Hades is a roguelike game – or perhaps the better term is ‘roguelite’ because in this game you are actually meant to die over and over, returning to the start a little older, wiser and with plenty of improvements and power-ups in your back pocket. It also has many elements of a role-playing game, and boasts isometric view and a fantastic soundtrack that enhances the game play experience, especially the combat scenes.

What’s the Story?

The game has a simple premise – you are the son of Hades (Zagreus) and you are making a break from the bowels of hell to the pinnacle of Mount Olympus, in the hopes of finding out some more about your mom. Olympus is, of course, where all your aunties and uncles hang out and some of them will aid you on your mission, but even this godly help this won’t stop you dying often!

Non-god characters deserving of a special mention are Sisyphus – he of the endless boulder, Patroclus, Hercules’s buddy, and Eurydice, late wife of Orpheus who oh-so-nearly made it out of Hades and back into her tragically cut short life.

You have a range of weapons and powers: dash, light or weapon attack (primary weapon), special attack (an enhancement of your primary weapon and attack), and some magic (called a ‘cast’ and being a spell that is basically a long distance weapon). You can combine power-ups, for example, combining dash with attack gives you a whirling melee attack called a ‘dash-strike’.

The Lite-ness of Being

You begin by playing through the same four rooms each time, but the layout and enemies within it are different each time, giving you plenty of variety to keep you engaged. You die a lot, especially at the beginning, but whatever loot, treasures, power-ups and skills you have improved remain with you – hence the game being called ‘roguelite’ rather than roguelike, which emphasises permadeath and loss of all rewards.

Because you are meant to die often as you explore your way through Hades, finding your way to the outside world, so you can try all the doors, explore all the paths and try out all the options. Whichever weapon you choose gives you different methods of engaging in combat: the sword provides for up-close slashing action, the long-bow allows you to pick off distant enemies more easily and the shield is great fun, able to be used as a sort of Captain America boomerang.

Activating God Mode helps you survive longer and longer each time, by giving you an ever-increasing resistance to damage, which makes you stronger and stronger the more you die – a realistic trait in an immortal kid, when you think about it!

What Else Should I Know?

Every time you complete a room, you earn improvements and upgrades which come in the form of keys, in-game currency (details below), stores and any gifts that your Olympian family have decided to help you with! Often completing a room (killing any villains, using power-ups, finding secrets) will cause one or more doors to open, showing you the way or giving you a choice of where to go next.

The currency takes several forms and actually upgrades the further and more powerful you get, beginning with gold obols (tiny coins taken from the eyes of the dead) and shards of darkness and moving up to gemstones, titan blood phials and more. The Olympian uncles and aunts give gifts that are a nod to their godly powers: Zeus inflicts lightning damage on your strike, and Dionysius supplies ‘hangover damage’ – better known as poison!

The Game Map

Zagreus can explore the underworld in between quests, unlocking upgrades, gaining new weapons and build new support features for underworld. He will find himself, after the four initial rooms, in one of four underworld biomes, namely :

• Temple of Styx
• Tartarus
• Asphodel
• Elysium

If you begin to find that the game is a little too easy, , switch up the Pact of Punishment for greater difficulty and more challenging levels with harder-to-beat villains.

And yes, you can pat the dog!