![]() One last point about the characters before I move on to what Hades is actually like to play. ![]() If you ask me, the son of the god of the underworld – the Jesus Christ of hell – should sound like a Bristolian coach driver, or a woman who sells shellfish out of the back of a van. The word “mate”, which Zagreus deploys with all the frequency of a Tory MP desperately trying to sound human, sounds about as welcome in his mouth as a vegan sausage roll at an EDL march. Zagreus sounds like Ben Whishaw asking to be moved to another seat at a restaurant because the sun is in his eyes. It’s all very well written and acted, though to my ears the protagonist’s British accent is gratingly posh. Other characters appear intermittently, and hint at a broader story that unfolds at the self-regulating tempo of your repeated deaths and rebirths. Your old man Hades lounges on a throne, which you must guiltily slink past whenever you’re about to attempt another futile escape, each time enduring his sarcastic put-downs and withering disappointment at your successive failures. Hypnos, who acts as a sort of live-in receptionist for hell, greets you warmly each time you resurrect, and usually with some wry commentary on the specific kind of grisly end you just met. Reviving back in Hades’ manor, the residents will always have new things to say or slivers of backstory to reveal. In many ways Hades is a dungeon crawler reminiscent of Bastion, especially when it pumps loads of unexpected narrative and dialogue into a tiny space. Supergiant have form when it comes to mucking about with genre conventions. Death is progress, and repetition is improvement. With each defeat Zagreus emerges from a fountain of blood back at his house, usually with a pocketful of underworld currency to be spent on permanent upgrades and weapon unlocks that make the next attempt marginally more successful. The realm of the damned is patrolled by angry spirits, occupying rooms that spontaneously rearrange themselves every time you die, which is every few minutes or so. An isometric roguelike from Supergiant Games, developer of Bastion and Transistor, it has you slip into the immortal sandals of Zagreus, son of Hades himself, on a doomed mission to escape the underworld. ![]() Scarface, King Lear, that episode of Hey Duggee where they find a dead body in the woods, all of them are essentially rehashes of the time Zeus and his pals got up to some mischief around the pantheon.Īnd it’s in this rich old fantasy world that Hades is set. A cross between Aesop’s Fables and Hollyoaks, Greek myth forms the basis of every story ever told. But for the past few thousand years the country’s chief cultural export has been its dramatic and complex mythology. Large portions of my personality owe a great debt to Greek invention, from ABBA musicals and feta cheese to anal sex and fiscal irresponsibility. This week he's trying to escape Hell in Supergiant's surprise release roguelike Hades Premature Evaluation is the weekly column in which Steve Hogarty explores the wilds of early access. ![]()
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