Hades

For the film industry, there is a “Best Picture” award.

Video games, which are also a commercial and artistic medium, have an equivalent known as “Game of the Year”.

The Game Awards, Golden Joystick Awards, BAFTA Game Awards...you name it. Each award has its own preferences and standards, although the good games are still the common denominator in the majority of prizes. And most of them are AAA titles from major publishers.

Not every game from a major publisher is good. Actually, it’s not uncommon for it to be bad due to its development decisions being interfered with by the board or investors. But, given the funding and the talent, even if the game isn’t spectacular, it’s still likely these games will have good graphics or proven gameplay.

However, at the game awards in 2020, one indie game takes all the nominations, even trophies, in every category: narrative, music, direction, best in the genre, best indie, and of course, best of the year.

Its competitors include the AAA titles such as Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part II, Half-Life: Alyx, and so on. At the end of 2021, it even received the very first game award in the history of the Hugo Award.

It’s Hades, from Supergiant Games.

This is precisely why I decided to give Hades a try. I have already heard about this game and assumed it was just another flavor of the month. But all these nominations and awards? Now I need to look at it.

It’s not the first time I’ve decided to play a specific game based on its public reception. I played Ori and the Blind Forest and Celeste for the same reason. And they were good. These aren’t my favorite games, but I can appreciate where they’re good. It’s always worth it, whether in terms of money or time. Worst-case scenario, I play a good game which isn’t my favorite.

My first impression after playing Hades was that the control is great. Swift, responsive, and intuitive. I was never an action-game guy, but the action gameplay in this game is quite fun. No matter how the experience goes, at least I can always enjoy this game’s action gameplay.

Soon, I got access to several roguelike elements: the choice for boons, random stages and enemies, random stage awards, etc. I had no idea about the effect of any of the rewards, but punching my way out was fun enough.

I encountered death for the first time not long later. The usage of some of the currency rewards I collected is revealed. Keys can unlock new weapons, which makes the early-stage goals clear.

Hades at the moment for me was a game which had a nice combat system with many different weapons. Not terrible, but not really impressive yet.

Not until I unlocked Adamant Rail — a firearm which should have nothing to do with Greek mythology, that impressed me with its feedback by the very first time I used it. It felt as good as slashing people to shoot from afar.

I wasn’t getting better results with Adamant Rail, but it felt so pleasant to use that I wondered whether it was one of the reasons this game is so popular.

This was the first time my opinion toward Hades raised significantly.

Zagreus has only four basic abilities, which isn’t much, but when combined with boons from Olympian Gods, it was like how Diablo 3 advertised itself: “billions of possible build combinations”. Only in Hades, most of them are viable.

Due to the randomness of stage rewards, players are forced to use different builds every time. However, unless intended, the builds are most likely to be useful and capable. Some upgrades may be easier to utilize, but every upgrade can be useful in the appropriate circumstances.

One high difficulty setting choice is to “have fewer options when offered boons, items or upgrades”. Apparently, Supergiant Games is confident in the balance of Hades.

I haven’t been able to complete a run with such an option, but I’ve never found the randomness made this game “unfair” or “unfun” for a single time in my tens of hours of playtime. Furthermore, being compelled to try new builds every time takes me out of my comfort zone, making the challenge more enjoyable.

This moment, when I realized the randomness and the fun, was the second time my opinion toward Hades raised significantly.

Back to when I encountered death for the first time.

Death is natural in Hades. Blood is spilt from Zagreus’s body, Hades offers some harsh advice, and you are back in the hall, planning for the next escape.

Look at the storyline again and you’ll find this is not surprising at all: that this isn’t the realm of the living but the realm of the dead; that Zagreus is not a mortal but a deity; that death is not the end but a one-way ticket back to Tartarus. All is fair.

Roguelike games are popular these years, with some particularly well-received titles. For most of them, the roguelike concept, which is beyond the scope of the story, cannot be explained narratively

The concept of “game over” has been around since the 1970s, and for most gamers, it’s natural that for a split second after your character dies, you are back to reality from the dimension of the game world. Some games even show a big “YOU DIED”. And why is the character able to miraculously reincarnate and continue its quest? Not every story can give an explanation.

But Hades did it.

Hades does an excellent job of combining narrative and gameplay in a natural and elegant way. It’s not the first game with such approaches, but the “escape from the underworld” plot and the roguelike concept — particularly the procedural generation and the permadeath part — fit so well that I wondered maybe roguelikes were meant to be with such themes.

To be precise, the random levels in Hades are not the traditional roguelike “procedural generation”, but “random level generation” — randomly selected handcrafted stages. But the idea of Zagures doesn’t know what’s coming is still valid.

In terms of the story, Zagreus is defying his father’s order by escaping. As the king of the underworld, it’s logical for Hades to halt Zagreus with unpredictable obstacles.

Similarly, death in Hades isn’t the traditional roguelike “permadeath”, but the “rogue-lite” style death penalties widely used in recent roguelike games.

The resources gained in each round are divided into two categories: temporary and permanent. Temporary resources expire at the end of each run, while the permanent ones remain. By using the permanent resources, the character gains stats or abilities permanently which supports two goals: difficulty reduction, and a sense of accomplishment.

Because the stage of Hades is at the domain of the dead, where souls go after death, it’s compelling that Zagreus goes back to where he begins when he dies.

Supergiant Games also elegantly solves the question of “why does Zagreus has to escape from the start again after a successful run”: he is from and belongs to the underworld. If he stays in the realm of the living for more than a few minutes, he will perish and return to where he belongs. In order to speak with his birth mother for a short time, he can only keep escaping.

Meanwhile, conversations with every character change based on the outcome of the earlier escapes. Every new dialogue provides an opportunity, for the players to learn more about Zagreus or the world.

The plot links to the gameplay progress because of it, and now players have narrative purposes to repeat the challenge.

Moreover, the new dialogues only appear after a run, success or dead (Zagreus still has to die even when succeeds). Game over reflects not only players’ mistakes, but also the opportunities to learn more about the underworld.

The players can watch new dialogues, or spend resources, and when they realized, they are at the entry of the next run. It’s really easy to “accidentally” starts another run.

Intervals between runs are now filled with both gameplay and narrative rewards, making it more difficult for players to leave.

Of course, roguelike is a genre which has been for decades before Hades; rogue-lite is also not a new concept; Hades> is merely a successor which mixes roguelike mechanics with narrative brilliantly. But Hades does it so well that it has earned its place in the history of roguelike.

However, rogue-lites often run into the issue of difficulty decrease induced by both meta-progress and in-game progress.

The intention of a roguelike is to encourage players to learn the game properly with randomness and severe death penalties, which connects players’ experience with game progress. A well-designed roguelike should be reasonably challenging; players can learn about the game through the obstacles until they understand the game enough to complete it.

The permanent character progression, on the other hand, is the opposite idea; every earned resource reduces the difficulty. Even if the game is too hard for some players, they should be able to finish the game eventually with enough time and energy.

The golden cross of decreased difficulty via player experience and character power scaling is the problem game designers must confront and solve. Postponing the golden cross by increasing the default difficulty is not ideal, the learning curve would be too steep, and people may quit; lowering the efficiency of character progress must also be executed carefully, with the risk of the progress mechanism becoming irrelevant.

Supergiant Games’ answer to the problem is configurable difficulty. After the first completed attempt, the “Heat” mode would be unlocked. Players can adjust the difficulty of their next run for better rewards through a series of specific options, such as foe damage, additional abilities for bosses, the number of choices for weapon upgrades.

If players desire to have easier narrative progress or try out unfamiliar builds, the difficulty can be predictable. If they want to test themselves, Hades has them covered too.

With the Heat system providing solutions for both casual and core players, Supergiant Games solved the progress difficulty problem.

The game features all the above-mentioned components, as well as best-of-year-level art direction, music, audio design, and quality assurance.

Among them, the music is unquestionably my favorite. The soundtrack is fantastic on its own, but the synergy with the gameplay is even more amazing.

(In 2021, I was in the top 0.5% Spotify listener of Darren Korb — the music and sound director of Hades, who wrote and performed all the tracks, and voiced Zagreus, Skelly, and more. He’s so talented it’s insane)

The majority of the tracks have two sections: the build-up, and the climax. In the earlier stages with fewer foes, it will play the build-up part, then transition to the climax part exactly when the mini-boss or the boss battle begins.

One of the most notable examples of such change-of-pace may be found in Eurydice’s solo “Good Riddance”. Last second you were fighting out of your way in Asphodel, then the rock music is gone, replaced by classical guitar and Ashley Barrett’s beautiful voice. You would forget you’re still in the underworld.

Hades is easy to pick up with its great combat, and it encourages players to challenge themselves through narrative progression. When a player has completed the main story, escaping the underworld should be a breeze, and he or she is ready for the next step: the challenges set by yourself.

After playing other action games, I realized why I fell in love with Hades so much despite action is not my favorite genre: in Hades, the battle is fair.

This game provides enough tools for players to overcome challenges. When you fail, you will know where and when you made mistakes. It’s challenging, but it’s fair. The positive loop of self-improvement and progress gain makes it difficult to stop playing this game.

And I was deeply impressed by the game when playing this game from the beginning for the second time on PS5. From the way the main story unfolds, to every time Zagreus speaks to himself, there are too many “wow” moments delivered by how the game seamlessly links narrative and gameplay.

I’ve been recommending Hades to folks whenever we’re talking about games for the past six months. This game is so well-polished, it’s almost flawless. To me, it is the one and only Game of the Year.

Hades is the best game I’ve played in years, and I believe it will stay there for a long time.