Games for Busy People | Fight, Die, Repeat in Hades

In “Taking it Offline” I recommend video games for the individuals with busy lives — professionals, moms, dads, and everyone else. Subscribe and I’ll find your next game, so that you can spend more time playing, less time searching.

This video series is for the people who don’t have time to sort through the throngs of new video games that come to Steam, Epic, and other services. If you love to game, but don’t want to spend time and energy finding a game that fits your style, then you’ve come to the right place. Every Friday, I recommend a game that fits into the life of busy people. Whether your time is limited by business trips, child care, or just the drudgery of daily life, I take the guesswork out so that you don’t waste your precious time or money finding the next video game for your collection.

Hades is an impressive take on the rogue-like genre that sees you ascend from the Greek underworld. In it, you’ll play as Zagreus — the prince of the underworld — as he tries to ascend through the various unique realms of the Greek H-e-double hockey sticks to find his mother. Standing in Zagreus’s way, however, is a whole cast of underworld obstacles like pits of lava, spike traps and exploding eggs as well as various mythological characters and creatures like skeletons, chariots, and the Furies themselves.

Hades is composed of self-contained attempts at escape. You will enter Tartarus and fight until you lose. This can take anywhere from five minutes to an hour, depending on your speed and skill.
The story is communicated predominantly through character interactions. Super Giant Games flipped the script and made the rogue-like element of Hades a core aspect of the story. If you die early, you can still uncover some truths or details about Zagreus and his companions. As a busy person, you don’t have to worry about logging on and doing nothing but grinding — there will always be story beats and plot points for you to uncover, regardless of how long you play or how much success you experience.

Another reason why Hades is great for the busy person is because the in-depth mechanics are built around expanding a simple moveset. Each loadout has a main attack, a special attack, and a dash attack. Three attacks, plus a spell cast that Zag always has. Four attacks that are explained when you equip the weapon. Four attacks that you can immediately practice on a friendly Brooklonian-accented skeleton as soon as you equip it. Of course this means that if you forgot how to use a particular weapon set — or if you’re picking up the game after some time off — then you can hop on, equip your selected weapon and refresh your understanding on the skeleton. As you progress through your run, the Olympians, and others, will sometimes send you messages and allow you to select a boon from them. These boons can be significant changes like completely changing your spell cast or making your dash reflect enemy projectiles. They can also be minor passives, like increased move speed or damage. You will have your pick of three from whichever god is giving them to you, from Zeus to Hermes. Fortunately, each boon is explained along with any status effects by way of hovering tool-tip. These boons dramatically change the way you approach your run, and keep the game from getting stale or repetitive. If you’ve been away from the game for a while and don’t quite remember how the complex boons come together, it lets you slowly build back up your knowledge from the ground floor, starting with how the weapons attack.
As a myths and folktales fan, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the interactions of the various gods, godlings, heroes, and villains throughout the entire story of Hades. Like Disney’s Hercules, it’s a treat to see such lofty beings brought to life through visual and audio media. Having Dionysus comment on my choice of partnering with Zeus, or Achilles urging Zagreus forward to bigger and better things is a delightful experience. Additionally, I enjoy rogue-likes as much as the next guy, but I don’t like feeling lost and confused by hyper-difficult, mechanically complex games. Hades is enjoyable challenging, which makes the entire game more fun to play overall.
Hades is great for the busy person because it is composed of self-contained runs, easy to grasp and learn mechanics, and is thoroughly engaging in its writing, animation, and acting. For those reasons, I’m giving Hades five bottles of ambrosia out of five bottles of ambrosia. Highly Recommended!

If you are interested in more recommendations, consider subscribing to the channel so that you know when I release the next recommendation!

Thanks to the people who made this possible:
Background Music: Kellan
See more of his work at: https://www.beatstars.com/iloveyoukellan/
Will F is one tall glass of water after a long run.
Will R is that space between being fully awake and being fully asleep.

#gamesforbusypeople #takingitoffline #hades

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