Hades, the indie game by Supergiant Games, is being critically hailed, and for good reason. Off of the back of an “Indie Game of the Year Award” by the 2020 Game Awards, among other awards, the game has a myriad of accolades and articles praising it from the rooftops. This is going to be one of those articles.
“Myriad”, as it happens, is one of my favourite words, if people have favourite words. It comes from a Classical Greek phrase for “ten thousand”, although can represent an innumerable figure. While some quick research suggests there is no definitive source to the word, I have heard and associate “myriad” with the Trojan War stories, where the face of Helen of Troy famously launched a thousand ships. Not only that, but some of the most feared fighters on the Greek side were the Myrmidons – Thessalian soldiers led by the infamous Achilles, one of the greatest soldiers that history and myth has ever had. Why have I gone on this etymological tangent? Well, besides a mundane love for this kind of thing, it helps to introduce the larger Ancient Greek myths and legends, which this game uses so well as a foundation.
One of Hades’ biggest triumphs is to make Greek Mythology fun and engaging. In British schools, at least, Greek myths were learned in school at least a little bit, introducing children to the likes of Zeus and his great big family, Theseus and the Minotaur, and Perseus and Medusa, I’m sure in an attempt to make history more engaging. For me, it worked, and I think for a lot of other students it did too. There is a general understanding and enjoyment, if not love, for Greek Mythology around most people, and you can see that in popular media, with the likes of Disney’s Hercules, Brad Pitt’s Troy, and the 2010s Clash of the Titans films; or the widely successful Percy Jackson book series, which takes these stories and brings them to modern day America. But, in my opinion, none have done it as well as the Hades game.
Now, after all that preamble, on to the game itself.
One of the most striking things that Supergiant’s Hades does is it makes all the characters accessible. There are countless stories, ideas and portrayals of the likes of Zeus or Hades as menacing, wrathful deities – so this game actively deconstructs them. Zeus is King of the Gods, yes, but he is also woefully self-important and oblivious to it. Hades, the eponymous God of the Dead who so often is portrayed to instil fear in mortal men, is a dutiful man stuck in an impossible situation, as is shown as the game goes on. There are more wonderful characterisations though: Poseidon is one of those “cool uncles” that just comes off as embarrassing; the aforementioned Achilles has had his fill of war, and is instead a very calm, mentor figure to the protagonist, Zagreus. The God of Sleep, Hypnos, is the doorman to Hades’ palace who makes quips every time you have died and been resurrected. There are far more I could go on about, but the fact that there is such a brilliant array of characters to build the game-world is impressive, to keep it engaging and fun, while also being faithful.
This carries into another one of this many strengths – the sheer depth of the game. I have so far completed 100 runs of the game (I am not very good, unfortunately), and there is still almost always fresh new dialogue to be had with the characters in the game. While you’re not bound to meet every character every time – let’s say every two out of three times, that is still sixty-seven different interactions accounted for, at least, with I am sure one hundred different lines and conversations for every relationship. The writing is brilliant – former heroes Achilles and Patroclus musing on the mistakes of their past lives in the Trojan War; or instead Zagreus teasing the likes of Theseus and the Minotaur (in the game called Asterius) for every time he kills them, or they kill him, in his constant escape attempts. Every named character is perfectly voice-acted to give the right personality, tone and depth to the game, too. One of the highlights of the experience is the character Eurydices, who was the tragic wife of Orpheus. When you meet her in the game she is in her room cooking, but she is also singing a beautiful song that has been recorded just for the game, itself a perfect ballad about the escape of mortal worries, and accepting the afterlife. Alongside original music (all of which you can find on streaming services), there is also a great deal of beautiful original art, helping to weave vivid characters, dungeons and animations together in every play-through.
I could go on. The game mechanics and scaling is great, with different weapons and styles to use, different “boons” (or power-ups) depending on which Greek God you run into on your play-through, or the imaginative “Pact of Punishment” to make every trial that bit more difficult than the last success. In Hades, the developers at Supergiant have made an indie game feel like an AAA release, with endless hours of playing time locked inside, and brilliant new twists on recogniseable tales trying to escape as you do with Zagreus.
One Geo Under A Groove 