This sounds very similar to my experience. Except beating Theseus was more like three dozen deaths… Only made me hate that dick even more.
Hahaha, the more anyone tries to convince me to give it a try, the more I’m sold on it not being for me. I mean, thanks again for the extra reinforcement. I have a massive backlog anyway, this just hit my radar recently is all.
I’ll slowly back away now.
I loved this game enough to wear out the B button on one of my controllers.
I am not twitchy at all and I absolutely loved Hades. But I played on easy mode. I highly recommend it (both the game and easy mode).
I’m not twitchy anymore either… And I adore the game.
I love how crazy the builds can get as you unlock more weapons and abilities, then later in the boons…
That being said, I’m still a sucker for gloves, Zeus, and Athena/Poseidon
Might be closer to reality. Although after I beat them a couple times I pretty much always win. Even when fighting the upgraded versions. I sometimes even took out Theseus first although it’s rare. I still may lose a Death Defiance to them though which is very bad. Need all of them for Hades.
I re-installed Hades the other day, a game that I never got to play a lot when it launched (I think I played 35 hours?). The first two runs served me to remember how good it is: the art is distinctive, sharp and colorful, the voice acting is consistently great, the incidental writing is good, the movement is snappy and the enemies have correct tells, the dual mirror upgrades, the curses and the heat system are ingenious…
But a few more runs, and it starting to solidify my opinion that isn’t as shiny at it seems. In fact, I’m now remembering why I stopped playing.
-The fourth region sucks. Plain sucks. Small rooms where I basically spam both my attacks and the dash constantly.
-I dislike the boss fight on the third area a lot (I don’t have an issue with the other three).
-Even taking in account the weapons variations and the god’s favors, I still feel the game needed 1 or 2 more weapons (with their alternative forms).
-in general, when the game tries to be hard (some elite enemies, the latter half of the third area) it makes enemies very tanky, making the combat feels like grind to deplete their health.
-Speaking of grind, it can get fairly grindy to unlock and level up all the weapons.
Yeah, those poison rat tunnels is the one part of the game I really dislike. Because of the poison mechanic. It’s just crazy damage, and you gotta frob some shit. Fuck this!
An otherwise good run dies there because I’ll take extra damage/lives and then won’t be able to beat the final boss.
I tailored much of my builds to beating the fourth region. It’s been a while, but I think ice wine was one of my favorites, or anything that was fire and forget. Fire/dash/fire/dash took care of the first part. The later rooms were better in that there was more room to move, even if there was that stupid poison.
I imagine some builds get ruined by those levels. Of course, then you need to actually fight Hades, so if you don’t have any good tools for that you’re screwed. I never got a life steal build to work with the Hades fight, but it was amazing for those poison rooms.
Once you’ve been through all the zones you know what’s coming and can make sure your build has some ability to deal with each one. Maybe that prevents people from creating the perfect whatever build, but there is already a bunch of randomness in what you’ll unlock each run anyway I don’t know how a perfect build can ever be managed. Part of what made the game great, every run forces you to be adaptive in how you build.
Yeah, totally agree.
Still never got a lifesteal build through the finish, though. I get why people call it a “noob trap”, as it’s so good until it isn’t.
I’ve never successfully beaten the third area, so all this talk is making me want to try again. I want to be beaten down in the fourth area like everyone else! :)
It’s probably worth turning on the “God Mode” (which only makes the game a little less hard) so you get to see some more of the game. Hades is the rare action game that has a good story that’s worth seeing.
I got back into this in March after not touching it for 2.5 years. When it came out I burned up 200+ hours then shut it down. So now it’s been an every day thing for a month straight, on my original save (after ten hours on a new save to refresh), to try and grind all the renovations, weapon upgrades, and the last statue. It ain’t gonna happen lol. Hades 2 will be out beforehand.
My weapon of choice in the mid-teens of Heat has been the spear with the Aspect of Hades. And I’ve had pretty great success running the Hermes keepsake all the way through. It really helps to have a 1 in 4 dodge chance and +25% speed on level 4.
This. Do it. I love it so much.
Wait a minute, is this supposed to entice me to actually use God Mode? Are you sure it only makes the game a little less hard? I thought the way it worked is that the more I lose (which is a lot), the easier it gets?
i think it’s 20% less damage, and then it goes on increasing by 2% for every failed run (22, 24, 26%, up to 80%).
100%. I avoided God Mode for a long time because I wanted the “authentic” difficulty curve, and wish I’d enabled it sooner. It’ll gradually meet you halfway as you finish the first few times, and then you’ll have the muscle memory to turn it off if desired.
God Mode is the #1 reason why this game is one of the best. I can’t play these kinds of games really. This let me. Which was great, because it was worth it for the music and voice acting.
And it still wasn’t easy mode - it uh… leveled itself up a few times before I escaped.
The best part for me was that it progressively makes things just a tiny bit easier with each defeat. So if you aren’t great at this sort of game, it still feels hard just as you said. But you do improve over time regardless, and it helps accelerate the progression by incrementally bumping up the damage resistance. It doesn’t feel like you are playing the dumbed down version of the game to me. It let me experience the game at my own skill level, feel challenged, and feel rewarded when I put a good build together.