Hades (from Supergiant, maker of Pyre, Bastion, Transistor)

For me, the short-range weapons like the gloves or the sword are great for other enemies, but I have a hard time fighting the bosses with them, as the bosses have many ways of hurting you if you get too close... So the only way I've been able to consistently get past the third boss and into the endgame is to use the bow, whose special attack (a spread of arrows) is awesome if you add some extra damaging effects to it. That, combined with the boon from Zeus that makes your cast into a chain lightning, seems to be the best way to bombard the bosses from a distance while trying to avoid their attacks. The spread of arrows also makes the three witches chamber on the second level a piece of cake, which it doesn't seem to be with the other weapons?

*hugs thread*

fwiw lukas, i'm at about 38 attempts now, but i was at theseus/minotaur at around the same time as you (15-20 attempts in i think), and unlocked the gun around the same time. my very first time with the adamant rail, i made it all the way to the endboss.

xp tuomas i initially felt the same with the weapons, like i needed something long-range to survive. but over time i've figured out how to effectively use the others as well (note that i still haven't beaten the damn game, though i've come close!).

i think for the bosses, particularly the late game, it's pretty essential to have at least one good long range option (whether that's the weapon intself, or a cast or a beefed up special) but also essential to have an attack that lets you get in close and deal tons of damage in a short time (while they're vulnerable). for me, so far, that close attack often seems to involve a dash-strike that repels, or some other sort of chained attack where i can be almost invulnerable for a short period.

some of my best runs, against the bosses, are the opposite of ranged - i'm just dashing through and around the boss, invulnerable for almost the entire time. of course, at some point the intermittent damage adds up to death, as i still haven't won this way!

then again, in other runs i'm hovering on the edges, picking my spots and being extremely careful, and also getting very close.

ok i need to play hades now

I'm kind of conflicted in getting the game! On the one hand, I'm tired of hard games and my consoles are littered with barely played rogue likes. OTOH the near universal praise and reviews like this paint it to be a possible exception for me? https://kotaku.com/i-guess-i-actually-like-roguelikes-now-1845131675

Sorry to be wishy washy!

hahaha

honestly, it does lean toward being a "hard" game. it is not as difficult as celeste - just throwing that out as a reference, if you've played it.

i'm tempted to try to compare it to the difficulty of dark souls games, but they're just too different. i've never gotten to the end of a dark souls game, because i always get stuck on some boss 25 hours in and get so frustrated that i quit. there are similar boss obstacles in Hades, but the difference is that there aren't nearly so many. for me, the Escalating Series of Bosses model is much more manageable when it's only a handful, as opposed to the dozens in a dark souls game.

all the same, the actual gameplay of Hades is consistently engaging but challenging - if you don't pay attention, you can quickly take a beating. it's not the kind of game you'd recommend to a newcomer to videogames, it kind of has prerequisites. (note that i'm talking about adults. obviously 6-year-olds can pick up anything and master it within a week due to their god-like abilities boons)

the thing is, leee, i think you'd like all the OTHER things about it - it's just so polished and well-done, i'm actually still interested in some of the sub-plots, 40 hours in, as they are dished out to me in small doses every once in a while. the persona of hades is very close to an unrepentant version of the grumpy dad in God of War. the difference is, instead of wanting to murder the little boy in the God of War's boat, instead you ARE the little boy, but you're trying to murder your dad, and he definitely deserves it, and the god of war is called Ares and he can upgrade your cast spell so that it shoots out spinning black-hole rifts

condensed down to a recommendation for your CNN appearance later:

• it's only $25, which to use an increasingly overused 2020 adjective, is "generous".
• worth checking out even if you're on the fence, just know that dying is part of the cycle of existence

sorry, CNN, the $25 itself is not generous, i just mean that the game itself is very generous. like, given how much enjoyment i've already gotten out of it (even if i never play it again, starting...tomorrow), i think i would pay $140 for this game

Thanks Karl! That's definitely food for thought.

the downbeat atmosphere draws me in quite a bit, i love how much of the voice-acting is calm and quiet. details like that keep me interested even though i'm not great at the game, kinda like a difficult book with a really nice cover

had fun playing with dad in the front yard. i'm just gonna admit that i'm s spear guy. it's the only weapon that makes sense to me.

(ie, i haven't figured out how to get the same dps from anything else - the spear special is the only way i know to reliably backstab in chaotic situations.)

pierced butterfly is nice, wearing it when meeting the person who gives it to you is cool too.

i have a different take on what "there is no escape means" now, a much ... darker take

okay the fists can be cool. i shouldn't evaluate weapons after trying them only once or twice, because boons.

It's really annoying that bull rush can't clear the smallest barrier or gap. Am I missing something?

KM is chilling on Olympus

sorta! i have defeated it 3 times now. there is so much to say. suffice to say, the post-game is very excellent. like, i'm not sure i've ever been tempted to hang around long after beating a game, but i seriously feel like i'm just getting started. poopsocks left behind on olympus

only click this if you want to learn the secret name of the hydra

it rhymes with journey

had my first clear today but it was pretty cheesy - running in circles while my health regen'd, dropping crystals, waiting for athena's invulnerability call to charge so I could run in and do a bunch of damage.

the moment when I realized this might work (reached the final guy without any DD) was one of my favorite moments playing videogames ever.

I haven't finished the second stage of the final boss yet, but I made a similar discovery about Athena's deflecting boons being the best way to neutralise the ridiculous area attacks in the fight... I wonder if there's any other way to do it for someone like me who doesn't have fast enough reflexes to dodge the attacks?

I made the plunge! It's already more engaging than the other rogues I've played, definitely because of the dating sim elements, though the voice acting and writing both deserve praise as well.

I've gotten as far as Asphodel, and have beaten Meg once, using the shield, which makes me feel like Captain America.

you're well on your way!

there is sooooo much to discover in the game. i read a review about being 40 hours and huge, interesting, gamechanging (potentially) systems unlocking, and that's very true. and also, the path to 40 hours is also filled with all sorts of things to find along the way.

this is a very, VERY polished game. it's obvious that they put a lot of thought into what is interesting and compelling at each stage of the game - absolute beginner, working your way up to the boss, and also what happens afterward. if anything, i am MORE compelled after beating the game than i was at the beginning, which is kind of disturbing and has seriously ruined my life the last couple weeks!

the music in this game is really awesome and there's the correct amount of it.

the game this reminds me of most is disgaea 1 on the ps2. in the sense that you go out and do your mission then come back to the underworld hub and chat with all your dudes. like karl said the loop is really satisfying and the characterization is done well (and there's the correct amount of it).

SHIT

DON'T READ THAT!

messed up the spoiler tag, getting mod assistance now, sorry

The difficulty hasn't bothered me so far, either! I'm not sure if it's genuinely not as hard as I feared or if it has so many other objectives that are within my grasp and thus distracting me from the difficulty.

that's good!

like so many other things in this game, i think the difficulty curve is perfectly tuned. it's well-tuned for single runs because no matter how good you are, you're going to be able to clear the first few rooms (probably - i mean the one time my mom played a videogame was SMB1, and she stood perfectly still on the left side of the screen for almost the entirety of the time limit, and then when the hurry the fuck up! music started and i told her she was going to die, she ran to the right and immediately hit the very first goomba. then she got mad and said she would never play a game again, and then hasn't for the last 32+ years). most likely, you'll get a little bit further each time through, and when you die it rarely* feels like you got totally screwed, and you'll probably feel like if you tried again you'd do better.

the difficulty curve is also well-tuned on a macro scale. hard to explain without spoilers but very true, i think

* except for those fucking poisonous rats godDAMMIT

a few tips for the final boss:

i posted this earlier but then had to have a mod delete it because i fucked up the new spoiler formatting tags. but in short:

• In early attempts, aim for specific Calls. Get one of the Athena (invulnerable, deflect) or Ares (invulnerable, spinning rift) calls, and if you can, try to pair it with a boon or two that helps build up the God Gauge faster, too. then, you can use the call to counter Hades most powerful attack - that huge-ass spin move that does massive damage. he has a tell, before he does it: a small thin white circle appears around him, and then about a second later he kicks your ass. if you have a good Call, though, you can activate it when he does the spin move, so you're invulnerable while also kicking HIS ass. very satisfying.
• level up your Keepsakes, specifically the
• In later attempts, adjust your build to fight Hades, rather than normal encounters. i say "adjust" because in the earlier stages you definitely need to be thinking of how to defeat lots of different kinds of encounters. but toward the end, start thinking about what you'll need to fight Hades, specifically. there are a lot of ways that plays out, but i struggled for long to just REACH Hades that it took a while longer before i realized i could tailor my build toward that final fight.

WTF IS WRONG WITH ME

whatever, no more spoiler tags for me. this is a spoiler zone. i am sorry

I finally did manage to beat the final boss! As I suspected, I needed Athena for that, having the deflecting dash and putting the deflecting boon on the shield's special attack. If you put some speed effect to it (from Hermes and/or from Daedalus hammer), you can just keep throwing it and it'll deflect a lot of the attacks on the way. This is especially useful against the dragon boss, as you can just stand in front of its heads and keep spamming it with the shield again and again with most of its attacks being deflected.

Karl's tip on how to use Athena's call seems very useful, but I didn't get it and instead finished off the final boss with Aphrodite's call. It seems to be the one call that does the most damage instantaneously, so if you other ways of deflecting the boss's damage and building up the god gauge, it works as an awesome finisher, doing hundreds of points of damage.

Specifically the WHAT!?

I can get to Dad Boss almost every time but can't beat him. Thanks though KM for saying that you can level up the Keepsakes, didn't know that. Boney's keepsake seems like the best, as far as i can tell.

Skelly, not boney, sorry

Yeah, Skelly's keepsake seems to be the best one to have, especially on the final two levels, where the bosses feel like they're almost impossible to beat without taking massive damage.

So my strategy has been to chose the one god's keepsake who's basic boon I really want to have for the first level, as the Furies are pretty easy to beat without dying once you've levelled up, then change for Skelly's keepsake for the other levels.

Thanatos keepsake is my favorite as I've mentioned - maxed it gives +2% damage for every encounter your clear without taking damage. gives an incentive to stay on your toes in otherwise relaxed encounters. I've gotten as high as +26%.

I guess if I ever start planning builds in advance I'll have to switch to a god's keepsake yeah. ugh.

seriously it's real fun to complete an insane Asphodel or Elysium encounter and unexpectedly get the +2% notification.

Specifically the WHAT!?

― Dan I., Monday, September 28, 2020 2:22 PM (seven minutes ago)

lol, in the chaos of trying to post that post, i also forgot to complete that thought! lol, what a fucking disaster

some of the more useful keepsakes for hades (the boss), SPECIFICALLY, are:

• Lucky Tooth (grants you a one-time revive when you die, up to 100 HP depending on how leveled it is)
• Distant Memory (up to 30% ranged damage, only useful for certain builds of course)
• Bone Hourglass (this one is more out of the box and might not even work very well (sorry), but every once in a while you might have a run where you can give it a shot. it extends the number of encounters that you can use items purchased from Charon (either in person or at one of blue shops). the idea is to use it during Elysium (or maybe even for the Cerberus/Hades section as well), buying a bunch of buffs near the end (just before Theseus and the Minotaur), and then rushing through Cerberus so that buffs still apply when you fight Hades.
• honestly one of the best things (the best thing?) about this game is that almost all of the keepsakes can be useful for the final boss, in certain ways, depending on your own preferences, aiming toward certain builds, trying to accomplish some of the bounties/heat conditions, and the luck of the draw. i'm at 55 attempts now, and almost every single one has felt different, and i feel very encouraged to try out ridiculous strategies (like the bone hourglass one above)
• now i'm just using bullet points for no reason, but another weird/fun thing you all should try is spending NO money! there are various boons and mirror options to help increase the amount of money you get, but you need a little luck to really take advantage. if you use the first weapon, Stygian Blade, one of the Daedalus upgrades you can get is called Hoarding Slash: "Your Attack deals bonus damage equal to 5% of your current gold". that might not sound like much, until you think about having 2000+ gold while you fight Hades - very useful to be dealing an extra 100 damage on the final boss!

here is my ULTIMATE QUESTION for you all, the one i really wanted to know:

do you use the "you have multiple casts but you have to go pick them up after you throw them" mirror option, or the "you have 1 cast, but it autoreplenishes so you don't have to go pick it up" option?

i have to admit that once i switched to autoreplenish, i never went back. i think it probably makes sense to go chase it for other playstyles, though - for example, there's a spear Aspect that changes the special so that after you throw the spear you can sprint forward to retrieve it, rather than pulling it back to you (as default). if you were already doing that, it might make a lot of sense to aim your special in the same area as your cast, so that when you sprint toward it you also pick up your cast at the same time

i really need to get back to work, but one final thing i've recently realized is that there is a balancing point between the damage you deal and your HP. it's natural to be focused on conserving/regaining your HP when you're purchasing things or picking a boon. but if you're about to face dad and you can only pick one thing (or door, in the Cerberus labyrinth thing, (or item, at Charon's last shop)), it often makes more sense to pick something that gives you a boost to damage, rather than your health, because when you hit him harder, you're also taking less overall damage by the end because you can defeat him more quickly.

finally beat theseus and the minotaur this morning with a high-damage doom fists/athena call build that left me with 1 hit point and 0 death defiances going into the next area. lasted a little while but still lots to figure out.

the fists aspect with the scorpion get over here special is awesome

Dear Bone Hydra,
You are a butthead.

Yours,
Zag

How have you been making out so far, Leee?

just beat the game for the first time. adamant rail with the MIRV mod and a shitload of doom, chill on the attack, heroic athena dash, ares call. got to the last boss with 4 death defiances and just kited while spamming AOE damage. good shit. love this game.

I just made it to Bone Hydra, and I have one last weapon to unlock. I'm also stockpiling darkness till either I have a surplus of keys to unlock more abilities or I can level up my death defiance.

Otherwise, I'm trying to collect nectar.

Is there any way to tell which boons/upgrades I haven't used yet while I'm escaping? Maybe I'm still a little too underleveled to worry about min-maxing my fated list, though.

There is a way! When you have an option for a boon that’s on the fated list, a little scroll icon will appear next to the name of it.

But I’d say don’t worry too much about completing all those, because you’ll end up using them all eventually just by playing. a boon that seems really bad on one run may be essential with a different weapon

got to the bull of minos for the first time on my first run with the adamant rail. seems like a much easier weapon than the others, but the fists are so fun

i thought adamant was overpowered the first time i used it, too, but in returning to it i've sometimes struggled!

also, the bow is by far the hardest for me! it seems really strong at the beginning but underpowered by the end. every time i make it work, it's by pairing it with a dash-strike boon and just spamming the crap out of it. granting, i do that sometimes too with other weapons, but i don't feel as forced into it as i do with the bow

the first time it started getting a little easier for me was when I got the shield.

And I know I need to figure out things like equipping keepsakes and using the call. Special attacks (triangle on PS) can be used without restriction, right? Not sure what makes them special then.

xp

The shield seems to have it all, right? Melee, range, and defense. The bow was cool but I couldn't deal with the flying skulls, just couldn't shoot fast enough to counter their zippy attacks (and it wasn't always possible to dodge). The shield totally trivializes them.

I think the shield was my favourite in early runs, too. My tactic was to always use whichever weapon gives you extra darkness - not just for that bonus but to force myself to get used to using all of the different weapons and not just rely on one.

The runback to the first boss is longer than anything in a From game, and I get the sense that even when I beat the boss, when die I'll start all the way back at the beginning?

I guess the difference is that the run is the point? Each run is different, you get new things and talk to different characters while buffing your stats/currency. Obviously beating the boss is ALSO the point, but if you're brilliant at combat and beat the whole thing in only a few tries then there's a massive lot of game you're missing out on. I mean, I'm not a combat gamer, really, so for me the fighting is a means to befriend Artemis or to hang out with creepy perv Dionysus or whatever.

Oftentimes I’d surprise myself with a victorious run with a collection of drops that I’d never have anticipated… the one time that I won with a pile of Dionysus-offensive stuff was very satisfying because I never expected it! Everyone was drunk

It’s been a while since I played so I can’t remember what it was, but there is one Athena boon that I considered a must-have, I relied on it. Some kind of shield thing

prob the shield dash

like most well-made games, all the combos and weapons are pretty viable. Dead Cells was the first roguelike that I got into so I was pretty prepared for it, but I think Hades prob does the best job of any of these games in making this framework propel the story. I haven't played too many of these types of games besides hollow knight and the souls series, are there any more big ones I've missed?

Yeah, shield dash was the number one essential boon for me.

But you can't plan on or keep the boons, right?

Hollow Knight and Souls aren't roguelikes at all - the closest I've come to this is Inscryption, which is fantastic. But generally I prefer to find my build and cling to it until the end, so I'm still getting used to this.

xpost Roguelike? Hollow Knight or Souls ain't that. Oh, wait, games where any approach is viable? Probably lots. Like Hitman, or games where you can go either stealth or aggro, say.

But you can't plan on or keep the boons, right?

No, but you can make sure you choose an Athena room if you're given the choice! Possible spoiler but there is a way to guarantee who the first god will be, but for me those calls feel like a waste and I prefer to leave it to chance.

In terms of similar games, I just bought Slay the Spire in the Steam sale, and that has the same "multiple runs with many possible paths" vibe. The story is much more sparing, but I'm still pretty sucked in to the whole cyclical journey. It's also card-based combat rather than hack'n'slash, so maybe not actually all that similar aside from in my own brain?

I mean, I was friends with felicity for over a year before we discovered we both were huge roguelike junkies (she: Nethack, me: ADOM).

Souls games are definitely inspired by rogue-likes insofar as they have a version of permadeath, kind of a permadeath-lite (dying before retrieving your souls/runes), and a similar feeling of “having to learn something cryptic by just attempting it over and over”…

…but I think the inspiration river flows the other way: Hades and Dead Cells are inspired heavily by Souls games. Doesn’t Dead Cells even have a “git gud” Easter egg?

xp Slay the Spire is fantastic though be warned, I'm something like 500hrs into it and I still find myself going back for more, though maybe it's that I'm just not very good at it!

I can now get past the first boss consistently! But I'm getting a bit shredded in the next area, of course. Still using the shield, being able to block if necessary is just too good.

I get that it's integral to the game system to do a full run each time in order to keep acquiring stuff and strengthening your character over time, but I would still kill for a checkpoint after each main area.

Beat the Hydra on my first try! So I've gotten through some of Elysium once, mostly thanks to some Ares boons (the ones that add doom to your special attack).

Going to play this with God mode switched on tonight, have only ever managed to beat the first boss once, died instantly in the next chamber.

I really needed God mode. It helps but isn't a panacea. Just makes things a tad easier over time

OK, this game is insanely fun and addictive, and while I'm still struggling to figure out all the mechanics and approaches, all while trying to enjoy the writing and voice acting, I have been making steady progress, or at least what counts for progress in a game that keeps booting you back to the beginning. My own general impatience has started to become an impediment, though. I've beat Meg a few times, but usually I'm so kind of latently annoyed with the run back that I get sloppy.

Beat the Bone Hydra and made it a bit into Elysium, but I think I may switch to God Mode.

Playing on God Mode has been a lot of fun, since it makes it gradually easier but not always easy. Regardless, it's been a great way to grind, should I ever choose to increase the difficulty again (which I guess you can toggle on and off on the fly).

It kinda lost its hold on me, I got sick of doing the mostly-same thing over and over (although I know I'm partially to blame for sticking to the same weapon). Maybe I should try god mode.

Here's something I just started doing that's kept me interested. Rather than focus on level/enemy progression, focus on all of the other little meta progression things you can achieve. For example, just work on accumulating keys, to unlock certain things. Or try for purple crystals to unlock mirror boosts. Or grind for gems to complete chores and whatnot. A lot of these things will ultimately help you in the end, afaict, and they're kind of fast and fun things to focus on, making each run productive even if you don't make it that far.

Yes! That's much closer to the way I played it. Honestly, while I did think about using God Mode when I got a bit frustrated I would have never actually done it. Trying and failing and making small bits of progress is the thing, not just winning as fast as possible.

Finished my first run. Obviously God Mode gave me a big boost, though I think it was also because I (literally) lucked out with a great Chaos boon that gave me special up to 300% more damage. I was loaded out with the machine gun/rocket launcher, so I would typically just run around firing off bombs that, as I progressed, would just get more and more powerful. Plus, I had leveled up the mirror to give me health back based on a percentage of Darkness, and since I just kept accumulating Darkness, it kept me nice and healthy. Of course, one thing I can try to gauge God Mode vs. boon combination is doing another run with the current setup, but turning God Mode off, to see how far I get. Maybe I'll try that.

Nicely done! I think my first completion was with the gun yet that would eventually not be the weapon I found most succuss with overall.