History YMMV / Hades

** With ''Theatre/{{Hadestown}}'', another much-hyped and much-awarded late-[=2010s=] retelling of Greek myths. Both works focus on the Underworld, diversify its characters, and spotlight the relationships between Orpheus, Eurydice, Hades, and Persephone. It is not uncommon for players to recommend the musical or for reviewers to mention it while discussing the game.

* SacredCow: Between the gameplay hook, the [[SugarWiki/AwesomeArt sublime art direction]], the CastFullOfGay, the tight combat, various side-stories, likable characters, vocal performances, [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic inspired music]], the hours and hours' worth of content found, and freedom to how one can approach the game, ''Hades'' has been considered as one of the best games of 2020, if not '''the''' best. For all of this and more, it quickly earned itself a devoted following that has been expanding ever since, and saying that the game is bad online will result in you being dog-piled by almost anyone who played it.

** Theseus proves very quickly to be both [[HateSink an insufferable braggart with little to no self-awareness]] and a [[ThatOneBoss thoroughly annoying boss fight]], so it's quite gratifying to beat him and watch his shock at how that "blackguard" Zagreus could best him. Even moreso if you have Extreme Measures set to 3, at which point you've overcome that much more of a challenge (and got to see him complain about you trashing that gaudy chariot of his).

-->'''Poseidon:''' What do you say, there, Nephew, ready to get wet, or no? Oh I suspect you are, so let's get to it, and dispense some liquid justice!

* AwardSnub: A lot of fans think that ''Hades'' should have won Best Direction in the 2020 Game Awards, if not Game of the Year. This is an especially contentious point because the winner of both awards, ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII'', is a lightning rod for controversy, with multiple controversial storytelling decisions as well as Creator/NaughtyDog's reportedly [[TroubledProduction horrendous working conditions]] not being the best example of good day-to-day direction, the latter contrasting with Supergiant having prioritized their employees' health throughout ''Hades''' development. Later averted when Hades won in 2021 the very first [[https://kotaku.com/hades-wins-a-hugo-award-making-history-as-first-video-1848242324 "Best Video Game" Hugo Award.]]

** Aegis. Ordinarily in the PC and Mac versions, fighting will require two hands; one to move around with the keyboard, and one to aim and attack with the mouse/mousepad. Aegis puts this control complexity down to just one, allowing you to not only defend (something that can't be done with other weapons), but to do it ''while'' moving ''and'' attacking via the Bull Rush ability. You are completely impervious to any attack in the game for as long as it hits the Aegis and not Zagreus himself. That, and on the off-chance that spamming this strategy won't work, the "Captain America" strategy (throwing the shield and watching it bounce around all enemies until the field is clear) might.

** Hermes' Greatest Reflex boon, which grants the player additional dashes, is often consider the go-to boon to always grab from him. This can increase the number of dashes that you can perform in a row. And as noted above with Athena and Poseidon's dashes, this can be essential to a successful run; being able to quickly put distance between you and powerful enemy attacks (such as the SpinAttack employed by the FinalBoss) makes your life a lot easier.

** Shady tends to be the favored Companion Summon. Given to you by Sisyphus, Shady allows you to summon Bouldy for a flat 1000 hit attack and give Zagreus three healing items, darkness, and 30 gold. While the attack itself is not particularly stellar, the ability to heal is quite beneficial especially on higher heat runs. The healing provided alone makes it worth it, especially if Dark Regeneration is turned on, for Midbosses and boss battles as it can be the difference between being forced to use a Death Defiance or not.

** In Elysium, there's the Flame Wheels, little "baby" versions of Nemean Chariots that try to run into you and explode for a decent chuck of damage. The only way to stop them is to either trick them into hitting a wall, or kill them from a distance so that their explosions won't harm you. This is easier said than done as the game spawns them in packs, usually with other enemies, and some melee weapons don't have the range to pull this off. The only other alternative is to wield Aegis and simply guard as they [[TakingYouWithMe commit suicide by exploding]], or use Deflect to negate the explosion damage. It's worth telling that one of the rarer Well of Charon items available exclusively in Elysium is the "Flame Wheels Release", which removes all Flame Wheel spawns for the next ''ten'' encounters, and there are only twelve encounters in Elysium per run.

*** The soldiers of Elysium are split into Brightswords, Strongbows, Longspears, and Greatshields, and each of them qualifies for a different reason. [[FragileSpeedster Brightswords]] don't have much range or attack power, but they can dash, and will put on sudden bursts of speed and blitz it halfway across the map to either hit you, or dance out of the way from your attacks. [[MightyGlacier Strongbows]] have the most highly-telegraphed attack in the game, but it hurts by far the worst among the soldiers. [[LightningBruiser Longspears]] are easily the worst; they have the highest running speed of all the soldiers, and may as well have an {{instant death radius}} because their attacks are fast and come with no tells whatsoever, so even dashing past them isn't safe. It's a very wide radius, too--their spear range is greater than everything you can wield except Coronacht when fully charged, including the gun. [[StoneWall Greatshields]] force the InTheBack playstyle on you, which can be problematic if your strategy focused on high aggression thus far. And what's worse, every soldier-type enemy leaves behind a spirit after being defeated, which also has to be killed; if the spirit isn't killed fast enough, the soldier will just respawn with full health and armor, forcing you to fight them all over again.
*** Soulcatchers. They are a nightmare on the battlefield as you likely won't notice that they're there until you're getting stun-locked by a swarm of butterflies while trying to deal with other, more aggressive enemies. They're slow, so it's not like you can't hit them, but they have a ''ton'' of health even before armor enters the picture. Prepare to rely on patience if more than one spawns on the field at once. The Dire Soulcatcher, one of Elysium's mini-bosses, cranks this up to eleven; not only is it supremely tough to crack, but it also keeps spawning souls that will turn into normal enemies unless you divide your attention and deal with them, ''and'' it can teleport if the enhanced mini-bosses Pact condition is active.
*** Nemean Chariots were so bad in this aspect that they received a {{Nerf}} in the Long Winter update. They had a ton of health, even more so than Soulcatchers, and are ''very fast'', running you down with ridiculous speed and dealing large chunks of damage as they plow you into whatever is nearby. Even after the update, they still somewhat remain as examples of this trope, but their damage-per-second was brought down to more reasonable numbers. If there's more than one of them though, or if they have armor, defeating them is gonna be a challenge.

** The game itself is called "Fishing Simulator" by some fans because the FishingMinigame nets you currencies for every fish caught, and the player won't likely give up the chance to catch fish whenever they see one. It also helps that Poseidon has a Huge Catch boon that increases the chance of a fishing point to appear in a room.

** Theseus is often referred to as "Other Guy" because of one of the dialogues Zagreus has when about to fight him and [[WorthyOpponent Asterius]], whom he shows far more respect to, whereas [[BrokenPedestal increasingly exasperated with Theseus' behavior as time goes on.]]

** Artemis is referred to as "The Goddess of Crits" due to her boons being the defacto CriticalHitClass.

** Theseus is commonly interpreted as [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain homophobic]] and/or [[ArmoredClosetGay extremely attracted to Asterius.]]
** It's rather common in fanworks to see Zagreus, who's never been to the surface for very long, to not know things that are rather common knowledge amongst mortals, such as what certain animals are. It helps that he mistakes Hermes' bird wing motif with bat wings, indicating he doesn't know what birds are.

* EvilIsSexy: More antagonistic than evil, but Megaera is an attractive whip-wielding Fury who speaks with an impossibly smoky contralto and acts like a {{Dominatrix}} in her interactions with Zagreus. Once romanced, she'll whip him in bed and offer to "punish" him outside of the Pact of Punishment.

*** Asphodel's Megagorgon and Elysium's Dire Soulcatcher gain teleportation abilities and become extremely jumpy, and regarding Asterius… the less said, the better.

** "Thorn of Thanatos" requires you to accumulate a 30% damage buff from using Thanatos' keepsake, Pierced Butterfly, which gives you a stackable 1-2% buff (depending on the keepsake's level) if you can clear a room [[FlawlessVictory without taking any damage]]. So at max level, you'll need to clear 15 rooms without getting hit, which is a bit harder than it seems as they don't count non-combat areas like Charon's shop and fountain chambers. Not only can you take damage from enemies off-screen, but you'll also have to avoid suffering any trap damage. The Keepsake also has a specific exemption for the Temple of Styx, since the rooms are both extremely numerous and quite short, so it has to be earned before reaching that level.

** Shady tends to be the favored Companion Summon. Given to you by Sisyphus, Shady allows you to summon Bouldy for a flat 1000 hit attack and give Zagreus three healing items, darkness, and 30 gold. While the attack itself is not particular stellar, the ability to heal is quite beneficial especially on higher heat runs. The healing provided alone makes it worth it, especially if Dark Regeneration is turned on, for Midbosses and boss battles as it can be the difference between being forced to use a Death Defiance or not.
* DisappointingLastLevel: Styx for some; see ThatOneLevel.

** "Thanks, But No Thanks". This requires you to purge a Legendary-level Boon in a Pool of Purging. Sounds simple enough, were it not for several problems. First, you have to earn such an extremely rare boon in the first place, which means running through at least half the game. Then you have to find a Pool of Purging — you'll find them at the end of each floor, but you might not even get a Legendary boon until the final floor. ''Then'' you have to hope that out of the three boons you can purge, one of them is the Legendary one. This was made easier in later updates, as Pools of Purging can appear in regular rooms even in the Temple of Styx (unlocked after beating all foes), and Fated Persuasion can affect which three boons Zagreus can purge, but it still is highly luck-based. However, there is a way to cheese this. Once you get the fishing rod, Poseidon can congratulate you for doing so the next time you get his boon which in turn alters his standard boon selection to a single choice of the ''Legendary Boon'' of Huge Catch (Increase fishing spot spawn rate by 20%). When you reach a Pool of Purging, it will definitely show up as a choice if you were savvy enough to not get over three boons.

*** Approval Process (cuts out one choice when obtaining Boons and upgrades per rank at random) is generally considered the most hated due to it's infamous tendency to prevent you from obtaining the choice you are after. The censor doesn't completely cover the choice, effectively rubbing it in (especially if you are denied a Duo or Legendary Boon). Not only that, if you attempt to use Fated Persuasion to reroll, ''it is possible for the same choice to get blocked again''.

*** Dusa and to a lesser extent, Thanatos is the hardest to progress in their relationships as they can disappear after talking or gifting which drags things out.

** The contests with Thanatos are free help and stop the timer, regardless of whomever wins, and if Zagreus gets more kills or manages a tie, Thanatos also gives a free Centaur heart. However, depending upon the enemies' numbers and Zagreus' build, among other things, this can range from easy to borderline-impossible because his appearance is completely random. The latter normally applies to large groups enemies in armor, particularly those from Elysium, as Zagreus needs time to tear through armor while Thanatos' attacks are a (delayed) OneHitKill.

* OneTruePairing: [[OppositesAttract Thanatos/Zagreus]] has easily become this with tons of fanart for them. This is possibly in part for being Supergiant's first unambiguous gay couple [[note]]There have been ambiguous gay couples before, particularly ''VideoGame/{{Transistor}}''[='s=] Grant and Asher and ''VideoGame/{{Pyre}}''[='s=] Oralech and Volfred.[[/note]]. It helps that they have quite a bit of chemistry and can actually get together if the player takes the right steps. It's likely the most popular ship among all of Supergiant's games.

*** Among the Olympians, Poseidon's favor is generally considered the hardest to complete. This is because unlike the others where you can complete theirs with enough dialogue and gameplay, for him you need to catch 18 fish before collecting his boon. What makes it hard is that one of them must a ''very rare or legendary'' fish like a Seamare from Elysium and you cannot accumulate fish over multiple runs, with the game only allowing you accumulate 2 runs worth of fish before being deleted to make room. This is where the dialogue issue stated above comes in, where you find yourself being unable to unlock that pesky heart because you are unlucky and Poseidon remains silent instead of acknowledging what you did.

** Theseus is often referred to as "Other Guy" because of one of the dialogue's Zagreus has when about to fight him and [[WorthyOpponent Asterius]], whom he shows far more respect to, whereas [[BrokenPedestal increasingly exasperated with Theseus' behavior as time goes on.]]