Want to earn more gold coin or treasure to buy temporary buffs or pay your father's architect to add healing rooms to your next run? Open the doors indicating gold and treasure. Want to focus on unlocking more of your arsenal of weapons? Take the route indicated by a key symbol. Each of these paths offers a different prize for success, enabling you to pick and choose how you'd like to curate your build as you progress.

All Speech Subtitled (Or No Speech In Game)Įach death chamber that you enter as you make your way through Hades' four biomes gifts you with these boons and rewards and, upon completing each one, you'll be presented with multiple paths forward.

There are a whole host of Olympians here, and each one has a plethora of boosts and boons for you to get to grips with. Dionysus adds a hangover effect to your attacks and movements that causes continuous damage to enemies you come into contact with, whilst Hermes provides you with increased speed and agility, giving you extra dash movements and blazingly fast attacks to help you dodge and weave your way through the mayhem.

Zeus, for example, can imbue your weapons with lightning damage and cause your dash move to fire off bolts at nearby foes. These gifts take the form of run-specific boons, upgrades to your weapons and abilities that you can pick and choose between to tailor Zagreus for action. Everything here, every tiny detail of the combat and narrative, has been perfectly implemented, intertwined and balanced to make your journey from meek little kitten-child to great big bloody death lion of the eternal abyss an absolute joy that you'll find yourself returning to time and again once the credits have rolled on your first successful trip.ĭropping into the exquisitely detailed environs of Tartarus for the first time, Stygian Blade in hand, trembling at the thought of what's to come, you'll be greeted with a random gift from the gods, your generous Olympian relatives and benefactors who are on hand to aid you in your repeated escape attempts. However, the genius of Hades is that no matter how torrid a time it's dishing out, it's never anything less than exquisitely addictive fun. If it sounds a little tough, well, it is. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Starting off as weak as a kitten with a wall of boiling death stood in your way, you'll fight and die and fight and die, slowly but surely gaining strength as you go, inching further forward upon each bloody rebirth until you finally make it all the way up and out. In time-honoured roguelite fashion you begin your journey here by being repeatedly smashed, albeit this time into the wonderfully intricate floors of the underworld. This is the work of a developer firing on all cylinders, providing us, the eternally damned, with an exquisite experience that easily ranks as one of the very best roguelike/action-RPGs released to date.Īssuming the role of Zagreus, the cocksure, rebellious and rather likeable son of Hades himself, your task here is a straightforward one simply hack, slash and dash your way through the very worst that your angry auld da can throw at you in order to escape hell and ascend to Mount Olympus. From its gaudily opulent vision of the House of Hades, to its deadly death chambers, wonderfully warped roster of fiery foes and supremely tight, expansive and satisfying combat.

Where their previous titles could – if we're being really picky – feel a little weightless and light at times, where their isometric viewpoints could irritate now and again, Hades just absolutely nails it all.

The fact that it's so good isn't exactly a surprise it's not like Supergiant Games hasn't already impressed the hell out of us with the likes of Bastion, Transistor and Pyre – all of whom Hades shares mucho DNA with – but this latest effort really does feel like the developer reaching some sort of high-water mark. Hades has of course been knocking about for a fair old while, having been in Early Access on the Epic Store since the tail end of 2018, and this lengthy gestation period has seen it updated, fine-tuned and tweaked to its current state of virtual perfection.

Target hades switch