I reached the end credits in well under 100 runs. I don't think the game is unreasonably long. The fact that it has tons of content even aside from that is a bonus, IMO, not a condemnation?
Except for me, all that grinding is just uninteresting and blatant bloat, not content. Turning up numbers is nothing I would consider interesting content, and neither is slightly incremental boosts to the gameplay following even a successful run.
The game has me at a point where all the extra junk makes me not want to play it because all I'm seeing is the mountain of time to get all the really interesting levels of weapon unlocks.
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Orphanerivers of redthat run to seaRegistered Userregular
I reached the end credits in well under 100 runs. I don't think the game is unreasonably long. The fact that it has tons of content even aside from that is a bonus, IMO, not a condemnation?
Except for me, all that grinding is just uninteresting and blatant bloat, not content. Turning up numbers is nothing I would consider interesting content, and neither is slightly incremental boosts to the gameplay following even a successful run.
The game has me at a point where all the extra junk makes me not want to play it because all I'm seeing is the mountain of time to get all the really interesting levels of weapon unlocks.
i think what you expect of the game is just fundamentally at odds with what the devs intended for the game??
you view all the runs and the rewards that you unlock as a chore, i guess, a task to be hammered out, but doing a run and going again is the entire point
i mean if you don't enjoy it then sure, ok, but I don't think Supergiant is planning on changing the intrinsic nature of Hades considering that this game has been in early access for like a year and a half
Play a game until you've extracted all the fun you want out of it, and then set it aside. That's a fair philosophy to follow, especially when there's so many other good games that can be played.
I'm reminded of some of the divisive arguments around Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as its very incremental, fairly story light approach bounced a proportion of fans who look to the Zelda franchise for its other aspects. It seems like Hades has a similar thing going on with its small rewards with each run. I have been feeling like the progression is a little bit on the slow side, but I'm still enjoying the flow of the game for what it is. I still haven't unlocked what I need to do with my Ambrosia or Titan Blood yet, so maybe that mountain will come into view soon enough. But just like how you can storm Hyrule Castle and take down Ganon in Breath of the Wild at any time, I'd hope that there's a good break point in Hades for people to feel complete about its story without needing to go after every equivalent of the Breath of the Wild shrine or Korok seed. Then again, the big difference in this analogy is that the incremental improvements in Hades can incur gameplay changes that don't happen at all in Breath of the Wild.
Speaking of my own progress, I got a win on my seventeenth run. Loadout in spoiler.
I was pretty surprised I completed this run since it was only my second time using Varatha: I was really treating it as a practice go. I actually ended up trying to fish for the Zeus + Ares Duo boon during the run but it didn't come together. The thing that really carried me through the run was Poseidon's Aid and the other boons related to Call effects. Up to now, I've mostly ignored them since I tend to forget about the shoulder buttons, but after getting prompted to use it on the Bone Hydra, I started paying a lot more attention to it through the rest of the run. On the other hand, with that invulnerability protection at my call, I still had to burn a couple of Death Defiance charges to get through the final boss. At least I have a better idea of what to expect in future runs now that I've made a full completion.
I also previewed the Pact of Punishment conditions, and I think that the Heat rewards are more substantial here than in previous Supergiant games. I can also see how this could get pretty grindy for materials, but I'd hope that kind of grind would happen long after the natural 'break point' I mentioned hoping for above.
Met and died to the 3rd area boss twice. I can't see how I'm supposed to beat them. My damage output really starts to seem low in the 3rd area. Not sure what I'm supposed to do to rectify that.
The important thing for me, is pretty much every moment that I'm doing a run is a pleasure. Contrasted with a JRPG, much of my times spent is boring, and I do it for the story, and I absolutely would and do complain about taking a long time to see the story in those. This game is almost entirely doing fun stuff. Some people definitely feel aggravated knowing there are more things to see that will take far too long to unlock, and so don't like that they won't be able to. That's me with Assassin's Creed for example, but here, the stuff to unlock seems like it will be pretty small, so I can just enjoy the moment to moment fun.
Been having a lot of fun with this on the Switch, even though I'm pretty sure I suck at it. I've done maybe 10-15 runs and I've beaten Meg twice and gotten up to the Hydra once. I'm good with the spear and sword, but can't quite get a handle on the ranged weapons. I also keep forgetting about my Cast ability. I don't see myself unlocking all of the various doodads, but the gameplay loop is really satisfying for now.
Met and died to the 3rd area boss twice. I can't see how I'm supposed to beat them. My damage output really starts to seem low in the 3rd area. Not sure what I'm supposed to do to rectify that.
ABC
Always
Be
Cdashing
Cdeflecting also works
Bull is the real threat. Don't get Theseus to 50% while the bull is up. The spear throw can be timed or blocked, and he always walk away after a spear toss. Many of the aoes settle into a fixed pattern. If you're ranged you can settle into a mostly stable damage/hide cycle.
knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
I think that info may be in the administrative room? There is a ton of statistical info in there, which i found to be a major disappointment because after spending the time and resources to open it up i was expecting something more useful than just ‘“here are a bunch of numbers about all the times you failed”.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I think that info may be in the administrative room? There is a ton of statistical info in there, which i found to be a major disappointment because after spending the time and resources to open it up i was expecting something more useful than just ‘“here are a bunch of numbers about all the times you failed”.
It becomes plot relevant a couple of times. But yeah as per its direct use for the player it's just game stats.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
i think i'll try a pen and paper instead of waiting, actually. Thanks Skeletonian "Skelly" Skellington
knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
The easiest way to tell as far as i know is in the screen between areas it will show the place you just beat and whether you got the special item for doing it (blood, diamond, ambrosia, etc) with your current weapon.
If you have finished the next area with that weapon the reward you got will be shown with a checkmark, if not there will be a question mark.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
+1
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
The easiest way to tell as far as i know is in the screen between areas it will show the place you just beat and whether you got the special item for doing it (blood, diamond, ambrosia, etc) with your current weapon.
If you have finished the next area with that weapon the reward you got will be shown with a checkmark, if not there will be a question mark.
I know, but i still need to beat the hydra with every weapon to know for sure... and from there, note it down.
I thought Dusa was a fun character when I first saw her.
And then (early fun moment spoiler)
Zagreus calls her Ms. Dusa
And I hadn't realized it was a pun yet
God damn it, Supergiant!
(Also, all the designs are great, but Chaos is on a whole different level!)
Actually...
Real spoiler here
Last warning
Only click if you REALLY MEAN IT
She's a maid.
Maidusa.
+2
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I’m having a very real internal tier feeling with the weapons where I kind of think the sword and fists are pretty bad due to their range.
That said I got the furthest so far with the fists due to a health-on-hit boon which meant I didn’t have to move. I was fighting the hydra and still didn’t have to move until the last bit of his health bar where he nuked me. I can routinely get to the hydra now but haven’t beaten him yet. It’s nice to feel I’m making progress at least.
I have all the weapons now and almost all keepsakes. 19 runs I think so far.
I was waiting forever trying to get Poseidon’s keepsake - he just didn’t show up for three in game hours.
PSN: Honkalot
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
I got a hammer upgrade to the gun that made it basically a shotgun and took away 6 ammo. It kind of played like the fists. Bam bam bam (break to reload) bam bam bam.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
The easiest way to tell as far as i know is in the screen between areas it will show the place you just beat and whether you got the special item for doing it (blood, diamond, ambrosia, etc) with your current weapon.
If you have finished the next area with that weapon the reward you got will be shown with a checkmark, if not there will be a question mark.
I know, but i still need to beat the hydra with every weapon to know for sure... and from there, note it down.
The information on the travel screen is recapitulated in the Pact of Punishment (unlocked late unless you picked Hell Mode) — boss bounties per weapon per difficulty
I’m having a very real internal tier feeling with the weapons where I kind of think the sword and fists are pretty bad due to their range.
That said I got the furthest so far with the fists due to a health-on-hit boon which meant I didn’t have to move. I was fighting the hydra and still didn’t have to move until the last bit of his health bar where he nuked me. I can routinely get to the hydra now but haven’t beaten him yet. It’s nice to feel I’m making progress at least.
I have all the weapons now and almost all keepsakes. 19 runs I think so far.
I was waiting forever trying to get Poseidon’s keepsake - he just didn’t show up for three in game hours.
To make fists work, Always Be Dashing
This acutally goes for the gun as well - Both weapons are basically about ignoring the concept of staying still, and just moving constnatly while you lay down the pain on things
I’m having a very real internal tier feeling with the weapons where I kind of think the sword and fists are pretty bad due to their range.
That said I got the furthest so far with the fists due to a health-on-hit boon which meant I didn’t have to move. I was fighting the hydra and still didn’t have to move until the last bit of his health bar where he nuked me. I can routinely get to the hydra now but haven’t beaten him yet. It’s nice to feel I’m making progress at least.
I have all the weapons now and almost all keepsakes. 19 runs I think so far.
I was waiting forever trying to get Poseidon’s keepsake - he just didn’t show up for three in game hours.
The sword is extremely perk dependent, but some of them turn into an absolute beast. I also had a great dash run with fists that was really fun and felt pretty great.
I'm loving that the unlock system gives me double the weapons at least that I actually want to try. I'm just disappointed I misunderstood the system early and sank a bunch of upgrades into the gun that I didn't mean to.
For the sword, I like the Aspect of Poseidon. The thing to pay attention to isn't the "knock out Bloodstones with your Special", which is just a bonus. The main thing is that you can get it up to 50% bonus damage on your Cast as you upgrade it. Sure, maybe the Sword is weaker on its own merits than other weapons, but getting that much bonus damage on your Casts with the ability to re-use them infinitely is really beastly.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
edited September 2020
two questions:
how difficult (with as few spoilers as possible) is it to get titan Blood after the game opens up from escaping the first time?
Same question about Ambrosia.
I'm considering trading the two Ambrosias i have for titan blood and going on a spending spree.
how difficult (with as few spoilers as possible) is it to get titan Blood after the game opens up from escaping the first time?
Same question about Ambrosia.
I'm considering trading the two Ambrosias i have for titan blood and going on a spending spree.
Extreme Measures 3 makes the game easier overall and adds six heat total, which means you've got a total of 72 titan blood just from repeatedly running Extreme Measures 3 clears with every weapon. I would not trade away Ambrosia because it's what's used to finish all the relationships, which is kinda the point of the game imo.
Spoiler for specific reasons:
Extreme Measures adjusts the bosses with enhancements that make them, in theory, harder. EM 1 makes the fury sisters fight as a group, basically summoning some extra attacks every so often. EM 2 makes you fight Lernie in a broken up series of islands rather than a big arena with pillars. EM 3 puts Asterius in armor that makes him faster, adds shockwaves to his attacks, and gives him a giant spin attack but it also puts Theseus in a big chariot that... doesn't do anything and can't block attacks. He bombards the area and goes charging occasionally, but it's way less threatening than his spear throw and way easier to chunk him down after Asterius is dead. Even better, he switches phases at like 30% HP instead of 50%, meaning you can pretty easily just kill him during his initial god call and never have to deal with him blocking stuff against you.
Getting bloods is easy once the Pact of Punishment opens up. You get 2 bloods per clear at least, because you can also buy one and/or catch a fish that gives one. You can go down the list increasing your heat level one at a time by messing with various options and each level means 12 bloods for doing a clear with each weapon.
Hades doesn't feel grindy at all to me because of the uncanny amount of dialogue and story that you get at home after a run. There's always new stuff to hear when I get back.
Meanwhile, I'm starting to feel the grind a little as I've extended my win streak to 3 to try and systematically obtain all of my Heat 0 bounties before moving upwards. At least this has given me the opportunity to try and fill out items in the prophecy list and use less-powerful keepsakes to level them up. I also got this fantastic loadout in my last run:
Chilling enemies with an Ice Wine blast and then shotgunning them with a Charged Volley special attack that keeps them cold? Yeah, that's the stuff.
I find the third boss fight harder with extreme measures 3, but that may be
because I suck at dodging the chariot's bombs but I've gotten the hang of dodging Theseus' spear throw by now. Those bombs hurt, they do like 60 damage.
My favorite moment in this game came in that fight, though.
I had a Poseidon Ares build going with rupture and doom status effects, so I added Zeus' call in hopes of getting the sea storm duo boon.
I built my god gauge up as I defeated Asterius and had it completely full when I destroyed the chariot, so I could use it immediately after Theseus used his call.
And of course Supergiant wrote voice lines for this specific scenario.
Theseus: "Gods, help me avenge my chariot."
Zeus: "I'll show you vengeance."
Theseus proceeded to melt from an onslaught of lightning, rupture, and doom, dying in ten seconds.
I love Supergiant's blend of writing, gameplay, and sound design.
I may have messed up a bit. Am I stuck with only 6 Titan’s Blood until I can get a clear? I’d thought that each weapon aspect would reward another Blood on a Fury kill. No?
Posts
Except for me, all that grinding is just uninteresting and blatant bloat, not content. Turning up numbers is nothing I would consider interesting content, and neither is slightly incremental boosts to the gameplay following even a successful run.
The game has me at a point where all the extra junk makes me not want to play it because all I'm seeing is the mountain of time to get all the really interesting levels of weapon unlocks.
i think what you expect of the game is just fundamentally at odds with what the devs intended for the game??
you view all the runs and the rewards that you unlock as a chore, i guess, a task to be hammered out, but doing a run and going again is the entire point
i mean if you don't enjoy it then sure, ok, but I don't think Supergiant is planning on changing the intrinsic nature of Hades considering that this game has been in early access for like a year and a half
I'm reminded of some of the divisive arguments around Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as its very incremental, fairly story light approach bounced a proportion of fans who look to the Zelda franchise for its other aspects. It seems like Hades has a similar thing going on with its small rewards with each run. I have been feeling like the progression is a little bit on the slow side, but I'm still enjoying the flow of the game for what it is. I still haven't unlocked what I need to do with my Ambrosia or Titan Blood yet, so maybe that mountain will come into view soon enough. But just like how you can storm Hyrule Castle and take down Ganon in Breath of the Wild at any time, I'd hope that there's a good break point in Hades for people to feel complete about its story without needing to go after every equivalent of the Breath of the Wild shrine or Korok seed. Then again, the big difference in this analogy is that the incremental improvements in Hades can incur gameplay changes that don't happen at all in Breath of the Wild.
Speaking of my own progress, I got a win on my seventeenth run. Loadout in spoiler.
I was pretty surprised I completed this run since it was only my second time using Varatha: I was really treating it as a practice go. I actually ended up trying to fish for the Zeus + Ares Duo boon during the run but it didn't come together. The thing that really carried me through the run was Poseidon's Aid and the other boons related to Call effects. Up to now, I've mostly ignored them since I tend to forget about the shoulder buttons, but after getting prompted to use it on the Bone Hydra, I started paying a lot more attention to it through the rest of the run. On the other hand, with that invulnerability protection at my call, I still had to burn a couple of Death Defiance charges to get through the final boss. At least I have a better idea of what to expect in future runs now that I've made a full completion.
I also previewed the Pact of Punishment conditions, and I think that the Heat rewards are more substantial here than in previous Supergiant games. I can also see how this could get pretty grindy for materials, but I'd hope that kind of grind would happen long after the natural 'break point' I mentioned hoping for above.
The game is very fun and will give me a lot of enjoyment until I’m done playing it
ABC
Always
Be
Cdashing
Cdeflecting also works
And then (early fun moment spoiler)
And I hadn't realized it was a pun yet
God damn it, Supergiant!
(Also, all the designs are great, but Chaos is on a whole different level!)
Switch: nin.codes/roldford
M’Dusa
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
(I assume i'll need to escape once?)
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It becomes plot relevant a couple of times. But yeah as per its direct use for the player it's just game stats.
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
If you have finished the next area with that weapon the reward you got will be shown with a checkmark, if not there will be a question mark.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I know, but i still need to beat the hydra with every weapon to know for sure... and from there, note it down.
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
Actually...
That said I got the furthest so far with the fists due to a health-on-hit boon which meant I didn’t have to move. I was fighting the hydra and still didn’t have to move until the last bit of his health bar where he nuked me. I can routinely get to the hydra now but haven’t beaten him yet. It’s nice to feel I’m making progress at least.
I have all the weapons now and almost all keepsakes. 19 runs I think so far.
I was waiting forever trying to get Poseidon’s keepsake - he just didn’t show up for three in game hours.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
The information on the travel screen is recapitulated in the Pact of Punishment (unlocked late unless you picked Hell Mode) — boss bounties per weapon per difficulty
To make fists work, Always Be Dashing
This acutally goes for the gun as well - Both weapons are basically about ignoring the concept of staying still, and just moving constnatly while you lay down the pain on things
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
i almost died even with this setup because, well, extreme measures
I forgot they added this! I have something to do this morning!
The sword is extremely perk dependent, but some of them turn into an absolute beast. I also had a great dash run with fists that was really fun and felt pretty great.
I'm loving that the unlock system gives me double the weapons at least that I actually want to try. I'm just disappointed I misunderstood the system early and sank a bunch of upgrades into the gun that I didn't mean to.
how difficult (with as few spoilers as possible) is it to get titan Blood after the game opens up from escaping the first time?
Same question about Ambrosia.
I'm considering trading the two Ambrosias i have for titan blood and going on a spending spree.
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
Extreme Measures 3 makes the game easier overall and adds six heat total, which means you've got a total of 72 titan blood just from repeatedly running Extreme Measures 3 clears with every weapon. I would not trade away Ambrosia because it's what's used to finish all the relationships, which is kinda the point of the game imo.
Spoiler for specific reasons:
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Hades doesn't feel grindy at all to me because of the uncanny amount of dialogue and story that you get at home after a run. There's always new stuff to hear when I get back.
Chilling enemies with an Ice Wine blast and then shotgunning them with a Charged Volley special attack that keeps them cold? Yeah, that's the stuff.
My favorite moment in this game came in that fight, though.
I built my god gauge up as I defeated Asterius and had it completely full when I destroyed the chariot, so I could use it immediately after Theseus used his call.
And of course Supergiant wrote voice lines for this specific scenario.
Theseus: "Gods, help me avenge my chariot."
Zeus: "I'll show you vengeance."
Theseus proceeded to melt from an onslaught of lightning, rupture, and doom, dying in ten seconds.
I love Supergiant's blend of writing, gameplay, and sound design.
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera