Hades is one of the most highly rated Action Roguelike / Roguelite games of all time. In this video, I explain some of the key issues in the game that we don’t want to see in Hades 2.
About the game:
Hades is a god-like rogue-like dungeon crawler that combines the best aspects of Supergiant’s critically acclaimed titles, including the fast-paced action of Bastion, the rich atmosphere and depth of Transistor, and the character-driven storytelling of Pyre.
BATTLE OUT OF HELL
As the immortal Prince of the Underworld, you’ll wield the powers and mythic weapons of Olympus to break free from the clutches of the god of the dead himself, while growing stronger and unraveling more of the story with each unique escape attempt.
UNLEASH THE FURY OF OLYMPUS
The Olympians have your back! Meet Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and many more, and choose from their dozens of powerful Boons that enhance your abilities. There are thousands of viable character builds to discover as you go.
Credit to Baj for the 64 Heat segment
#hades #zagreus #hadesgame
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If Hades 2 has anything close to Satyr Sack I'm gonna scream 😡
to be honest, i play Hades on stream occasionally and never used the Mirror cause it makes the game too easy, might be just me..
I think 1 huge issue with Hades is unlocking the aspects for the weapons. It takes a ridiculous amount of grinding if you aren’t great at the game to get enough titan blood. It almost feels like a punishment.
I think Supergiant with Hades wants a more accessible game, a game more people would like compared to other roguelites like Dead Cells.
While Dead Cells has a better gameplay loop, most people who aren't into the gameplay that much will get bored of it fairly quickly. Like me and a couple of friends did, I went to 2BC or so I think, and then I grew bored of it, never bothered to finish it because each run felt like a chore.
Hades on the other hand has a well made over all experience, and the investment in the characters lead to a higher retention in player base.
While meta things in Hades are easy to find, a lot of the time people who play it for anything more than the main story start experimenting a lot more. For example: Poseidon with Gloves might seem weird, but with it you can dash around knocking people around and into traps, or you can run the Talos Gauntlets with the magnetic pull. In a lot of roguelites you optimize for high dps or faster clears, while in Hades with its easier and simpler systems you get to play around for fun.
I get your points, but I feel some of them would make Hades a tad more complicated and imo it would be to the detriment of the market that Supergiant is aiming towards with the series.
I've tried getting into Hades so many times but I just can't. It's a really cool game but it just doesn't click with me like dead cells does. I can't put my finger on it. Anyone else feel the same?
The first 30 hours of the game I still remember to be legendary, but I don't feel like I can play this game again. I feel like I have three main problems:
There's way too much dictation in runs. The way I beat heat 16 was just spamming the same build until it worked, and nearly got the same boon combo of 5 to 6 boons each time.
Then the mix of ranged and melee weapons feels like it creates a massive imbalance in gameplay between the choices, especially with how experimental variants become. The only reason I was spamming the same build was because of the weapon imbalance, as quite a few didn't feel viable at only heat 16.
And then the heat ramps up way too much 16 on. I just dropped the game after it because I lost all enjoyment, especially once I got through all the dialog. It felt as if there weren't enough choices that were viable to make a truly customised experience in higher heats.
This game is by far the best introduction into the genre I can think of. If somebody was new to the genre I would instantly recommend this game. Its just a shame it couldn't pull through with more long term gameplay factors that roguelikes/lites are known for.
I think an interesting comparison to make with heat and its effects on balance is comparing Diablo 2 vs Diablo 3. A common criticism of Diablo 3 by a lot of fans of 2 was a lack of build diversity, but when you really break it down that's not actually true at all. The main difference between Diablo 2 and 3 is that DIablo 3 has rifts, a system that (like heat) no one was really expected to reach the cap (until much later updates). The result of this is that what made a build viable shifted from just being able to clear all the content to how high it can get in rifts, meaning builds could be more directly compared. So this is where the perception issue comes in, when people talk about build diversity in Diablo 2 it doesn't take too long for someone to mention melee sorc even though it's a trash fire meme build, but since it can clear all single player content it's considered by some to be viable where a similar meme build in DIablo 3 might struggle to get past GR25 making it abundantly clear how bad it is.
Which is in part what I think is happening here. It's not that Hades is particularly less balanced than other roguelites, it's that high heat makes the difference in power level between options much more apparent. And I'd say this is a proper issue with how heat works because discussions about balance are very heavily influenced by perception. Sorry for the length of the comment, just wanted to give full context for the comparison.
My problem with Hades is that you can only have so much Heat before adding any more stops adding elements to the run, and starts taking away your hard-earned stuff.
I spent the whole game grinding for these mirror upgrades and the whole run putting together this build, but the only way I can make the game harder after all the cool Heat options are maxed out is to sacrifice those things that make the game fun and the difficulty fair.
Compare that to Dead Cells, where each Boss Cell comes with a hefty boost in difficulty, but also gives you more tools to overcome the new challenge, not less. That's way more fun than losing my boons and upgrades, and even provides material incentive to play on the highest difficulties.
Hopefully, Supergiant took notes.
I disagree about meta progression completely. The way they did it doesn't encourage failure of a run, it encourages you to not min/max literally everything. It asks the player how much they are willing to set aside their broken shit in order to move forward.
Quite frankly I think you are looking at it the wrong way. If the gameplay was uninteresting it might be a problem, but as is I think the way they did it is superior to the way you suggest they do it.
When you finish a run you feel like that's enough. It gets boring quick
Seems like a fair and constructive criticism. I hope Hades II lives up to expectations
You don't always take Athena keepsake because for some aspects, other specific early game boons are way more important than a reflecting dash. Every aspect in the game targets very different boons so there's a lot of variety if you try to finish with all aspects.
I feel Hades suffers from not much patches and such, causing it to age sort of poorly compared to games that are still evolving like Dead Cells. As such, the bar is going to be higher for the sequel. It's also going to have to contend with 'popular image' or legend of the original.
My biggest thing with Hades is how much you have to dig under the hood and figure out how the RNG system actually works, and manipulate it to your advantage.
Like in runs you’ll only have about 4 gods show up at any time, but the game never explains this.
Please do Everything wrong with Dead Cells next!😁
I wish Hades had dlc for alternative routes or extra zones. Only 4 zones feel a bit too repetitive after a while.
The biggest advantage Hades has over dead cells is an actually story. I find the story important and impactful and it makes you want to play the game for more than just the gameplay.
I also find the 4 levels restrictive in Hades whereas in Dead Cells you have a lot more options. I hope Hades 2 has more level options so we don't get bored of the same levels over and over.
I absolutely agree with all of these though for some reason, I usually get the sack by the second or third rooms and I have no idea how
excellent crits , concise and specific actionable items
Another thing that I find disappointing with Hades is the boss variety. In most roguelikes you have a random set of bosses that you can find at the end of a stage or you can pick one of multiple bosses – or at the very least their arenas or something else about them changes from run to run. While the pact system does give a stronger version of the bosses, eventually you will just fight the same boss for 100 hours as there's no reason to turn that pact off, and there's only so many times one can kill the same hydra in the same lava arena.
I feel this has started becoming somewhat of a trend in recent roguelikes, where the devs saw how successful hades was and so collectively decided that fighting the same boss every single run is just good enough for players now (Revita, Deflector, Darkest Dungeon 2, Ember Knights, Deadlink etc). It really pains me to see games with Hades boss variety as they will inevitably get boring tens of hours sooner than if the developers went the extra mile.
good video but if i may if you want to make more of that format you'll need a better focus or upgrade the cam quality it's a bit blurry when you're on full screen
Nice video Vee. You seem really comfortable in this format.
Algorithms
Well said Vee! Hope to see more vids like this from you <3
As a new player of hades who has only beaten the game once in my first ~12 hours. Number one is so true. I feel like this game is at the very edge of being a roguelikes because sometime I felt like I was grinding. Which is NOT sth you should feel while playing a roguelike
Wow nice…I was here when you had 5k subs…now 33!! 🎉