God Mode in Hades allows for steady progression through a narratively driven Roguelike, and I’d love to see more games follow its lead.
Edited by Jane Magnet.
“Wholesome” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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This is my favorite implementation of difficulty changes in a game tbh, it seamlessly works with the narrative and gameplay in a way that's encouraging, modular, and granular in a way where I feel like I can genuinely play at the level I need vs a preset.
I believe One Finger Death Punch did something similar, the better you do the faster enemies move, then if you lose the speed goes down. Always better to do things in a dynamic way rather than having set difficulties. Then we fall into the "having more health and doing more damage" bullet sponge school of game design!
Oh, I had a completely wrong understanding of what the god mode actually does based on the video I'd seen of it, so thank you for explaining it so well! This video has definitely increased the chance of me picking it up – the gameplay doesn't seem like a thing I'd be super into, nor do I have the time to "get good", but I'm really interested in the narrative.
Just like I cant get enough Hades, I cant get enough of listening to people like Laura talk about Hades.
It's so awesome to see games that are accessible without completely eliminating the challenge.
Another fantastic video Laura! 😃 And yeah, God Mode sounds like such a cool system. Super Giant Games really created something amazing with Hades.
I also appreciated your comparison to Dark Souls. It is spot on. 🙂
As a massive Supergiant fan, the amount of praise Hades has been getting since leaving early access gives me whatever the reverse of schadenfreude is.
I've never been a fan of roguelikes. The idea of dying and losing all the work you put in just sounded super annoying to me, especially since I'm pretty bad at anything that isn't a platformer.
With that said, the more I hear about Hades' Godmode, the more sold I am on the game.
So wait. Its not as good if you're really good at it???????
I love this series as a whole, and I'd say this is one of my favorite episodes just for all the thought put into how meaningful god mode really is. Honestly my initial impression to it was very mild but I'm seeing it through a whole new set of eyes now and it's way more clever than I'd given it credit for. Thanks so much for another eye opening episode!
The God mode reminds me of how difficulty works in God Hand. It's like they looked at God Hands difficulty and said let's make this but better.
I learnt so many things!
I also love how dying and trying again is part of the narrative. You even have tons of characters cheering you on. I haven't turned on god mode but I love knowing that it's there if I need it
Going Under is another great roguelite with a similar accessibility feature. While it doesn't buff you whenever you die, you can individually adjust bonus health, more i-frames when dodging and higher weapon durability whenever you want without penalty. They're all changes that make the game easier, but none of them make you more powerful than you need to be. I'm too stubborn to use accessibility options, but I think it's important to commend devs who put in the effort to include them.
While the video did show it off, and you covered the point very well, you forgot to mention that God Mode also gives you a starting 20% damage reduction. Just a minor nitpick. Other than that, you explained things very well! You've made me want to pick Hades back up again. 😀
For me the issue with Hades' God Mode is it doesn't go far enough for the game it's in. I've gotten to Hades and I find him just too hard for the type of game he's in. A 20% damage reduction doesn't feel like enough so God Mode means if I want to kill him it doesn't mean grinding a few enemies somewhere as in Dark Souls, it means multiple half hour runs of the same content with the rest of the game just out of reach and that's incredibly dispiriting. God Mode would work in a game with a much shorter death loop but I'm at the point where I don't die to anything before Hades but I just can't kill him so I'd happily stick it down to Easy to kill him and work on getting better in later runs and also so I could stop killing the same three bosses over and over again. It is so very demoralising getting to the Gates and knowing that the build the RNG has given me doesn't have a hope in hell so I'd kill for a straight up "easy"