Hades (PC, Switch)

[Nolan]

4 hours ago, drahkon said:

  Is it the 3rd world boss (putting this in spoilers, just in case it isn't so I don't spoil it for you) (Hide contents)

Theseus and Arterius?

For this fight, try to focus the Minotaur but deal some damage to Theseus, as well, whenever possible. Don't get the latter down to half his HP before Arterius is dead, though. Once Theseus gets help from a God, maneuvering through the arena becomes much more difficult. It's much better to kill the Minotaur first.

Some general tips (if you don't know already)

• put your Darkness into +1 Dash and Death Defiance first !!!
• then collect 15 keys to upgrade the mirror and put Darkness into max health, more Cast, bonus damage while Cast is in enemy, and backstab damage
• get the upgrade which lets you swap your keepsake after every Underworld region
• select a Keepsake, which ensures you a boon that you need (do not underestimate Athena's defensive boons; especially the Dash + Deflect boon is a must)
• for the final area choose a Keepsake that increases survivability

It is indeed that boss, and that’s been the general strategy I follow. Just hasn’t quite worked out yet. 

[Sheikah]

Sadly, very few.
Tangledeep springs to mind (you do have the option to turn it into a rogue-lite, though, but that's for wusses). And of course, Spelunky 2 (and the first one).
Made some progress with Hades. Managed to beat the second boss Run's not over, yet. I'm using the bow which I unlocked and it's awesome. Plays much safer than the sword.
Ok, that's enough from me. I'm going back to the game [emoji14]

Spelunky you can unlock permanent shortcuts too. So not even that.

[drahkon]

4 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Spelunky you can unlock permanent shortcuts too. So not even that.

Pff, those don't count.
Shortcuts are for wusses

[Nolan]

Run 20, just got past that boss. Barely.

Spoiler

I have 39/225 HP left and I defied death 3 times in this fight. Was using the Exagryph with triple shot (and faster attack speed) chain lightning cast and thankfully my attacks could deflect. 
 

But even with multiple upgrades to attach percentage I was only hitting for 25 per shot, and that Minotaur has A LOT of HP to slowly chip through.

I fully expect my run to end very soon. 

[Jonnas]

On 25/09/2020 at 3:28 PM, drahkon said:

Pff, those don't count.
Shortcuts are for wusses

So, do shortcuts count towards lite-ness or not? Genuine question.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Jonnas

[Sheikah]

Weirdly though, the shortcuts actually make Spelunky harder (since you miss out on money/shops/hearts you could have encountered up to that point). My guess it's for people wanting to practice certain sections, or for speedrunners.

[drahkon]

On 9/27/2020 at 12:55 PM, Jonnas said:

So, do shortcuts count towards lite-ness or not? Genuine question.

In Spelunky 2's case, no, as Sheikah explained.

Anyways, credits have rolled on my Hades save file.
Can't give this game enough praise. Supergiant Games are masters at their craft.

There's still an epilogue to unlock, but that takes a considerable amount of time. Think I won't go for it for now, got other stuff to play

Edited September 29, 2020 by drahkon

[Nolan]

BEAT IT! FUCK NOPE DIDN'T BEAT IT.

Had 3/290 HP left at the end....

Spoiler

I went into the fight without any death defiance and I wasn’t full HP. Absolutely crutched on the shield and blocking attacks. Wouldn’t have been able to get through it without that. Also had a massive amount of Doom buffs. Was doing between 250-500 with Doom from attacks and revenge. Plus had a buff to randomly trigger revenge effects without taking damage.

 

FUCK NOPE DIDN'T BEAT IT.

Second edit. Okay beat it on the next run for reals. 

Edited October 3, 2020 by Nolan

[dan-likes-trees]

Got this on Sunday and can't stop playing. IT'S SO BLOODY GREAT. Never really liked the idea of roguelikes but I love how this keeps throwing in new surprises at every new run, forces to you mix up your strategy and such.

Got to the boss at the end of Elysium just now off the back of mainly upgrading my dash a tonne to do a load of damage and stagger and whizzing around the levels. With some weapons it feels like Geometry wars or something, others more like Zelda.

Also love how it doesn't really tell you anything and leaves it up to you to work out what all the visuals mean and relate to. Most of all, just so gratifying to smash shit up

[LazyBoy]

Is this worth the EUR25 then? At first sight I thought "ah, just another indie roguelike", but people are really hyping this up. How deep is the combat system?

[drahkon]

5 minutes ago, LazyBoy said:

Is this worth the EUR25 then? At first sight I thought "ah, just another indie roguelike", but people are really hyping this up. How deep is the combat system?

The combat is fun. But I have to admit: I have no intention of getting back to the game, because:
In my "more than 20 hours" of play time (it's what my Switch profile tells me) I haven't see a lot of different builds. Especially compared to The Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon the so called "synergies" are a little lackluster.

You eventually have 5 weapons available, each with certain skill sets to unlock which put the focus on different attacks. It doesn't change the game too much.
Boons (passive skills) you get throughout a run usually don't entirely change much with regards to how you approach battles.

The game excels at story progression. It's what sets it apart from other games in that genre. Death is often something you embrace, maybe even long for (if you enjoy the lore, that is).

I bought Hades with the early discount (19.99 €) and don't regret it one bit.

[LazyBoy]

Bought it. Its fucking great. Combat is good, and yes the story/characters/setting are the stars of the show, but shout out to the pacing as well. Every chamber feels like it could give you the opportunity to make this the run where it all comes together. Beat the first boss with the spear, going back to do it with sword now. 

[dan-likes-trees]

Finished (a run on) this muthafuckeererrrrrrr

Such a great game! Love how the game sort of justifies its structure and post-game stuff.

For me I've found almost every run to be completely different, technique-wise. For instance, nearly finished the game a couple runs back with a ridiculous boon that charged up my call gauge in about 2 seconds. Then my winning run turned my

Spoiler

gun special move into a grenade launcher that shot about 8 bullets

As @LazyBoy says a huge part of it is how any one boon can totally change things up; take you from a poor run to a suddenly amazing one - getting a gamechanger of a perk at the end.

Felt like it's perfectly paced in terms of total playtime feeling just right, and generally feeling a sense of progression both overall with cumulative perks and with each individual run getting  a little further. Never felt like I needed to check a guide / tips online as you get just enough time with the bosses to figure them out before you start over. Feel like if the final boss was about 20% harder I'd have hated it and it might've felt like a slog to finish, so definitely a tricky balancing act for the devs.

I'll definitely be playing more of their back catalogue - I didn't get on with Pyre that well but will revisit that one too.. playing Hades makes me wish there was more games with this kind of gameplay and deeply illustrative 2D style (Similarly Banner Saga). I'd love a big action RPG with this level of art direction and quality voiceover. Hopefully the amazing surge of indie games over the last generation will keep on rolling along!

Edited October 15, 2020 by dan-likes-trees
spoilaz

[LazyBoy]

I've ruined my controller playing this game. I've broken the analogue stick into having a drift to the left cause I've been gripping the damn thing so intently. Still fucking love it though, more so the more I've played it.

Still haven't beaten the final boss (I came this close), but every time I die I face a personal battle to have the self control to not go again. My favourite Roguelike bar none. Again its the balance that makes it. Every time a boone comes up I'm weighing my strategies, balancing possible enemy types and certain bosses. There's a power you unlock that gives you a bonus for stacking statuses, so now every time room bonus flashes up I am trying to figure out what the best way is to construct a build that allows me to do that with whatever weapon I am running at the time. They've nailed that core gameplay loop, and better yet they've perfectly designed the rest of the game around that - the metal soundtrack fires you up, the graphical presentation is clean but emotive, the story is rich enough to lend weight without overstepping. Brilliant, just brilliant. Top of my recommend list.

@dan-likes-trees always got to call out a Banner Saga mention, good man.

[Sméagol]

Just got it from the sale.It's awesome so far.

First run I died to a random enemy, didn't know what I was doing. And it's fun to see the game opening up each time like people here were saying. Second run I died to Meg.

So far I've been focussing on upgrading my ehh ranged attack thing. It's now a bouncy lightning ball. But got some other upgrades as well. And I saved up until I could get the cool spear thingy, which I'm going to try out on run 3.

Artstyle is great (although I already knew that), and fun to see it's pretty different from their other games. The narration is typical though, but welcome! Woould love to hear the narrator more though, love that voice. Combat is fun.

[Sméagol]

I'm loving this game, and I've been playing it a lot since I bought it. I've now managed to complete a run a bunch of times. Some builds:

First victory was with the shield. Which was surprising as it was the 2nd time I used it, after failing to win with the spear a whole bunch of times before that. Got the daedalus hammer right from the start (my preferred start), and got a boon that makes my special twice as strong after dashing. The shield special is pretty fun when it gets powered up. I was constantly dashing away and spamming my shield. Later I got a ice upgrade for it, and there is a boon that does continuous damage when all enemies are chilled. Since the special is pretty fast and bounces around, this is easy to accomplish. I love pairing up my shield with ice boons, but coincidentally my last victory was also with the chaos shield, however I used lightning boons this time, which was also pretty fun.

Then after I unlocked the fists, I really got into those, and I've been most succesful with those. Funny considering I wasn't looking forward to trying them out. They attack very fast, so they're great with a lot of boons and debuffs, like doom, or lightning. I always combine it with the lambent plume keepsake, that increases your dodge when you clear a room fast, and I take everything that mitigates damages or increases dodge. You're pretty much unkillable while getting in your enemies face. It looks like this:

Got my fastest run with the fists so far, at 25 minutes, and also my heat record, at 5 so far.

Funny enough, while the spear was my favourite weapon from the earlier unlocks, I never managed to beat the game with it until a while after my first victory. it's still my most used weapon. I came close with some "explosive spear" (little bit of aoe) build. Even funnier is that I barely even used the actual spear towards the end, as I was relying on my ice beam casts, which surprisingly did a good amount of damage, and they require no attention. It wasn't even a proper ice beam build, something I'd like to try some time as well.

First victory with the sword took the most effort, I can't recall exactly, but I don't think that build did anything in particular. Second victory I completely relied on the dash strike, and it just looked like my other melee playstyles, but with even more dashing involved.

Wasn't looking forward to the bow as well, until I took a look at the Aspect of Chiron (was the name I think), and I'm really liking that one. Your special will automatically target the enemy you last hit with your main attack. Works great with poison. The hidden aspect seems interesting, I'll try that next time.

Finally one of my recent victories was with the gun. Also took me a few tries, and I absolutely hate it.The reloading, the aiming, the slow rate of fire, short range and low damage in its default state.. The need to aim the grenade. I can't stand it. I had beaten the game with 4 heat with those fists, and I couldn't even beat the first area with the gun when I tried it first. Didn't even make it to the boss. I've now finally scored a win with it, which I did by turning it to my melee playstyle after getting the shotgun upgrade. So similar to that but slower and less effective.

Anyway, I love the writing, and I'm surprised there's so much of it in a game like this. Even after playing this much, I still haven't seen a repeated dialogue I think, unless it is from the Olympian gods. Theseus always cracks me up, he's my favourite. There's still new stuff to see, and to unlock. I've got 4 or 5 hidden aspects for the weapons, and 2 companions so far. I also love the little details. Like seeing the reaction of the shades when you enter the administration chamber and try to "inspire" them, and I also always say hello to my fan in the 3rd boss arena.

 

Edited November 9, 2020 by Sméagol

[Ganepark32]

Danny and the rest of the team at NoClip put out the final part of their long documentary series surrounding Supergiant Games and Hades, with the latest part focusing on the launch of 1.0 for PC and Switch and the fallout of that. If people are interested in the behind the scenes for the game, NoClip's series has been great and as always, it's great to just see more of Supergiant Games because the team thats over there is just incredibly talented.

Its well worth a watch going through the series if you're at all interested in whats gone on behind the scenes or have interest in the development side of things (and that extends to all of NoClip's content which is fantastic).

[bob]

So I bought this after@Sheikah told me to (although I have had my eye on it after it won all those GOTY awards).

I was a bit reluctant to buy because I dislike 2D games, and I don't really like the pixel art style. I've also never played a Rogue-ish game; the premise doesn't really appeal to me.

However, I bought it, and have played a few runs. Got to a boss, but died (are the bosses always in the same order?). Enjoyed using the shield, but might try the spear next. Still a bit uneasy about the Rogue aspect of the game, but the fact that you can build up boons and extras makes it a bit more palatable. The combat is quite satisfying, even more so when you get more powerful.

I do find myself wanting to try another run though. It's very...moreish.

[Sheikah]

So I bought this after[mention=2464]Sheikah[/mention] told me to (although I have had my eye on it after it won all those GOTY awards).

I was a bit reluctant to buy because I dislike 2D games, and I don't really like the pixel art style. I've also never played a Rogue-ish game; the premise doesn't really appeal to me.

However, I bought it, and have played a few runs. Got to a boss, but died (are the bosses always in the same order?). Enjoyed using the shield, but might try the spear next. Still a bit uneasy about the Rogue aspect of the game, but the fact that you can build up boons and extras makes it a bit more palatable. The combat is quite satisfying, even more so when you get more powerful.

I do find myself wanting to try another run though. It's very...moreish.

Excellent, yeah it's a really neat game. I wasn't a huge fan of their previous games (e.g. Bastion) but this game is remarkable. They absolutely nailed the feel of the combat and the pacing of unlockables with each death.

Glad you are enjoying it! If you like this then there's loads of other roguelikes you might like to try. I'd recommend Binding of Isaac and Nuclear Throne.

[LazyBoy]

55 minutes ago, bob said:

So I bought this after@Sheikah told me to (although I have had my eye on it after it won all those GOTY awards).

I was a bit reluctant to buy because I dislike 2D games, and I don't really like the pixel art style. I've also never played a Rogue-ish game; the premise doesn't really appeal to me.

However, I bought it, and have played a few runs. Got to a boss, but died (are the bosses always in the same order?). Enjoyed using the shield, but might try the spear next. Still a bit uneasy about the Rogue aspect of the game, but the fact that you can build up boons and extras makes it a bit more palatable. The combat is quite satisfying, even more so when you get more powerful.

I do find myself wanting to try another run though. It's very...moreish.

I like that description. Like a tin of pringles.

[Zell]

One of things I like about Hades is that the story ties into the gameplay. It gives the rogue-like mechanics a narrative meaning. 

[bob]

I've been plugging away at this. Just got the big bowl of water in my room that tells me how many runs i've done, and apparently I've only done like 14-15? Feels like way more tbh. Probably because I only play for a few minutes at a time while waiting for milk bottles to sterilise, i lose track of which run i'm on.

 

My favourite weapon is currently the spear. I like how it damages from a distance, and also does damage on the way back too. I do find it disorientating when I pick up a perk, and get used to it enough to change my playstyle, and then suddenly i die and can't rely on it any more.

 

Anyway, my interest is waning now. I can get to the first boss every time now, and i've beaten it a handful. Only got a few rooms into the second circle of hell though. The starting over each time is really draining. When I get quite far into it, I start to think about how even if i do reach the second boss, i'm likely to die fairly easily, and then i have to go all the way back to the start again. I'm fully aware that is the point of the game, but it's difficult to enjoy it. I'd hoped that the few items that do carry over after each death would make it a bit easier, and they do, but at this rate I'm going to have to grind for days to get strong enough to get any distance through the game. 

 

Still, it's a nice game to have on hand to do a few levels on here and there.

[martinist]

I've been hearing good things about this but I haven't went and bought it yet. Should be cheap since it's been out for a while now I guess. I might pick it up in a sale or soemthing.

[LazyBoy]

As the tortuous wait for Monster Hunter Rise dragged through the weekend, I thought I would get prepped and get the Switch all plugged in after it being in storage for a couple months. I decide to boot Hades up again, and I'm so glad I did. I haven't beaten the game with the sword yet, so I decide to plug away at it. I managed to recycle some materials into weapon upgrades, and unlocked the aspect that allows you to retrieve your cast from an enemy by using your special. I try a couple different variations before getting the Artemis boons that cause damage when the bloodstone dislodges, and the seeker arrow cast. Combined with the Weak special attack, and rapid casting, I started destroying. Theseus and the Minotaur have never gone down easier. Get some distance, three casts, close the gap and special - insane damage. So I'm thinking this is it, this is the one, but I go into Hades far too arrogant and loose 100hp in like 5 seconds. Foolish of me, but I'm just going to try and replicate that again, maybe with Poseidon boons instead of Artemis.

Edited March 29, 2021 by LazyBoy

[bob]

Urgh. Was doing really well on a run; got loads of cool boons and powerups; went into the Boney Hydra fight; died.

It's not mega-frustrating, because you kind of feel like you're getting stronger with each death, but I'm starting to wonder how long I'm going to have to play to get all the way through.

How many runs do people usually do before they reach the end? How long do they play for?