Zagreus/Thanatos has this delicious whiff of scandal in my mind. I know incest isn't really a thing amongst Olympians, they're all related and they all uhhh turn into birds to fuck each other and make more Olympians, which sprout out of their heads and thighs and stuff? I think that's what Edith Hamilton said anyway the point is when the hot brothers fuck I wanna be there. Be there for that experience. You know in a scholarly way.

I'm a stage in my gaming life where I get cyclical genre fatigue, usually for years at a time. So I've dragged my heels to play Award-Winning Best Roguelike Ever, Hades, because I knew full well I would have loved this game at the height of my roguelike passion in 2018, but at Renegade Industries in the Year of Our Lord 2021 the sun is setting on roguelikes (and platformers and metroidvanias) as action RPGs rise back into fashion. I didn't want to play Hades and hate it, because I'm in a lull in my gaming life generally and don't want to completely kill my passion for my hobby.

Hades promises two things I actively dislike: being hard and dying a lot. The entire game hinges on being hard and the player dying a lot.

But Hades has a care. With each death, a bit more of the story unfolds. With each run, gifts are found and given, friends are made, the Prince's home is explored, and the game opens up. Permanent stat increases, unlocked weapons, and artifacts give new edges and allow a sense of progression.

And you start to grok it. My aging gamer brain is slowly but surely remembering which buttons to mash, in what order, as I mindlessly sledgehammer my way through Tartarus. The power synergies are starting to click. Strategies are coming to me more easily.

Redditors chattering about how a 10-minute run is doable honestly blow my mind, but either through persistence or skill, one surely gets there. Persistent upgrades make it so. And while it's true persistent upgrades are a slight against genre purity, that is something that makes these games accessible to a much broader audience and probably the only thing that can make any given roguelike tolerable to me at the moment.

Having played 540-something games in my life, I don't give a damn about what a proper game is. Genre purity is for boring people.

These days I overwhelmingly enjoy fun things, weird things, experimental things. Hades is neither weird nor experimental, but it is actually becoming pretty fun, and I have not played a roguelike that parcels out a storyline in this manner. The characters are hot cool. The voice acting is great. The graphics are great, the music is great, etc. I'm not fully convinced Hades is a roguelike for people who hate roguelikes, there are many salient reasons to hate a randomized game loop, but if you're willing to tolerate the loop there's great potential for fun.

Aside: the second-hand market for physical Nintendo Switch games continues to amaze. I attempted to buy this game secondhand on eBay and when the final bid went up to $47 shipped (?), I simply traipsed down to the local Target and picked up a new copy for about $30 after tax with the knowledge that if I got bored of it, I could flip it and break even somehow. I've accumulated a stack of physical Switch games not because I prefer them, but because I can sell them and mostly break even. My biggest regret-purchase on the Switch was the digital version of Animal Crossing for some ungodly price (I think $60?), because I got bored of it relatively quickly and now it just sits there like a lump in my archive.