VideoGame The hype is justified.
If you're curious about whether you'd like the roguelike genre, try Hades.
Your Player Character: Zagreus, son of the god of The Underworld. Your mission: Escape From Hell. Your setting: Classical Mythology, with various myths and monsters rubbing elbows with you. Your genre: Action RPG Roguelike. You fight your way out of Randomly Generated Levels, picking up Perks offered to you by the Random Number Gods of Olympus — Zeus, Athena, Demeter and more. You try and fail, and try and fail, and try and fail; but that's actually part of the story, part of the ordeal, and you never Game Over even though you die a lot. And then, after many hours and attempts, you finally make your way past the Final Boss... Only to discover that there's much more to the story than you first realized.
Artistically, the game is impressive. Fluid sprites and animations lead to orthogonal enemies with recognizable silhouettes and attack patterns. An exuberant hand-drawn art style helps paint the Greek pantheon larger-than-life; the voice acting is superb. Play controls are tight and accessible. The large number of Perks keeps the game interesting; you're never going to repeat yourself, even when you try for Complacent Gaming Syndrome. Persistent leveling mechanics, such as the ability to choose your weapon and exploit a Point Build System, eke you ever closer to escape; some portions of the run are random, but others are dependable. And a complete run takes less than 40 minutes: Just One More Level!
But even more than that, the game is exceedingly high on the Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration. The randomness of roguelikes is justified: of course Hades is constantly rearranging itself to trap the dead within. Zagreus's quest to find his Missing Mom instantly resonates with anyone who read about that little ordeal. Getting to hang out with the greats of Greek Mythology is, for certain people, a huge thrill. ("I get to Fix Fic who???") The blend of dependability and randomness results in an environment that fosters skill and adaptation. And above all, the game is really good at teaching: it uses the (integrated) Achievement System and permanent upgrades to walk you through everything, and it gives you feedback about how you messed up, including an NPC whose only job is to comment on The Many Deaths of You. The game is a perfect marriage of flavor and mechanics, with every decision having both a Doylist and Watsonian justification.
There are games I recommend to people because they have interesting tweaks and twists on established formulas. And there are games I recommend to people because they are just straight-up fun. Hades is one of the latter. You don't have to appreciate, or even notice, the artistry of its design to enjoy it. It's just a really well-made game. There's not much else to be said; there's not much else that needs to be.
VideoGame Look, I get why it's endless random grind, but...
This is a comment that turned into a review at some point. If it feels incomplete, or if I ultimately ask it be taken down outright, well, I am recovering from Covid, and maybe this will feel unwise when I'm of sound body and mind in a bit.
Hades was alright the first few times, but I've hit a wall where the absolute best thing I could do for my own progress is repeatedly get killed, and man, I hated that just as much in Darkest Dungeon.
I just wish I didn't need to beat such a hard game so many times, even with Easy mode turned on, to get to the end of stories and characters I'm invested in when so often this randomized roguelike stuff feels like it's a hobble rather than a help.
I've come to accept that I just don't like randomized stuff. That in my mind, putting the dumb machine with no creativity in charge of the part that works best when it's handcrafted with love and care and the humans in charge of the grunt work and boring math homework is a completely bass-ackwards way of doing things and every single game I've ever played that used it was poorer and worse for its inclusion.
It's also got some of that Breath of the Wild stink on it, where I also resent that, since it's easily Supergiant Games's biggest success, it's probably something I'm going to be seeing and getting tons more of all the time, rather than their earlier stuff I prefer.
I like Hades, I guess I should say. The basic gameplay's fun, I guess. The story and aesthetics are on point, which considering the studio's pedigree is pretty obvious, but it's worth noting. And I guess it's not like I've beaten any of their games since Bastion, which I beat twice. I might not be as into the Greek mythology thing as the more imaginative fantasy worlds of previous titles, but hey! I fell in love with the Greek myths as a young Spec once; it's not like I dislike any of them.
But would I like Hades more if it abandoned or heavily deemphasized its randomized elements in favor of something more traditional? Almost certainly.
Lately, it feels like every single run is that moment in Vampire Survivors where the randomizer is constantly trying to shove a steady stream of trash you don't want or need down your throat, and it makes for a weak experience. I absolutely had enough of it a long time ago, and I desperately wish that meant I'd also gotten to a point in the story and the characters I was happy with too, that I didn't need to grind on and on with stuff I've had my fill of putting up with to get a satisfactory conclusion to all of them.