Hades (PS5)

Zagreus wants nothing more than to escape from the underworld, but he’s no mere soul looking to return to the life he lost. Zagreus is actually the son of Hades himself, making him Prince of the very place he’s working so hard to escape. While the game takes a bit to reveal why he wants to escape his own realm so badly, being the son of the God of Death has one big perk that helps with his quest. No matter how many times Zagreus perishes seeking the surface above, he’ll always find himself brought back to life to try again and again until it finally happens.

 

The gift of Zagreus’s lineage is a perfect fit for this rouge-like dungeon crawler named after his father, the game Hades all about attempting to run through the various tiers of the underworld again and again until you can finally conquer the dangers in your path and escape the Greek afterlife fully. Already the original mythical form of Tartarus, here the lowest of regions of Hades you need to fight through, is routinely tooled to prolong the suffering of the dead, so the genre’s reliance on randomizing certain elements each run is further contextualized as a natural effect of the realm. To prevent other woeful souls from ever escaping their eternal rest, the underworld here had already been designed to be constantly shifting with other spirits and demigods tasked with patrolling the ever-changing rooms to put down anyone so bold as to try and leave. Being the son of the man of the man in charge means Zagreus is a great deal mightier than most who would attempt such a thing though, having already made allies of other gods and legendary heroes as he grew up and even now getting boons from the gods of Mount Olympus as well, most everyone seeming to support Zagreus’s efforts save Hades and his most faithful. And yet, despite this blatant action against Hades, the God of Death is barely concerned, sitting at his desk and working on sorting the recently deceased, so confident his son cannot escape and likely only feeling more justified in his indifference every time he sees Zagreus emerge from the blood pool across from his desk after each death.

 

When you set out on a run in Hades, you at first only really have one choice of major consequence to make. What weapon you bring with you will impact how you fight, the game’s top-down action not too complicated at its core but also quite fluid and speedy. Be it a sword, bow, spear, or claw, the individual weapons usually have very few unique attacks to worry about, your dash often the most crucial piece of how you approach a fight. A bit of invulnerability occurs during a dash and they can be chained together rapidly, just not too often. If you wish to use the bow Coronacht, you must draw and fire each heavy-hitting arrow, but you can dash to a new position to fire from to avoid incoming damage between each shot. For the Malphon claws you may instead want to dash in, land as many blows as you can, and then dash out, enemies often having a tell like a flash, obvious animation, or a circle for where their attack will hit to give you a clear and readable visual indicator so it never is too hard to read even in rooms populated with dangerous enemies.

Each weapon has different considerations that tie to the dash heavy combat, but they get even more robust as you explore the underworld and start to find ways to improve your abilities. The Gods of Olympus cannot aid you directly, but eager to see their relative for the first time, they send boons down that can be claimed to increase your potency in battle. Each boon claimed gives you an option of three random but often quite useful effects, the different gods having different specialties. The Goddess of War Athena for example leans towards her more strategic approach to battle by granting abilities tied to defense and reflecting enemy attacks, but Zeus’s powers invoke his lightning and provide many different ways to shock foes. Normally, Zagreus has a Cast attack that is pretty basic, a weak magic attack that is often best replaced swiftly, the gods each granting their own unique projectile should you be so lucky that carries their recognizable touch. Weapons even have heavy and light attacks so you can choose for a god to bless your heavy attack with something unique while seeking the favor of another for your quicker blows, giving you more options in the midst of a battle. For example, the Aegis shield can be thrown so it ricochets and hits multiple targets, this great for inflicting a status like the chill effect of the Goddess of Seasons Demeter. If you have something with a slower attack, perhaps the God of War will be your choice, Ares granting a Doom effect on hit that will deal a severe but delayed extra bit of damage good for hurting foes during the breaks between your blows.

 

You can’t guarantee which boons you will find in a run, but you can try to build towards complementary combinations and interesting synergies. There is also the Daedalus Hammer, a rarer benefit that alters how your weapon works in some fundamental way. Make your bow fire more like a shotgun, or your spear lunge out in three directions at once, and a run through the underworld can suddenly feel entirely different. Figuring out how to best improve your strength and abilities with the hand you are dealt gives each run of Hades a unique flavor, the player gradually building up the knowledge of what works best for them to help them get deeper in on the next attempt. This knowledge also applies to the enemies you face along the way. Most rooms in Hades will lock you in until you’ve defeated every foe who appears there, healing often a luxury or requiring some extra work like choosing life over other resources. You must fight well even against basic creatures like animated skulls and living chariots, and as you get deeper in you’ll face foes with meaner tricks like the bomb throwing skeletons of Asphodel or the pink orbs who send deadly butterflies all around them in ways that grow overwhelming if they’re left alone. You’ll fight musclebound souls, gluttonous ghosts, and reanimated warriors to reach the boss defending the floor’s exit, and often the first time you face a boss you might be a bit caught off-guard by their relatively higher strength. However, that gradual growth in how you understand the game will let you better see how to dodge, when to strike, and what tricks will avail you, something that makes it easier to accept that Hades doesn’t really have too many unique bosses. It starts bringing out a few that are essentially variants of familiar faces after a few runs, but you get to make use of familiarity to do better on a run even if it means some parts aren’t going to be as fresh on attempt after attempt. You do have some control over your fate too, the room arrangements you face randomized but you get to see what rewards the next rooms will contain so you can pick the path you think will best benefit you.

 

When you die though, you will lose all those boons, essentially reset to just whatever your weapon comes with by default. However, Hades lets you improve yourself in a few ways between runs. While exploring Hades, there are other things to collect beyond boons and hammers. Coins earned from every enemy killed can be used at shops but do disappear between runs, but gathering Darkness, keys, jewels, and Nectar can all pay off handsomely. Darkness can be spent at Nyx’s mirror for permanent improvements to your abilities, none too powerful that they completely rob the game of difficulty, but many can be quite useful. Death Defiance for example is a free revive during a run with half health to give you extra endurance and you can eventually earn a few of them, but other benefits include things like dealing more damage from behind, starting runs with a little coin, healing a very tiny bit every time you leave a room, or getting a small push to having the Olympian boons be higher rarities, thus making their starting strength a bit better without the pomegranate boosts you also find throughout the underworld. Most of these are nudges towards better effectiveness or safety nets, and spending jewels to remodel the underworld can lead to helpful rooms like healing fountains appearing randomly as well. It could actually be quite exhaustive trying to list all the little things you can do to increase you potency and yet Hades never lets you build up to the point you’re an unstoppable juggernaut out of the gate, always having to work to strengthen yourself during the run as well.

Nectar might be the most interesting collectible though, it being much rarer but also having an effect outside of its useful role. The many characters you come to know in Hades can all be given tribute by way of the Nectar, the gods of Olympus an obvious choice after all they’ve done for you, but Zagreus’s underworld friends and acquaintances can also be gifted in such a manner. From a practical standpoint, each one can grant a keepsake, the player able to equip one before a run to tip things a little in their favor like making the first boon you find belong to a specific god or giving you benefits every time you clear a room quickly enough or without damage. Most of the time you give Nectar to someone who has already received it though, you’ll just deepen your bond with them, something that is made rewarding by the game’s incredible devotion to realizing its setting and characters despite its heavy action focus during a run. The game is utterly beautiful, character portraits brimming with personality and depicting the divine characters with appropriate gravitas. The allure of the Goddess of Love Aphrodite is portrayed well with her naked body only barely covered by wisps of her hair while Hades himself looks to be an imposing giant always looking down his nose at you. The voice acting is superb, Zagreus himself a standout as he can manage to sound like a refined immortal once raised to rule beside his father and yet he has some of the impetuousness of rebellion in him that doesn’t come across as too juvenile. He is at once proper and also able to speak to people who technically serve them on a more personal level, deferential when respect should be shown yet personable even when talking to the precious sputtering Gorgon head Dusa who acts like a maid for the chambers.

 

The God of the Sea Poseidon has a booming yet jovial voice, Dionysus’s stress-free approach to life comes across well in the relaxed tone of his dialogue, yet neither cross into making them too modern or casual. While some liberties were taken for more interesting characters (and to make sense of the jumble that is Greek myth), they feel authentically divine and composed appropriate to their station without feeling stuffy save where you might expect it. As you gift more Nectar over time, you can even start to find there is more to characters you might not have thought much of otherwise. Megaera, a Fury and the first boss you’ll ever face, can seem cold and committed to killing Zagreus, but finding her between runs and getting to know her reveals a dutiful yet forlorn woman that can be worth reaching out to to help her find comfort. There is an incredible amount of unique voice lines recorded for most every character of any continued presence, many of them even commenting on the particular situation they find themselves in. A god will acknowledge you bought their boon from a shop or comment on some other God whose aid you’ve received, and as you make progress towards completing Hades they will start to note such things as well. The game has some effective music for the action and more memorable tracks for calmer areas, but you also have some excellently composed songs from the likes of Orpheus and his muse Eurydice that are lovely to listen to when they play.

 

In fact, there is far more to see in Hades than just what it takes to first beat the game. Much like fellow rogue-like The Binding of Isaac, a single win isn’t completion per se as it opens up new opportunities and here even more story to uncover by continued play. Hades has many features you may not even see on your way to that initial victory that make returning to it after still worthwhile from a gameplay standpoint, things like the Pacts of Punishment able to increase the difficulty of future runs but with greater rewards for attempting them such as the boss treasures in particular. Hades will let you see most of its major story by the time you’ve cleared it ten times over which feels both an achievable goal and one that will still have new elements or goals introduced with some frequency, but elements like an epilogue and other features such as romantic relationships will require some fairly long term commitments without appreciably new iterative elements to draw you in for the amount of runs it takes. On the bright side, this gives you something to keep returning to for quick attempts that will likely be rewarding at least in some small way, especially when you start fulfilling Prophecies which reward you for varying up your play styles and finding certain things. It is certainly a game rich with things to do and shoot for that can keep you jumping back in, but there is still a fulfilling finale that doesn’t necessarily demand you plumb its depths just to get closure.

THE VERDICT: While some more bosses and enemy types would benefit it, Hades still makes sure each attempt to escape the underworld is a rewarding excursion. Your simple but satisfying weapons provide a reliable baseline as you experiment with boons and other benefits, building yourself up in the best way you can each run. Many small goals give you reasons to play differently and take gambles, and even when you die, you quickly look forward to speaking with the excellently realized supporting cast and using whatever resources you gathered to make the next run a touch easier. Hades packs great depths to draw you back with the action becoming more engaging because of what you’ve learned and how different choices can change how you fight as Zagreus. Hades is as teeming with compelling synergies as it is interesting dialogue, this rogue-like excellent for those who want a game they can return to over and over again.

 

And so, I give Hades for PlayStation 5…

A FANTASTIC rating. Hades can be a satisfying adventure if you beat it one time, ten times, or even a hundred times, the game mostly built to handle its encouraged repetition quite well. There are a few shifts to the enemy variety and the boss variants but that feels like the only area the game didn’t put as much effort into when it came to diversifying the experience, but the way Zagreus plays between runs can vary wildly. There is enough consistency that you can work towards specific set-ups and outcomes albeit not with 100% reliability, mid-run pivots sometimes exciting as you find something new and powerful to cultivate. You can become quite a powerhouse but still need to put the effort in to get there, and the late game foes and rooms start to be built to see if you did properly try to guide your growth as they can start being more demanding and dangerous if you haven’t. Swapping around your weapons, trying to work towards Prophecies, investing into long-term projects, there are ways to introduce variation in your approaches, and then the game also throws in the narrative rewards. Once you realize individual characters can have hundreds of voice lines, you start to perk up for every short chat, seeing where some characters develop, others clue you into the hidden side of this take on Greek mythology, or they might just show off a fun side of their personality. Zagreus is an excellent lead for how well he can mold himself to the specific situation, be that through his battle abilities or the people he’s talking to, everything from the gameplay systems to the subtleties of character performances feeling refined so that nothing feels out of place and little moments can hit with quite an impact thanks to the work elsewhere.

 

Thought was put into each piece of Hades. It pulls from Greek myth but tries to make those components into things fascinating or effective on their own merits, with depths greater than what the stories of old may have shared. It builds a battle system that offers a great breadth of options but never gets overly complicated, choices of which boons or other benefits to grab impactful but not requiring intimate technical knowledge or advanced planning to make great use of. It handles its rogue-like nature well with it being great to pop into for an attempt or two and gives you reasons to keep coming back through slow reveals, new mechanics, and a story that you want to see get fleshed out even more. Zagreus’s own dogged persistence to escape Hades may not match the players own though, for once Hades has its many effective gameplay hooks into them, they might not want to end the cycle of run after rewarding run through the underworld.