Hades
Hades was one of the Games of the Year 2020, and if you’re here, you probably already know why: the reviews rightly highlight the excellent cartoony graphics, an interesting plot that mixes ancient myths with a light reflection on the present, and uses the culture codes of the former (myths) as a viewing lens the latter (modern world). Plus, it’s fun, not too hard, not too easy hack and slash roguelike gameplay. Wait. Roguelike is often a nightmare for a casual player. Rogueliks require dexterity, patience to the point of stubbornness, and worst of all: a lot of free time! Progress in this type of games is arduous, and the inevitable and often repeated failure is part of the game loop, which makes the prospect of returning to the game, e.g. after a week, difficult … Hades sweeps all these problems off the board and drains them of the Tartarus right to the afterlife.
First of all, Hades does not punish you for failures, but takes full advantage of the fact that losing is normal in the roguelike genre, and even desirable from the perspective of plot development. Each “failure” is rewarded (!) with new high-quality dialogues and small bonuses that accumulate slowly and make subsequent attempts a bit easier.
If we somehow got through the game on the first try (which is, I assume, in fact impossible) we would actually lose it. I doubt if the story would develop enough for us to even understand its content, let alone fully appreciate it.
In favor of Hades in the eyes of every casual player who plays for simple pleasure, and not as a challenge to overcome, also speak:
Diablo-like isometric view and relatively small individual battle boards, so the game will also appeal to newcomers who are often overwhelmed by the 3D world. We won’t get lost, but we won’t feel like a 5-year-old led by the hand either; three difficulty levels, although the easiest one is called “Normal”, which never bodes well for the game in the eyes of a casual player;
❤️ godmode
I adore the – nomen omen – god mode in Hades. If we enable this mode in the game options, after each death, the hero gains 2% damage resistance, up to 80% in total! This means that we will never become completely immune to attacks, which – granted – could take away some of the satisfaction from the game (although I still miss the cheats that used to be in every game, and the king of which was the real god mode – invulnerability without any restrictions), but combining this bonus with the others that we collect during the game, in the end we will definitely get to the point where we are able to go through the whole thing and finish the game. It’s so rare, yet so simple and valuable kindness to a casual! I tried to beat the game without god mode on the easiest level, and to be honest, I couldn’t have done it without this god option.
Some complainant’s remarks:
Hades, after all, is an arcade game. There’s no jumping from platform to platform perfectly within a certain nanosecond with half-pixel precision while pressing Y, asterisk and dancing a minuet on one foot. But there are swarms of enemies, attacks, explosions and flashes that sometimes simply cover the board. The action is fast and chaotic. And we will die. Often. We will actually die so often that even our main character and his allies will show frustration.
But, the sense of hopelessness of the challenge we took on was so skilfully woven into the plot, and the creators at the same time so cleverly deployed dopamine buttons that activate and massage our gambling reptilian brains pleasantly, that you will almost certainly do without rage quits, rage uninstalls, throwing gamepads /mouse/other peripherals or watching the ending on YouTube to save yourself dozens of hours of secondary gameplay for two minutes of video. No. Hades is not out to spite the players and rightly got its Elysian GoTY laurels.
Final Izzy Mode Score for Hades
Casual score: how suitable the game is for casual players – casual players who like a challenge from time to time, but generally just wanna’ have fu-u-n🎵 a few hours a week without stress and just for the fun of playing. The higher the score the more casual-friendly the game.
n00b-o-meter: how suitable the game is for n00b players – new players whose gaming career started and ended with Candy Crush, Tetris or browser games or even never played a game and would like to start. The higher the score the more n00b-friendly the game.
General Izzyness Level: between Izzy Mode, Normal, Hard and Nightmare – how would the title score in the difficulty scale known from games?
