Saturday Morning Gaming: Hades Again

Last week’s post was for people who might not have played it. This weeks post is for people who have beaten it and have favorite strategies. So if this post sounds impenetrable, I’m sorry, but you need to get the game and you need to beat it enough times to watch the credits and hear the “In The Blood” song and then you get to *REALLY* start playing.

When last we spoke, I was in a place where I very, very badly wanted nectar and didn’t really have a use for ambrosia yet. I had Titan’s Blood, but I didn’t yet know how to use it.

Well, since then, I’m now in a place where I don’t need darkness anymore (everything in the mirror, green and purple, is maxed out), my lounge area cannot possibly be improved any more, and I think I no longer require Ambrosia… wait, Hermes still needs it.

All in all, this game is FREAKING AWESOME and is exceptionally rewarding even when you’ve beaten it 30 times. There are still goals to shoot for.

For one thing, turning up the heat is *FUN*. My favorites, so far, are just playing with Jury Summons (+20% more enemies, Extreme Measures (the one that bumps up the difficulty of the end bosses), and Tight Deadline (the one that gives each level a timer).

I have beaten Heat Level 7. I have not beaten Heat Level 8.

And so it is having said that that I have my favorite strategies and would *LOVE* to hear your favorites.

First off, Dash. The Athena boon for Dash is the best one in the game. I can’t imagine playing a runthrough where I’d prefer a dash that wasn’t Athena’s. It deflects. It deflects at will. What more do you need? I kinda like Poseidon’s, I guess, but it’s a distant 2nd to the point where I usually just hold out until Elysium if I don’t have it yet and then… well, I take what’s offered.

When it comes to the sword, there are two main ways that I like to play it. The first is the whole “shove people into the wall or into lava!” thing. Take Poseidon’s boons to knock people back, and take the ones that compound knocking people back. The second relies on using the Aspect of Poseidon. Fill the guy up with Special gems, then hit him with a critical to knock them out. Then do it again. Combine with Artemis’s “exit wound” boon!

When it comes to the spear, I like hitting from a distance and the one/two punch of Dionysus’s poison and Ares’s doom damage. Poke poke poke with poison, throw for doom. Stay far, far away. (I like the Athena special for this one.) (I don’t really use the spin.)

The shield is much like the spear, only I just pick one of poison or doom and attach it to the throw. When it comes to up close, I don’t want them there, so I like Poseidon to push them away or an Ares dash, if I must, to leave for them as I get far away from them again.

The bow is one that allowed me to beat the game the first time. For that, I pretty much like Zeus on the power-up shot and loading the bow up with as much lightning as I can. Shoot an arrow, light up the board. (Ares works pretty good too, though. Hit once, run away, let doom do its job while you run away.)

My absolute *FAVORITE* weapon is the twin fists. To the point where it doesn’t matter whose boons I take. Everybody has good ones. Just pepper them with punches, finish them off with the uppercut. Man, I haven’t gone the furthest with these, but they are my absolute faves.

And my least favorite weapon is the gun. Ironically, it’s the one I’ve gone furthest with. Put Ares in the barrel and be sure to pick up his boon to make doom damage cumulative depending on how many times you’ve hit. Put Aphrodite in the grenade launcher and hope to get the boon where they team up and do more doom damage to weakened foes.

(Of course, there are multiple aspects for each weapon and these work really well for some and really awfully for others… Guan Yu’s spear? Ugh. I hate that thing. I got to the surface with it and I have no intention of ever playing it again. Lucifer’s gun? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That turned my least favorite weapon into a thing that has gotten me furthest in the game.)

All in all, I still can’t believe how rich this game is and how many different ways there are to play and, get this, STAY REWARDING.

Seriously, if you like ARPGs at all, you need to pick it up.

So… what are you playing?

(Featured image is the main menu from Hades. Screenshot taken by the author.)