Today, I have something a little different for you guys. A lot of you have been requesting me to cover other games, and I thought I might do a little experimenting by doing a “video essay” esque type of content. Namely, comparing the difficulty of Dead Cells with Hades, which are both very influential games in the roguelike genre. I know what the title says, but this video is mainly a closer look on the game design of difficulty of these two titles, rather than to bash on Hades, which I actually enjoyed a lot.
Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
3:14 – Rewards in Difficulty
6:28 – Difficulty Variety
8:14 – Difficulty Meta
15:18 – Conclusion
Music used:
https://pastebin.com/E42QYGQs
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#deadcells #pseychie #hades
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Not first and I'm proud of it
third and im proud of it
Love your vids man, thanks for getting me back into dead cells
Great content and great choice of music 😉
@Pseychie what do you think about nuclear throne difficulty design?
I don't care much about difficulty designs and stuff, but I'm still stuck on 3BC for 3 days lmao
Man I like you and both games, but I couldn’t disagree more.
I've played dead cells twice more than this guy and I'm ten time worst than him
i have 500+ hours, and 32 heat can be done nearly every run if you're good. I agree damage control serves as a lame way to gate certain slow aspects. Max I ever did was 45, and I lucked out hard. High heat is just so much luck and doesn't feel very fun thanks to the things that limit your choices. I also agree that sack rng sucks, both for speedruns and high heat. 5bc doesn't restrict your choices at all, in fact you get new options for higher boss cells like new unlocks and doors. I feel like Hades was designed to be a story game with gameplay trailing behind at a close second, and that's fine. Not saying the gameplay is bad at all, but I feel like the story takes priority. Dead Cells is almost the polar opposite, with very little focus on story and putting all the resources into gameplay.
Those are just my thoughts, and I really love both of these games but I recognize the issues in Hades and what Dead Cells does better
I haven't played Hades yet, I have it now on my stream library, but with Dead Cells? I'm a 5BC struggler 💪😎
Sigh.. You make me wanna try Hades.
I completely agree with what you said even if I am way back in the difficulty reached.
While probably quite out of your field another game I think did great for the difficulty scaling is "The Void Rains Upon Her Heart", a roguelike bullet hell with a touching story. It's a solo dev project with 100% positive reviews. Its difficulty is mainly managed overall with two mechanics: increasingly complex patterns and depending on how well the player is doing in the run.
I agree, I just stopped playing Hades when I got all the story, because there's no real motivation to up the Heat, although I guess Dead Cells is the same way? Honestly not sure why I played Slay the Spire all the way to A20 but didn't want to continue Hades
I enjoyed Hades but it got rather repetitive for me. There isn't a different path you can take.
The variety of paths you can take with dead cells adds so much to the complexity especially in 4-5 BC
i enjoy both for the simple fact that i got dead cells on Android, dead cells isnt a game i wanna power through for hours and hours, you can only get so much enjoyment from a 2d space, which is why i like playing dead cells on my newish phone when im away from my computer and feel like drowning out the travel time between work. Hades is a smooth 3d game that gives you more visual 'flare' plus the whole backstory of hades is pretty interesting, something you can play for hours upon hours, death after death no matter if it even got you a little salty cause, you also feel its "deserved losses", you rushed and blindly attacked without taking a moment to see how bosses attack or how to dodge em or when good windows to attack are available.
Both games a great if you arent playing both on PC (imo), if you are playing both on PC, they're pretty much the same gametype "rougelite/rougelikes" (Both randomized dungeons with character buffs that stay.) so filling your catalog with a bunch of em might not be a great idea, if you have a "Play dead cells on the go" mentality (or ya know, chilling away from the pc) then yea, both are great games to have!
Dead cells gives you really good items on high difficulty, Hades gives you less boon choice and makes you remove boons as you go, and gives you a timer restricting your choices as a player, with the randomized nature of the boons this feels really bad. In general people do not like restrictions. I view it as Dead cells lets you be your best you vs a tougher field, wheras Hades makes it harder to be your best against a harder field. Hades restricts your options and artificially buffs the same enemies more hard, not more fun. Buffing enemies and Nerfing the player feels bad as the player. Buffing enemies and giving the player incentive to play at that level feels like much better game design. I feel like there are options Hades could use to emulate the difficult++ fun++ feel dead cells gets, perhaps by buffing the mirror of night at different levels of heat, like +1 dash +1 cast that sort of thing, so the game can still feel fresh at that level and it can feel more like a spoonful of sugar with your medicine.
I can't agree more here. While sure, I played more Dead Cells than Hades, so I can't say I've seen 100% of Hades, DC feels a lot more rewarding to play. The difficulty settings in Hades amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things, as it's more designed around the dialogue and story, rather than the gameplay. This can make it a better game to a lot of players, as the DC story is irrelevant, but for someone who values the gameplay in roguelikes/lites above all else, it's levels above Hades in that regard, be it variety, balancing, or simply movement.
Having a self-adjustable modifier list is the laziest thing to do as a roguelike/lite developer. It basically tells me that they didn't care for higher difficulty players at all, and wanted to cram most of the content into 0 Heat. For the majority of the playerbase that is fine, because I understand that most people don't want to have to see the true ending to a story-focused game exclusively on the hardest difficulty, however that also means the whole Roguelike aspect of Hades is not well thought out, even if it makes sense lore-wise. There was no need to make Hades a roguelite, it'd be an even better game without that in my opinion, whereas Dead Cells can only work that way.
I love Hades for what it does well, and that is everything except the gameplay, which is unfortunate.
13:46 slammers are available at all difficulties, they are at least in caverns in 0BC. 2BC introduces oven knights. I also think that all weapons in dead cells are viable at all difficulties, but some really need builds. Other than that, I agree with everything
i had like a 5% win rate in dead cells lol. in hades it was around 90%. they’re both fun games though
Are you going to play hades to? It would be cool
I wonder if Dead Cells will keep me entertained, cause I really like the game (mostly the fight style, variety and lore moments xd) but it might take too long to get so many cells? Nah the point of the game is dying and repeating better, so I guess Ill get bored when I've seen every boss and weapon combo. maybe
I’m curious, have you ever tried Noita?
I recently found your youtube and got really into it!, i have just recently gotten my first bc and can't wait for more!
keep up the fresh vibe!, i have never seen Dead Cells videos presented as yours, truly catching content!
Idk why you would choose to play hades in low heat only. You can't earn titan blood like that
Spammers are the birds right? Yeah they are at 0 bsc mate
I’ve played both games and i do prefer hades over dead cells, but i think hades is more focused on story and characters, and tbh i stopped playing hades after the epilogue.
Dead cell i would categorize as a arcade style game and as you said, it has a lot of build variety because i think the focus was on gameplay and speed running, it even has special doors for speed runners
I was originally going to get Hades as my first roguelite as it was recommended by my friend and it was the most popular. However, I switched to Dead Cells last second and now Dead Cells is my second favourite game of all time so it's nice to see I chose the game with better difficulty
Hades has mediocre gameplay design period
All the masterwork level presentation of its visuals, sound, voice acting, setting etc masks how mediocre the gameplay is
Dead Cells is uncomparably better designed gameplay-wise
Played both and love dead cells more! I haven't realize the reason until watching this video. Thanks for being objective and love both games :).
As someone with hundreds of hours in both I don't think either handles difficulty better. Both have strong points and weak points.
And you definitely over stated how hard 30+ heat is and Hades. It's hard but I can use basically every weapon aspect in the game to beat it. I think a lot of the takeaways that you had were due to you having so little time in Hades.
Where is this music from? It's driving me mad!
I've had this exact same thought for a while now. Hades' difficulty curve reaches a point where you're maxed out on every possible advantage at around 15-20 Heat. After that, the only way to make the game harder is to start taking away those advantages. The only thing Dead Cells takes away is how frequently you can heal. Other than that, increasing the difficulty actually gives you more advantages, like stronger item drops and more scrolls. Adding a Boss Cell drastically increases the challenge, but it also gives you access to more tools to meet that challenge. Hades adds challenge by removing your tools, which in my opinion is more frustrating than fun.
But there's definitely one thing Hades does better than Dead Cells by a longshot, and that's story. The constant narrative progression regardless of whether you win or lose keeps you motivated to continue playing. In Dead Cells, the story is randomly drip-fed to you through lore rooms and requires you to piece it together yourself. While there's something to be said for that approach, especially within the game's universe, it's definitely not a motivating factor to keep you playing. I had stopped playing Dead Cells a couple years ago and only recently picked it back up, after watching videos on YouTube that explained the story. Knowing exactly what was going on and why didn't "spoil" the game for me at all. It actually made me more excited to play again, because now I actually understood the narrative flow of the game's world.
I spent more hours than you in both games and I cant win in 5bc or 30 heat, you are such a pro gamer bro
Loved the video, love both games but hades doesnt give me an urge to come back like dead cells do
I think that what you're saying in this video is exactly right, however I want to point out something that may be perceived as annoying in Dead Cells and that is the fact that in Dead Cells, you can (and will) die rather quickly. Even at 100% HP, a bad stunlock can end your run prematurely and all of your progress is lost. Obviously that depends on your build and the mutations you take, but I feel like Hades doesn't have this kind of issue (not until the most hardcore heat levels, but that's kind of the point — you won't even try those extreme heat levels, because there's no content to see at that point, but in Dead Cells — there is).
In Hades you die because you've run out of your resources: you've made too many mistakes and that's led you to your death. In Dead Cells, you could have full potion, a food shop, a great build, and lose all of that in seconds, because you panicked due to the fact that a shielded grenadier started targetting you while you were taking care of the golem. Not to mention that the game constantly tempts you to make risky decisions that, unlike most rogue-likes (where it would just potentially shorten a 60 minute run to a 50 minute run), can end your run right there. The curse mechanic is the prime example of that, though there's also the thought that occurs to you at some point that you are better off avoiding using your potions, because you'll need them later in the run, and playing at low health until you find a piece of food to heal or wait for your mutations to do the job instead.
While most rogue-likes make sure that you use all of your available resources before ending the run, Dead Cells makes you ignore the fact that you have any resources in the first place and risk losing your run earlier in the game in order to have an easier time in the endgame. Which is honestly kind of an annoying design choice. Like, I know that I can just play safe for the first parts of the run. But if I don't get enough scrolls from cursed chests, I'll make the boss fights much longer and then lose my potions on them due to more mistakes I'll have made. If I use my potions right away, I'll waste the potential food I'll find later in the stages and then have a harder time near the end of the run. This makes the most of the run in Dead Cells a constant struggle to avoid ending the run instead of simply avoiding getting hit.
Again, I very much agree with everything you've said in the video and consider Dead Cells to be the better game gameplay-wise. This is more of an issue that I have with Dead Cells compared to other rogue-likes — but regardless of it, Dead Cells still remains one of my favourites in the genre, just for the build and route variety.
(also, I really like how you used OSFE ost in here, that game is probably the most underrated rogue-like of 2020)
Hades is just story based which… really doesn’t appeal to me. In my opinion, Dead Cells is many, many times better. DC has so much more variety and the side-scrolling style works much better with this style of game. Casual players who think Hades is better than
Dead Cells just don’t have valuable opinions on
Dead Cells because they simply haven’t experienced Dead Cells to it’s full extent. And the variety in Dead Cells. I can just start the game, look at what I have in the starting tubes, and then probably have a unique run that I can enjoy for an hour. This cycle can continue without getting stale for a long time. The
DC developers also keep updating the game. (And pixel art in Dead Cells looks so much better). The argueable better story in Hades simply isn’t enough incentive for me to play a game that doesn’t have much variety at all.
Sorry for the rant, I have an irrational hatred of Hades.
Currently on 3BC and I seem to have most of the weapons and powers/traps unlocked but what really keeps me going is wanting to see and fight the (usually more challenging) new enemies.
Loved this style of content. Also, it's probably not quite your style in games, but I highly recommend Noita. It's such a unique rogue-like
Is that One Step From Eden music in the background?? Hell yeah Pseychie!BRING THAT ONE ON TOO!!!!!(Plz?)