History VideoGame / Hades

** Both PlayedStraight and PlayedWith. The Minotaur was slain by Theseus in life, but in the afterlife, Theseus convinced Hades to let him reside in the fields of Elyssium. Whilst Theseus is the Champion, Asterius the bull of Minos is his closest companion and ally.

* AchievementSystem: The Fates' prophecies can be bought at the contractor and put in Zagreus' room. It poses various challenges to the player that, once completed, can be turned in for rewards like gems, diamonds, titan blood, and so forth. Prophecies include getting all the available boons from a god, all possible upgrades for a weapon, and so forth. The game's actual achievements, however, differ a bit and don't always overlay with the prophecies, for example, there are prophecies to getting to the surface while using the weapons hidden aspects, but the achievements for the game only include defeating the final boss with any of the hidden aspects once.

** The Aspect of Guan Yu, the hidden aspect of Zagreus's spear, has a pretty powerful standard attack and a spin attack that essentially shoots out a blade rift for extra damage. It's all very cool, but it also comes with a brutal reduction to your maximum health (70 percent when you initially unlock it), and, like all the hidden aspects, it takes a lot of titans' blood to upgrade it and make that health reduction a little less damaging. Combined with the slowness of the aspect's standard attack and the warm-up time for the spin attack, it's not easy to actually make this work.

* EarlyGameHell: The amount of resources available to the player is quite limited at the beginning, expanding over the course of at least a couple dozen runs as the player progressively unlocks new things that encourage experimentation, provide additional room for error, and make Zagreus more powerful. At the beginning, you have only one weapon out of six, no Keepsakes (including those that give you some control over the RandomNumberGod), no Death Defiances, let alone more advanced abilities the Mirror of Night provides. Your capacity to get resources to make your weapons stronger and purchase items and renovations (such as fountain chambers) is limited [[spoiler:until you unlock the Pact of Punishment and thus new heat levels that freshly provide Titan's Blood, Diamonds, and Ambrosia]]. You can't even make use of the boons given by all Olympians in the game [[spoiler:until you reach the surface and can thus meet Demeter]].

** Low-end resources can be traded for more valuable ones, meaning if a player runs out of skills to unlock or useful house upgrades to purchase, they can trade keys and gems for additional nectar or titan blood. Rooms that grant these resources can also be upgraded to provide gameplay benefits (e.g. nectar rooms will also upgrade a random boon by one level) so they retain usefulness once the resource becomes less valuable.

** When you give Hades his first bottle of nectar during the main game, he will snark at Zagreus for trying to butter him up. However, if you wait until the epilogue of the story and then give Hades the first bottle, his response will be considerably more mellow.

* BrutalBonusLevel: Erebus is a domain restricted to players who have completed most of the game. The area is accessed through Erebus gates, unlocked through a costly Work Order, and even then you can't even enter them unless you're on 5 Heat at minimum. When you do, you're promised its rewards if you manage to defeat the enemies [[FlawlessVictory without taking a hit from them]], otherwise you get [[UndesirablePrize an onion]]. The only other way into Erebus is [[spoiler:by provoking Charon into a fight by stealing his coin bag, and Charon is not to be trifled with.]]

** The Resource Director's rank system. Zagreus can speak to the Resource Director shade during the epilogue of the story to buy new titles for himself for a large amount of resources. Doing so places a fancy medal next to the health bar and gives Zagreus a fancy new title. But these provide no benefit to gameplay, no matter how far down the list he goes.
** Outside of the typical rewards expected for clearing out levels, beating the game with the Pact of Punishment Heat Levels at ranks 8, 16, and 32 will net you statues of Skelly for the courtyard. They have no true value outside of that.[[note]]You actually complete a prophecy rewarding 5 Diamonds for unveiling the first statue, but nothing more.[[/note]]

** When defeated, Megaera will spend her downtime in the lounge, an area which isn't open at the start of the game. Should you defeat her before the lounge is actually re-opened, she'll instead be standing somewhere else so as not to lock you out of interacting with her.

** If you have Megaera's chthonic companion with you, it can't be used in the Fury boss fight, as she obviously can't attack herself and wouldn't hurt her sisters. Similarly, Thanatos can't be summoned in one of his contests, and [[spoiler:Skelly will refuse to act as a target for Charon, his boss]]. Attempting to use Dusa's also won't work if you try it after [[spoiler:she gets fired]].
** Should you use a Call from a god after angering them in a Trial of the Gods, Zagreus will note the awkwardness of the situation. There's even an achievement for using a Greater Call of a god against them in one of these trials. The angered Gods also get special dialogue when invoking their Greater Call, which is usually much more aggressive towards Zagreus (they still work fine, though).

** If you pick up a Pom of Power without having any boostable God Boons, you instead get a single option: Spare Wealth, which gives you some extra Obols for your troubles.

** While fighting with Thanatos, he'll call you out if you go out of your way to {{kill steal}} targets he's already marked for death.

** When you face Theseus as part of the third boss fight, [[TurnsRed he'll call on the Olympians for aid when he gets down to half HP]]. The god that Theseus invokes will always be one whose Boons Zagreus doesn't have, to avoid any potential conflict of why any Olympian is PlayingBothSides.

** Running away. Most major characters are running from something, and the central gameplay loop involves the main character running away from home repeatedly. [[spoiler:Ultimately, as well, the futility of doing it.]]

** If you try to dash across a pit or through a platform that you are otherwise just barely able to cross, the game spots you that little bit of extra distance to make the dash possible.

** The Tight Deadline condition of the Pact of Punishment puts a time limit on you to clear a section of the Underworld. However, this timer will pause in certain rooms, such as when fighting against Thanatos or entering a non-combat chamber; it also pauses while you fish or select a Boon. It will also pause after beating the region's boss and in the subsequent stairwell to the next area to allow you to choose your setup without putting undue pressure on you.

** The game explicitly avoids the KaizoTrap trope, as any projectiles or attacks that remain after the final enemy in an encounter is defeated will not deal any damage. Spikes and {{pressure plate}}s will also deactivate, and in the Temple of Styx, any poison effect lingering on Zagreus will be dispelled after a room is cleared. Unfortunately, though, the lava in Asphodel can still damage and kill Zagreus if he walks into it regardless.

** The Shield: StoneWall. The Shield of Chaos allows Zag to charge up a dash move, and it's the only one of the weapons that can block (while charging the dash). But its attacks are weak, requiring good Boons and Hammer upgrades to rival the damage of other weapons.

->'''Narrator:''' Having reached the end of the work's page, the trope-listing prince believes his life sufficiently [[SugarWiki/TVTropesWillEnhanceYourLife enhanced and expanded by the knowledge contained within]]. Unfortunately, an even worse fate awaited him, [[TakeOurWordForIt too egregious in its ferocity to describe]].\\\

* DeathAsComedy: Zagreus will die, a ''lot''. And every time he revives back in the House of Hades, he will give a snarky one-liner on whatever caused his death, and Hypnos may say something relevant in addition to that.

'''Zagreus:''' It.. kind of already happened.

* ZergRush: Rats are the game's weakest enemies. To compensate, the game pitches a dozen of them at you whenever they appear.

** Eurydice's offerings are all foodstuffs that increase your boons' level or rarity.

->''[[TvTropesWillRuinYourLife THERE IS NO ESCAPE]]''

** The one time that the FinalBoss is a SkippableBoss, attacking the boss anyway or trying to make them attack Zagreus in turn will result in the boss saying "Not this time", with a shield popping up which prevents any damage.

** If you beat the BonusBoss, they will give you a plastic loyalty card.

* ShopliftAndDie: You can't actually steal any of the wares from Charon's shop [[spoiler: but you CAN "borrow" his sack of Obols that may spawn in a midway room (i.e., not the pre-boss shop). Doing so enrages him and sends you to Erebus for a BonusBoss fight.]]

** Fighting the BonusBoss for the discount card in runs where Convenience Fee and Tight Deadline are active, especially when they are at higher ranks. Not only you are facing a foe that can shred your Death Defiances like paper, the time used up beating him could possibly cost you the run altogether on higher heats. The discount itself is barely worth the trouble as it couldn't even remotely offset the overall price increase.

** Thanatos' keepsake, the Pierced Butterfly, grants Zagreus an initial 1% permanent boost to attack (up to 2% should you reach the highest level) should he finish a chamber without taking damage. If you make it far enough without taking hits, the damage boost becomes significant, as it is a percentage modifier.
** Hermes' keepsake, the Lambent Plume, works similarly to Thanatos' keepsake. But instead, it grants Zagreus a 1% boost to his move speed and dodge chance (up to 1.2% at the highest level) should he finish a chamber [[SpeedRun in under 30 seconds]]. Getting far enough into the game can make this dodge chance really significant.

** Aphrodite's Aid fires a projectile that Charms an enemy for a few seconds, which is nigh useless in most circumstances. But if the God Gauge is completely filled, that projectile now deals ''2500 damage'', making it the most damaging single hit attack in the game.
** Artemis' Aid fires a single homing arrow with a high critical hit chance, that costs 20% of the God Gauge rather than the usual 25%. While the critical hit chance stacks with your other critical modifiers, the arrow is still significantly weaker than other Calls, even taking the discounted God Gauge into account. Her Greater Call, however, fires a huge salvo of arrows, ''all'' of which have a high critical hit chance and stack with your other critical modifiers. With a little luck, it can tear through bosses.

** The BonusBoss fight against [[spoiler:Charon]] adds pounding electronic beats to [[spoiler:the shop music]].

** The hidden Aspect of each weapon must be revealed first by reciting a specific TriggerPhrase, and then unlocked using Titan Blood.

** Aegis can block any attack in the game while Zagreus is charging up Bull Rush. It's also notable for being the ''only'' way to destroy [[spoiler:Hades' skull casts during his boss fight]] before they land; if you block them when he first casts them, they're completely obliterated, and you don't need to worry about mopping them up off the arena floor afterwards.

* VideoGameLives: Unlocking Death Defiance at the Mirror of Night will let Zagreus come back to life after dying. Athena has several Boons based around buffing Zagreus' Death Defiance as well as restoring spent uses of it.

** Heart-Seeking Bow's [[spoiler:Aspect of Rama asks you to tag as many enemies as possible with a weapon that normally works on CherryTapping a single target and MagikrapPower]].

* BonusBoss:
** Clearing a run once gives Zagreus access to the "Extreme Measures" ChallengeRun option, which replaces each of the bosses with an upgraded version that can often play very differently. [[spoiler:Finishing the game's story adds an Extreme Measures upgrade to the FinalBoss, again optional, which pulls out all the stops.]]
** During a run, Zagreus will occasionally have the option to enrage the normally neutral [[spoiler:Charon by stealing from his shop]], leading to a bonus boss battle.

** The Shattered Shackle, Sisyphus' keepsake, gives Zagreus damage 50/75/100% to his Attack, Special, and Cast if they're unaugmented by a boon. Not as flashy as guaranteeing your first few god boons or the MagikarpPower keepsakes, but an immediate, zero-investment doubling of all sources is ''quite'' good [[note]] For the curious, it takes an Epic level Aphrodite boon to meet or exceed this much Attack or Special % increase[[/note]] and reduces the changes of the RNG screwing your build regardless of heat.

* RelatedDifferentlyInTheAdaptation: In Myth/ClassicalMythology, Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, who are brother and sister, and is married to their brother Hades. In the game's version of this family tree, Zeus and Demeter are foster-siblings, with Demeter and her unspecified sisters being daughters of Hyperion rather than Chronos (though Zeus has been spreading stories of them being actual siblings) and Persephone is the daughter of [[spoiler:Demeter and a mortal]], significantly toning down the incest in her relationship with Hades.

* RelatedDifferentlyInTheAdaptation: In Myth/ClassicalMythology, Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, who are brother and sister, and is married to their brother Hades. In the game's version of this family tree, Zeus and Demeter are foster-siblings (though Zeus has been spreading stories of them being actual siblings) and Persephone is the daughter of [[spoiler:Demeter and a mortal]], significantly toning down the incest in her relationship with Hades.

* CultureChopSuey: Combined with AllMythsAreTrue and AnachronismStew. The majority of the weapon aspects you unlock are based on Greek gods, but the final aspect of each weapon is not. They are aspects from famous figures of other cultures from different parts of the world and even from different time periods. The spear, for instance, comes from the famous Chinese warrior [[Literature/TheRomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Guan Yu]], while the sword aspect comes from Myth/ArthurianLegend.