Last year Hades Made a Desperate Escape from Tartarus Early Access – Stylish Isometric Action Supergiant games for PC and Nintendo Switch became a real mini-sensation. From a little-known hero of ancient Greek mythology, the agile and cheerful Zagreus turned into a real star – a young man who will leave the Kingdom of the Dead, even at the cost of a thousand deaths.
Now Hades is moving to new platforms – already on August 13, the project will debut on all current consoles. Playstation and Xbox, which means it’s time to remind you of what it’s like to fall out of favor with Hades himself, how to stroke Cerberus correctly and make friends with the silent boatman Charon. Read our review for the Nintendo Switch version here…
With the advent of new platforms, Hades has not lost at all in its essence – it is still a dynamic roguelike, where the player pursues a transparent, but extremely difficult goal. In the role of Zagreus, the son of Hades, you have to do the impossible, namely, leave the inhospitable domain of your father and break out – where there is light and where the gods of Olympus rule. And to do this, of course, there is only one way – to break through with battle, crushing hundreds and thousands of enemies, along the way becoming stronger.
Hades’ structure is extremely simple. Each time you start the game, you will find a complex multi-level dungeon consisting of sets of arenas. These arenas, creatures inhabiting them, traps, obstacles, etc., are generated randomly. But along with the awaiting danger, a reward awaits you – the blessing of the gods, special artifacts, magic items and modifiers, in a word, everything that will help Zagreus survive the next battle and one step closer to the cherished escape.
For people who are well acquainted with the genre direction of rogue-lite, the above characteristic is unlikely to carry anything really useful, so such users should know the following: Hades has almost perfect dynamics.
A fast combat system tied to a combination of close and ranged attacks, as well as instant dodges, transforms every room with opponents into an explosive parade of death. After blinking just a couple of times, you are already rushing to the next arena, preparing to change your tactics on the fly, based on the treasures found or the character’s health. In turn, the ability to choose your own route through the dungeon, moving only to rooms with potentially interesting rewards, adds an element of natural optimization to the adventure – even random digital algorithms can sometimes be negotiated.
But it goes without saying that Supergiant Games’ creations simply cannot be based on gameplay alone. And Hades is no exception.
