Why Hades Deserves Every Award It Got
Hello there!
The subject of Greek mythology has been done to death, which is a good thing because Supergiant Games takes us to the realm of the dead.
Hades, Supergiant’s 4th game, jumps into the rogue-like territory and mixes it with the ever-changing shape of Greek mythology. In Hades we play as Zagreus, son of Hades. The name Hades also refers to the Underworld itself, so you can interpret that however you want. Zagreus is trying to get out of Hades, to find his mother who left Hades (both the god and the realm) some time after he was born.
Zagreus thinks his mother was forced out of Hades, so he wants to find her and learn the truth. Zagreus needs to fight through the regions of Hades such as Tartarus, Asphodel and Elysium to reach the Surface, for a chance to even hope that he finds some information on what happened to his mother.
What makes Hades great is that first of all, the whole rogue-like mechanic is reasonably inserted in the Greek mythology and House of the Dead setting. When Zagreus dies, he’s taken by the river Styx, and delivered to where every soul goes when they die, the Great Hall of the Dead, right next to his bedroom. So everytime you die, since you’re already literally the Prince of the Underworld, you’re back to your home and it makes sense.
Meanwhile, the gods of Olympus are very much interested in this son of Hades, who tries to get out. Because they’re the Olympian Gods and they can’t go 5 minutes without meddling with other people’s business. Nyx, the Night incarnate who is also our surrogate mother, helps us forge a connection with the Olympian gods to have them grant us “boons”, magical god-like powers to help us get out of the Underworld. So the power-up system is also based on the Greek myths in a solid way, which is amazing. Of course, Zagreus has conversations with each god during these interactions, which furthers the story and reveals a lot of information about the setting and the gods themselves.
Olympian Gods, much like every other character in the game, feel very real and full of personality. Creative director Greg Kasavin mentions in a Reddit AMA that most of the gods correspond to broad family archetypes. You have the boisterous inappropriate uncle in Poseidon, the daughter who really doesn’t want to be there in Artemis and so on.
Every character always has something to say about a recent development in your game. The amount of event-specific dialogue is so huge that you start to wonder what certain characters are going to say about your latest exploits in the underworld.
The game has over a billion voice lines. OK, that’s not true. But it feels like it. There’s a very low chance that you would hear a quote twice. Even the generic all-purpose ones. Darren Korb states that it took around 3 years for him to record all his lines. I don’t think this was 3 years of continous records sessions, but it certainly shows that they kept recording more lines throughout the updates.
Now I’d like to especially mention Darren Korb here, because he has become this unstoppable monster of talents and I’m very glad that Supergiant is aware of this. As you know, Darren Korb makes the music for Supergiant’s games. His work on Bastion, Transistor and Pyre were all critically acclaimed and in fact made a lot of people try out these games. While amazingly talented at making music that conveys emotions, in Hades, Darren stepped into a territory where currently Mick Gordon reigns: going full heavy metal. And I think he crushed it. Some of the songs feel like right out of the DOOM soundtrack while retaining that Greek underworld feeling.
Besides creating the amazing soundtrack, Darren Korb voices the main character, Zagreus, which is a great feat in its own right. Plus, Skelly the Funky Skeleton along with singing as Orpheus. As in Supergiant tradition, he’s accompanied by the amazing Ashley Barrett, who sings as Eurydice.
Now, having finished the main storyline, I can safely tell you that Supergiant once again delivers their signature feels trip. The story wraps up beautifully and manages to once again keep your further escape attempts on a reasonable ground. And while Hades seems to be telling the story of Zagreus, it manages to tell pretty much everyone’s story. If you’re interested in Greek mythology, especially the battle of Troy, some side characters offer amazingly deep and touching stories.
The gameplay loop consists of Zagreus leaving his house by jumping off the balcony, meeting with various characters to gain boons and other modifications, then battling it through levels filled with enemies until a boss fight happens. These boons interact with each other and your current weapon. And sometimes you get duo boons, 2 gods combining powers to create a new and unique boon. These boons vary from just making your attacks deal more damage to entirely change how some of your skills work.
There are 6 weapons at Zagreus’ disposal with 4 aspects each. Which creates 24 different weapon scenarios. Some of these weapons and aspects are not avaiable immediately at the beginning and need to be unlocked when they reveal themselves to you. The variety in godly boons and further mods combined with the total number of weapon aspects provide a unique run pretty much all the time. But the game also lets you stick to a “build” to a certain degree.
Hades is very nice to look at (the game, not the God, although he’s obviously spending a lot of time in the underworld gym) and the character illustrations convey both their personalities and their feelings beautifully. The art style might not be for everyone, personally it worked for me.
Overall, Hades delivers a solid gameplay experience and as someone who does not like rogue-likes, the way they built the gameplay loop instantly got me hooked. It has the magic touch of Supergiant where the world feels alive, every moment feels meticulously worked on, the game knows exactly what it wants to do and what story it wants to tell. In less than 3 loops, it becomes very clear what Supergiant went for and it’s glorious. And just among all that emotion and feeling of fulfilment, Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett start singing, which completes the Supergiant brand. Hades brings together everything Supergiant achieved so far and I’m thankful to be able to enjoy it during these difficult times.
