I’ve played more of this and it’s really good. I’m regularly getting to the 1st boss, and have a decent understanding of the upgrades.
The shield is real strong and certainly my preferred weapon, but it also feels a bit like “easy mode”. Like, “use this to get a feel for the game.” So it’s odd that it’s the 2nd unlockable weapon. Having both a ranged attack, a way to avoid damage, and a way to pierce through multiple enemies… I fear it may be nerfed through out development.
I want to try out the spear more. It was pretty fun from what I played.
It’s also extremely cool that they have a small benefit to trying out different weapons. Basically each run, one of the weapons you haven’t used in the previous run will have a purple aura. Those weapons will give you 10% more Darkness for that run. Usually it’s only 1 more or so, but it’s not nothing! I hope they add more stuff like that. Even if it’s just stuff like life leech, damage, or coin find.
The permanent upgrade system is real rad too. It’s actually really great that it’s not stuff like direct damage or health up. It makes the runs more about teaching you to play more effectively than just brute forcing it, while still giving some pretty helpful assistance. “Oh, I should be dodging more” and “oh, I should try to get behind them.” etc. Though having more ammo can make the game pretty easy depending on the upgrades you get for your shot.
One thing I’m not really sold on is the upgrades that are like “+1%”. There’s a gift that gives you a 1% chance of finding healing items in pots and… I think I’d rather have save up to 200 gold each run. Sure there’s like 50 pots in each room, but unless the RNG is actually “You WILL find something every 100 pots you break” then I don’t think it’s worth it.
I gave the game a shot after hearing that it was more-or-less a full, polished game just lacking a few features. The roguelite fundamentals are really solid here, the only setback being that the isometric perspective can make it difficult to accurately gauge where attacks are going to hit.
The game’s real strength is definitely in the writing, it’s got every other roguelike beat in terms of character development and overall personality. The dynamic of having Zagreus rib at and comment on Logan Cunningham’s narration, including a moment where they accidentally give away a major twist early on, is a great bit of self-awareness from Supergiant of their own creative habits.
SO! Apparently the folks over at No Clip are basically doing a "Building The Bastion" 2 with Hades.
They’ll be creating a documentary series showcasing the development of this game. Sounds pretty rad!
I actually think after playing it that it’s a lot more natural a progression than it seems.
If you’ve played supergiant stuff before, you can definitely feel where they learned lessons in the combat. This game feels like them taking all of the action game lessons they learned in previous games and applying them. Whether or not you feel that makes for a good game is up to you. But I don’t think it’s a strange place for them to go.
When I think of Supergiant, I think good art direction, good music, and narrative that unfolds piecemeal as you interact with different systems. So far, this seems to have all of the things.
I’ll admit it struck me as having a “we need to put something out now” vibe to it.
I remember seeing Pyre advertised on the Plastation store over a year before it was released. And now we’re a bit over a year from Pyre and they surprise launched this. I’m really really hoping they turn it into something cool.
As of right now I’m wrestling with the fact that I find the aesthetic to be cool, but I’m not very good at rogue-lite games, and the first boss can still give me a good thrashing despite 6 hours of play. So I’m worried I’m not even going to be good enough to see all of it.
I came into the documentary a bit concerned about the studio, similarly to some people in this thread. Pyre is legit one of my favourite games ever, I never knew a game could combine my love for sports and quality writing so effectively. Even though I realize it’s a real weird and extremely ambitious game (that probably doesn’t have too much of an audience?), selfishly enough, I wanted more of that.
Then I watched the episode and heard Amir Rao say “we were just ready to have a game where you fought some dudes” and just hearing that said out loud made most of my concerns disappear? Like, I know these guys make great games, I enjoyed all 3 of their games. They know what they’re doing. I may or may not like Hades in the end, can’t try it 'cause my PC is garbage, but I support Supergiant in their direction, even though it’s not the one I envisioned in my head.
I had the same reaction! I think it helped just to hear them confirm that they were working on something that, as a studio, they really wanted to be working on. And a nice reminder that those devs are just people. And even when you’ve made some really ambitious stuff, sometimes you just wanna make a game about fighting some dudes.
And I can safely say that while the game is excellent, the lack of content really hurts it. The gameplay is excellent but I have some complaints, one of the major ones is, the bosses, its not the difficulty, its playing them over and over.
I honestly hate to say this, but it brings back a game I don’t like to mind, binding of isaac, one of the few positive things I have to say is the variety of bosses made going down each time not feel as samey, even if you had the exact same power ups.
With only having one boss on a set path it becomes stale after around 10 or so fights against the boss.
I hope they do something, like add different movesets for said bosses, or variants to them somehow to make it more interesting beyond just having a different build each time.
I finally stopped playing Fortnite long enough to purchase this game and play it.
First three runs in and I love it. Got to my first boss(?), and it was fun, the combat feels fluid and the art is amazing. I’m hoping we get to see more content and updates as development continues.
Scattered thoughts after 30-odd runs and clearing with the spear, bow and shield:
The triple dash is so essential that it feels like it shouldn’t be in the same upgrade menu with stuff like “+10% backstab damage” and “10 coins at the start of a run” - unlocking it was when the game really started making sense/being fun to me
I like most of the weapons but the shield really feels like it’s underpowered in terms of raw DPS, especially in the second zone when some of the fights start feeling like a straight numbers check to stop players from getting through all the content too quickly.
This is the first early access game I’ve ever played where I’ve been really excited for the next update rather than putting it away until 1.0 once I’ve seen enough. A large part of that is how story/art-focused it is compared to other roguelites; new areas and enemies are fine and all but I’m dying to find out what Artemis/Sisyphus/Charon/Orpheus/Nyx all look like.
So the new patch just came out. CHAOS is it’s theme. The patch notes make it sound like a lot has been added, but I haven’t seen much new other than some enemies in the one run I did.
Of the new enemies, they added this thwomp-like crushy boys, and I found them pretty hard to dodge. Plus they stay in the air forever.
Overall, as someone who’d gotten to the last boss on 5+ times but never killed it, but then managed it on first try of the new patch last night, I think the game got noticeably easier. The new mirror buff is pretty essential and makes single-target encounters much less challenging. The first boss folded really quickly for me this time, even with my boons being meh.
I mainly run with the shield and that got buffed quite a bit, the new bullrush feels a lot better. The little visual + vibration feedback when you block things is a great addition.
The new god makes it actually worth jumping into the holes now! I like the trade off buff idea a bunch.
Agreed on the crushy boys. They felt more annoying than difficult and not in a fun way. The only thing you have to do is wait for the short timing window and that’s the entire fight. They definitely stay in the air for far too long.
im playing the update aswell (cleared the game multiple times) i love the edition of the chaos boons theyre really fun. ii managed to select a boon that dealt 3 damage every time i attacked so i would have to clear rooms with my special and cast (sword run).
but i made that selection completely forgetting that the next room was meg and frantically trying to beat that fight without attacking was A LOT of fun (i nearly did it too!)
artemis’s art is so cuuuute.
the new enemies are interesting, im dealing with the crusher dudes but theyre definitely getting me when it feels like they maybe shouldnt have.
i kinda understand why they tweaked the meg fight, her encounter was fine but if you werent running a crit build it could really drag and feel a tad spongy.
what i really like is the rebalance to the bonehydra fight that fight feels allot better to do now less hiding behind walls.
Finally got around to playing the update. Main takeaway is that Chaos looks rad as hell. I’ve never been a fan of Greek myth but I appreciate that they’re going for the deep cuts.
The new “bet on yourself” mechanic is cool, and I think I’m overall positive about the balance changes - disappointed that Artemis’ dash attack boon got nerfed but in all fairness it was pretty busted with the spear.
Really cool look into the process of patching and updating an early access game.
Also, there’s a new update as of a week or so ago featuring a new god (Dionysus) and weapon (Gun???). It’s been a lot of fun dipping back into the game for a few runs every update to check out what’s new, and I’m excited to see what comes next (there’s a short bit of dialogue in this update that suggests we might be seeing Thanatos soon?)
