Hades - The Bear and Badger

voices

Yeah - a 4 or 5 room Styx totally scuppers fast runs. It's a bit annoying bringing that random element into the end of escape attempts, on top of all the other random things.

acemuzzy

Woo finally escaped on my double dip (having not managed it first time round).

I'm again finding it fairly addictive, despite not wholly enjoying it. So a bit like vodka, or cheap cigarettes.

I remembered liking sorry before so pumped my Titan blood into it, before reading it was kinda the rise weapon. Oops. So I then went shield, with one upgrade.

First attempt was mint. But then I had to stop just before the end of Elysium. And then the game crashed on QR reload and booted me back to Hades. Much cry. Can't remember exactly what it had, but much damage dash+special, etc

Next one got to Hades but died

Spoiler:

But this time was a charm. Attack chilled, special doomed, lots of attack damage up. But I think most pertinently I now had the acorn boon, and some recharging divine shield, and auto god gauge, and have finally worked out Hades. So uh woo. Didn't use a single death defy the whole run.

Now to get some more things leveled up I guess. Got a third death defy, will try some heat, maybe some other aspects.

I basically never cast. And never charge attack. I should probably give those a go too...

Still feel it's an [8] not higher, but maybe there's obviously plenty more it can give... Would be nice to see credits, and get through some locked doors, and meet some extra people, etc...

Yossarian

I pretty much only use cast when I’m on a boss to stick a cast in them for the damage multiplier upgrade from the mirror, unless I pick up festive fog, which is particularly useful on builds that are short on ranged options.

Anyway, got my first clear last night which was then immediately followed by my second. Sword, then fists. Thought the way that the roguelike structure was handled narratively was nicely done.

Think I’ll have to buy this outright. I don’t think I’m going to have got bored of it by the time it comes off of Game Pass.

Kow

I think my favourite build is with most booms/poms going into dash. My successful escape bid meant I was just dashing around the screen causing huge damage with Poseidon's dash boon doing added rupture and doom damage. Very satisfying.

Yossarian

Stacking status effects seems to be the key for me, alongside the mirror upgrade which gives bonus damage for enemies with two or more status effects on them. On both of my successful runs, I had different effects being dished out by my dash, attack and special. With my fists run, I was able to just delete chunks of life from bosses’ health bars with that.

Yossarian

That’s me cleared with all of the weapons. A little surprised I managed it seeing as I was concentrating less on clears and more on levelling keepsakes, selecting any fated option that was put in front of me and stacking enough cash to grab a diamond or Titan blood at the end of the run.

Which brings me on to the one thing I don’t like about the game: there are all of these items that are useful at the start, but which quickly become superfluous. But that’s okay, the designers have come up with some ways of giving those items additional properties which mean that they stay useful in a run. Quite why they decided to do this and then lock these additional properties behind very difficult to collect currency is beyond me. It just becomes an annoyance when you’ve got to go to a room which you know won’t offer much in the way of rewards all because you haven’t made enough runs on enough difficulty levels yet. Just let me get those with gemstones, I’ve got loads of them!

Still, that’s probably the only blemish on an utterly superb game. I went ahead and bought it tonight, looking forward to slowly working through everything the game has to offer over the next few years or so.

Yossarian

There are the credits, then.

Lucked out too as

Spoiler:

Kow

Stupid game, of course I couldn't just leave it and now I'm whacking through it with the heat turned up. I'm not sure I've played another game with so much stuffed into it.

acemuzzy

But are you having fun?

Kow

I'm not sure.

hylian_elf

One of my mates picked it up recently on PS4 and just got his platinum trophy.

superflyninja

So I've now beaten all(??) of the Tartarus bosses. I pretty much win mostly now which is nice. The spear is fast becoming my go to weapon. I've made it to the Elysium fields once. So much depends on the drops. Bloody great though.

Yossarian

It’s so good it’s giving me callouses.

I’ve just got the shield to clear at heat 1, then I can push things a bit further. Although my major objectives at the moment are finding the last few duo and legendary boons to complete those prophecies, clearing with each of the pact of punishment options on and finishing levelling the various keepsakes.

Quite looking forward to the point where I no longer need to worry about those meta bits and bobs that need completing during runs and I can just concentrate on making the most of what’s available during the run itself.

voices

I don't think you should feel pressured to level the keepsakes. There's a few which are useful - gods, acorn, money purse - but the others are just novelties to level up if you fancy it.

It's kind of the same with heat. There's no reason to go up in single increments, even though the game suggests you should.

Yossarian

But I’m mostly done!

voices

Done the epilogue? Fully pimped the house? Got all the songs?

I have to admit that I didn't get all the songs, but I did buy all the other house contractor items. Not deliberately - I just amassed a lot of gems while trying to get a clear under 10 minutes and getting heat 32 clears with all the weapons.

Yossarian

I meant mostly done with levelling the keepsakes, I’ve got a shit-tonne to do in the rest of the game.

hylian_elf

I’ve never used around half of them. Should do for minor prophecy.

Yossarian

I hammered the living shit out of this up until Forza Horizon 5 came out. I’ve now unlocked everything aside from the two themes from the house contractor that cost silly amounts of darkness/gems and anything from the resource director, of course.

My 32 heat run was excellent fun, went for maxed extreme measures as I thought that was right and proper. The Adamant Rail + Aspect of Eris + Aphrodite enhanced Cluster Bombs and Rockets + Zeus on attack is an absolute monster.

Wonderful game, will absolutely return to it at some point, but I still have some residual pains in my hands, so happy to give this a rest for the time being.

hylian_elf

I bow to your dedication and superior skills.

Gremill

I'm still loving this, but I'm not very good at it. Still haven't cleared it with anything other than the Rail.

digi

Just wanna read start of the thread as iv just started this and there's stuff I don't understand.
Loving it so far though.

Yossarian

I thought I was done with this game, but it seems I’m not. The Deathly and Infinite themes are taunting me, as are some unfinished diary entries (goddamn chaos fish).

Running 15 heat runs so Erebus Gates are always an option, switched from Privileged Status to Family Favourite so I’m not always avoiding Artemis and having fun trying out builds.

voices

Does the timer stop when you fish? Trying for 10 minute clears is a very, very fast way of accumulating darkness, and you'll be looking to go through chaos gates on your way. I found it a lot more fun than the higher heats (though 15 heat is a short hop from a heat 12 - 5 minute timer, + 20% enemy speed and EM2 which is perfectly reasonable to speed run).

Yossarian

The timer does stop when you fish.

I still haven’t completed the log entry for Erebus yet, so I want to keep Erebus gates available for now, but may drop down to zero heat when that’s done and just try to hit chaos gates as often as possible.

voices

Give going quick a go - it's really fun. Smashing Thesius in c10 seconds with a Meg summon and a decent Eris build is pretty great.

Yossarian

Hades 2 early access coming Q2 next year:

https://www.supergiantgames.com/blog/hades-ii-development-update/

AndCallMeCharlie

Yossarian wrote:

Hades 2 early access coming Q2 next year: https://www.supergiantgames.com/blog/hades-ii-development-update/

proper

Yossarian

My findgers are crossed that they offer early access on Xbox too. I am very much looking forward to this game.

nick_md

Did you see max heat got completed recently?

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