GB Feature: Hades Review

As we kick off 2021, we’ve taken the time to offer a three-page critique of last year’s mythology-based action RPG release from Supergiant Games, Hades. As the fourth role-playing hybrid from the independent studio, the team really seems to be hitting their stride:

After a brief chat, your extended family members imbue you with a bit of their power, granting you powerful passive bonuses or enhancing your attacks with special effects. So, for example, Athena helps you deflect enemy attacks back at them. Dionysus allows you to damage your foes with powerful hangover (poison) effects. And Poseidon lets you wash your enemies away.

Each god has over a dozen of these boons that can later be upgraded to enhance their effects. And just to make things even more interesting, after you’ve received boons from two different Olympians, you can get a Duo boon that combines the powers already available to you in a new way.

This character-building system is easily the best thing about Hades. And while there’s never a guarantee you’ll get exactly what you want on any particular run, after you’ve unlocked some stuff at the House, you’ll get to nudge the RNG in your favor in some major ways.