Hades

Hades is...
Well how would I say it... I have 100% achievements on this game and on the question "What did it cost?" I would probably answer everything. But I enjoyed it. It was perfect. Perfect. Everything. Down to the last minute details.

If anything about "isometric hack-'n-slash roguelite" appeals to you, you should play this game.
- The controls are simple and responsive with only four different buttons you need in combat other than movement. Despite their simplicity, they make comboing and animation-canceling satisfying. The gameplay is fast-paced and provides a lot of room for skill expression.
- There's a wide variety of weapons which all bring something unique to the table; no two of them feel the same. Most of them feel good to use, too, with clean attack animations and clear hitboxes. The exception for me is , which I think feels kind of clunky because of how long you're locked into the attack animation, and it lacks stagger on hit. It's still fun, though, and I can just avoid using it because you're never required to pick a certain weapon.
- There are plenty of different enemies, which all have their own strengths while feeling fair to fight. It's easy to tell most of the enemy types apart, other than a few that are palette-swaps.
- The powerup choices given to players during escape attempts are meaningful and diverse. The boon system is intuitive and pairs well with the weapons, and Daedalus hammers provide interesting playstyle changes. Some boons are clearly stronger than others (looking at you, deflect dash), but there's usually some situation or synergy that can make a boon worth taking.
- The metagame progression feels nice, too. Mirror upgrades and keepsakes are powerful and diverse (if you haven't noticed yet, the theme of this review is "options, options, options"), but you don't need to grind for all of them to escape the Underworld. I also like .
- The sound design is excellent. The sound effects are distinct and make it easy to track what's happening, and the music pulls together the whole "Greek mythology with a touch of modern aesthetic" theme.
- The cast of characters is memorable, if a bit cliche, but that's par for the course with mythology. Yahtzee said in his Zero Punctuation review that the voice acting "sounds like it's all coming from very sexy people," which I think is dead-on--at first I found the soft and occasionally oddly sultry way that some of the characters speak to be a little weird, but it's definitely unique and contributes to the somewhat-moody, fire-lit atmosphere and charm. I'm still playing the game long after the credits have rolled to see what happens in the characters' subplots (even though I already learned in school how most of them go).
- decorating the house is fun and Cerberus needs all the toys I can buy don't @ me
Overall, this game is great and I only have a few gripes with it. Co-op is the only thing I feel is really missing, but with how tight the gameplay is, I can understand not wanting to compromise that with netcode. There's so much content in this game and all of it fits together into a cohesive and entertaining experience. I recommend this game.

Hades is a rare case where it really does have the whole package, gameplay, OST, Art, Story, you name it Hades has mastered it. Such a cohesive game where everything makes sense and all the elements are working together to form this godly experience.

In the name of Hades...
If you have any interest/doubts about this game or happen to be my friend: please, read this review.
It contains meme-tales of my personal experience + actual game info for you to see what you'll be dealing with.
At first glance at Hades -- I wasn't impressed. I didn't even understood why people like it. I miserably failed my 1st run and didn't think about coming back to the game, wasn't exactly my type of game. My pal, who introduced me to Hades, was very shocked by that fact and convinced me to try again. And so I did, after couple of weeks of consideration.
And then I fell in love with this gem of a game.
I've had 3 sessions of Hades obsession. After 1st break for couple of months and return to the game I was so fascinated and couldn't understand why did I stop playing, the game is a damn masterpiece. In couple of hours I remembered: my fingers and hands were hurting from smashing those buttons, I just couldn't physically continue at the time. :D
Good gamers with great reaction will not understand, but me, being pepega such as I am, I've panicked and pressed too many buttons to kill and survive. Took me a while but I've learned how to play it not like a guitar hero but to learn timings and positioning.
The game itself is very well made on each and every aspect:
Story, dialogues and voice acting is on the next level. I have about 200-300 screenshots on my pc from this game and most of them just dialogues. They are witty, fun, wise.
This game, if you read and listen, can show you and teach you a lot. Psychology have always been my hobby and it was cool to see how this game shows: at least 3 types of problematic relationships between children and parents(indifferent/abandonment, overcontrolling, cold+tyranic); about 3 to 5 examples of romantic relationships(friendly romantic, toxic tough love, kinky exploring type, etc); bunch of situations regarding different friends/aquitances, god-mortal, god-to-god, and ofc it has Cerberus, whom you can pet as many times as you like.
Your progression thru the game and progress with certain characters changes your interactions with them and their lines.
You going to dislike some characters at first but will grow to love and respect them(avoiding spoilers) and this is a great experience.
If you are a fan of Greek Mythology, you're going to have a blast looking at all the interpretations of the appearances and characters of mythic creatures, gods, heroes and monsters etc. Every character, especially gods, are very well represented and have amazing and unique vibe. Sometimes the gods going to be pleased with you, sometimes they'll be angry and it's cool to see how they change in a matter of seconds, it all feels like they are real characters and they would say/act the way they do.
Trust me, there is much more to tell, but I'd love to avoid spoilers and the size of this review is getting out of hand.
Variability, weapons, god powers and staff.
The game has 6 weapons, each weapons has 4 aspects, each of them offer different playstyle and has different passives and bonuses, each of these aspects can be upgraded up to 5 times, this upgrade stays forever. And during the run, usually you stumble upon Dedal's Hammer, up to 2 times, which have number of upgrades for your weapon: these are staying only for the current run. They can change your gameplay drastically.
During your run/escape attempt, you going to get help from Olympian gods. Each god have number of unique powers and combinations with other gods. All this powers work differently with different weapons. Zeus is all about lighting, Poseidon all about crushing force of the waves, Artemis - crits and hunt and ofc we have Dionysus, who's all about the booze and hangover effects for your enemies :D
Variability is insane. You have to see for yourself. I have yet to try many cool builds.
RNG
Hella annoying how it should be in any rogue-like: you think you know what build you going to get and you end up with half of what you wanted but it works. Sometimes your build becomes so strong you really feel like a god and think that this should be nerfed. Then you try to repeat the build and you realise it was very good run and ton of luck, probably won't happen again. Apreciate what you have and learn combinations and boons. In this game RNG will teach you new things, it'll teach you lessons, you'll appreciate it. RNG here isn't like unforgiving RNG in Darkest Dungeon, it's kind. But don't get fooled: it'll tease you and you'll have to respect it and be smart about your choices.
Difficulty.
If you're struggling or just want to go thru the story - game has God-Mod option in the menu. You'll be hella strong. Especialy after you die. Yes. Spoiler alert: you going to die. Nobody gets out alive. But I might be lying to you. Find out for yourself ;)
Games too easy..? No problemo, senior. Game has Pact of Punishment system -- you can up the difficulty yourself, you're choosing exactly what's going to get harder. Up to 64 levels of Punishment, I think. That's going to be insane, but it's possible. Examples of punishment: 1)+% number of enemies; 2)+dmg/hp to enemies; 3)enemies/bosses have additional abilities. And for each additional difficulty lvl you going to be rewarded ofc.
Progression
Well, during the run you have progression which mentioned above, but you also progress by collecting some resources during the run, which can help you make yourself stronger in the long run, you can change cosmetic aspects of the Underworld or use resources to help certain characters with their troubles. Oh, yes, sometimes you can fish as well to get more resources, it's pretty fun :D
Music. It's simply godly. Never gets old. You'll listen to it even outside of the game. Trust me, nothing to say here, enjoy it. Once again, work well done.
Imo art style/graphics of the game are one of the best there is. I think it's going to stand the test of time and will be amazing to look at whenever.
In game achievements and steam achievements will actually help you to experience this game to the fullest. It's more than possible to get them all. This is one of my most enjoyable 100% of the game. I really felt like I've done something cool, worthwhile and maybe even significant.
Game supports controller and keyboard.
I sticked with keyboard but sometimes thought that controller could be better. Don't stress it and pick what you enjoy.
Out of 10. c:
I think it's pretty cool that it took me exactly 100 escape attempts to 100% the game and by that moment I had 50% escape(win?) rate. But let it be known that I'm pretty bad at games like this and It took me a while to learn how to dodge stuff and git gud. Fun fact: I still repeat same mistakes, just less often.
Also! I fully support price spike even tho it's a bit too much for me personaly to pay. But the game worth all the money they ask for it.
It was very fun to play it on my own and also very enjoyable to stream it and introduce people to this game or discuss with experienced players the story, builds and everything else.
I can't wait for the Hades 2 and I'll continue to play Hades.
There is no way out.

ive never seen a game quite as perfectly made as hades.
- the gameplay is smooth and engaging, riveting enough to want to play the game for its own sake
- the roguelike aspect of it is balanced amazingly, there are very few boons or items that dont seem like they could be made powerful if you focused a build around them
- being only a roguelite, there are some permanent upgrades and you cannot keep the run going forever, but this makes it so that the run never truly gets out of control and loses its gameplay value, and the permanent upgrades make it so that if you feel stuck, you can hopefully push yourself further with more upgrades.
- the shop in general is great, ive never seen a cosmetic shop for a SINGLEPLAYER GAME that i so thoroughly enjoyed buying thing out of
- this game has the most likeable characterization of any video game character ive ever encountered, its *that* good. its definitely helped by the absolute gargantuan amount of stellar voice acting the game has
- the story is something also really well done, but i'll not spoil it here, what i will say is that the game also has a bunch of mini-stories that slowly progress as you play, keeping tings fresh and interesting
- the pact of punishment is a perfect way to add difficulty without feeling cheap. the player controls their own difficulty??? thats so cool@!!!!

10/10 good game play it now

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Soundtrack }---
☑ Amazing
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Overall }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

i played this game for maybe an hour, my GF said "hey that looks fun, can i have a turn".
ive still only played it for an hour