Reason for Playing:
I saw my cousin was playing this game and after talking with her, I had to buy and play it myself.
20220918:
Off the bat I liked using the bow, but the game encourages collection and so I tried using all the weapons. They seem balanced with each weapon suiting a different playstyle. That is, they all seem equally powerful, but they have very different playstyles.
I've thus far collected Titan BLood for the bow, spear, sword, and shield (in that order).
My early game accessment of the different weapons:
Coronacht, Heart-Seeking Bow (bow): long range with decent aoe, requires charging and needs correct timing for big damage.
Varatha, Eternal Spear (spear): long range, and the special gets more damage from backstab but AOE (hold X) is hard to pull off.
Stygius, Stygian Blade (sword): short range, but quick. Special is also quick and has decent AOE.
Aegis, Shield of Chaos (shield): blocks attacks (even Megara's attacks)! This makes a lot of fights in Tarturus easier. But the dashing part of the attack in Asphodel isn't as good (for me as a new player) due to the lava and also a common enemy in Asphodel are bombers.
Steam Game Time: 5.8 hours (total game time)
20220919:
Today I've collected Titan Blood for the gloves and the gun. So the next phase is the possibility to unlock various Aspects for the different weapons. I decided at this point to check out some articles and Youtube videos (since Titan Blood seems rare and I didn't want to spend it without some idea of what's to come).
Malphon, Twin Fists of Malphon (gloves): very close range, high commitment to getting into the fight, focused on speed and rhythm (between attack and special).
Exagryph, Adamant Rail (gun): medium-long range, consistent damage, with good AOE (bomb), limited by ammunition (requires manual reload or waiting for automatic reload)
Steam Game Time: 8.5 hours (total game time) / 2.7 hours (session game time)
20220922:
Among the possible Aspects, I decided to focus on the bow with the Aspect of Hera.
Given the option of picking a better boon which I've already chosen before (no more Fated Choice flag) and a lesser boon which I've not yet chosen before (still has Fated Choice flag), I've been picking the lesser boon. With that being said, one of my favorite runs was the bow with repeated attack, double, and some sort of deflect. Otherwise there's a damage dropoff due to a lack of clear speed and area control. On that note, there's a Poseiden cast which is great for area control.
Steam Game Time: 11.5 hours (total game time) / 3.0 hours (session game time)
20220927 AM Hours: Did a few runs with the bow and then some with the rail.
Steam Game Time: 13.8 hours (total game time) / 2.3 hours (session game time)
20220928: I noticed there was a bonus for chaos collection by choosing a weapon that has purple surrounding it. This might randomly change or fixed rotation. Either way so I started choosing the weapon based on this bonus.
Steam Game Time: 14.8 hours (total game time) / 1.0 hours (session game time)
20220929: I had a run where I beat Asterius but I stil died to Theseus.
Steam Game Time: 19.0 hours (total game time) / 4.2 hours (session game time)
20220930: I got close to defeating both Theseus and Asterius. I was using Malphon, but it was the Ares blade rift that did the damage. If I had one more death defiance and if I had known how to better position the rift, then the rift could have just wittled the enemy down.
Steam Game Time: 20.6 hours (total game time) / 1.6 hours (session game time)
20221001:
Gameplay Log:
Beat Asterius and Theseus, but the rooms past Elysium are hard.
On the next run or so I beat Asterius and Theseus again, and managed to reached Hades.
Had some more runs.
Met Demeter. Her power is awesome
Steam Game Time: 23.6 hours (total game time) / 3.0 hours (session game time)
20221003:
Today sleepiness snuck up on me as I was falling asleep during a run.
The Duo Boon of Ares and Demeter felt okay, I'd give it maybe a B or C. In contrast, the Ares and Artemis Duo Boon the other day was S-tier and a big reason I keep looking for Ares. Note, however, that it doesn't synergize with Stygian Soul.
Steam Game Time: 24.9 hours (total game time) / 1.3 hours (session game time)
[20221004][20230228 Edit]
20221004 Part 1:
I got to Hades today (maybe twice). Anyways, I got him lower in HP in his second stage but I wasn't sure if I should spend time to hit the green things.* I think both times I made use of Athena's call.
Steam Game Time: 29.4 hours (total game time) / 4.5 hours (session game time)
*20230228: I was probably referring to the vases.
20221004 Part 2:
I managed to beat Hades! I mainly depended on Athena's cast. I also think my spear special was transformed to a shot. I used Athena's cast to kill off the little exploding enemies whenever possible. I think I also went with Athena's call.
Remark: the other day when I reached Hades for the first time, I thought he was dead after the first life bar but he really wasn't. That was a surprise.*
Afterwards, I tried to play the game with 1 heat. Adding heat is good for getting Titan Blood and Diamond.
Steam Game Time: 32.7 hours (total game time) / 3.3 hours (session game time)
*20230228: I would have definitely lost the battle anyways, but I recall not even having a chance to dent his HP bar.
20221006:
I completed a run with 1 heat using Stygian, Aspect of Poseiden, which together with the Poseiden cast was strong (it also helped that I had an extra cast from an item in Charon's shop). Then later I got Blizzard Shot which initially felt weak but it surprising deals a good amount of damage. Perhaps it just looks like it doesn't deal damage because it moves so slowly. In addition, the cast automatically is left on the ground so it doesn't have to be dislodged. My weaknesses during the final fight were being too slow, so I couldn't evade/escape Hades as he pursued me. Either extra movement speed or an extra dash would have been good here. I also had lacked any form of deflect.
The Sweet Nectar Duo Boon (Aphrodite/Poseidon) was strong, felt useful, yet not over-powered.
Besides the cast, I had put emphasis on the special which was fairly strong: level 5 Heartbreak Flourish with Super Nova (greater area and extra damage).
Note that I had barely defeated Hades. I had 12 out of 330 HP.
As a final note on the run, I was part way through when my Steam Deck ran out of battery. The game started back at the beginning with the same seed. I had previously read about this but did not intentionally try to make use of it. It happens that this restart became the run which I defeated Hades. I did make a major deviation from the first run on the seed. The first time around, I took a Daedalus Hammer upgrade that lowers the lifepool, and grants life recovery with every attack. The second time I opted to take a different upgrade.
Steam Game Time: 38.5 hours (total game time) / 5.8 hours (session game time)
20221007:
Today I did several runs. Apparently the Administrative Room keeps a record of all the runs which is really cool.
On a different note, sometimes collectong a boon simply to make progress towards a Minor Prophecy results in a poor build. Of course this happens less asI play the game more.
Gameplay Log:
I guess with all the unlocks it's easier. Next Hades run (a streak of 2) is also a success with a larger margin. This time I covered both weaknesses mentioned on 20221006; I had speed boost after dash and a form of deflect. I combined Aspect of Hestia + Lightning Rod.
The Daedalus Hammer upgrade which increases the radius and damage at the cost of dealing damage to the player when hit didn't seem to do that much damage.
Lightning Rod while probably didn't add that much damage, nonetheless did add damage.
Aphrodite's Aid felt useless during Redacted. A greater call that hit Hades results in a charm that is barely noticeable [20230228: some damage is dealt, but the efficiency may be lacking; that is, other calls have the opportunity to result in greater damage dealt to Hades]
Steam Game Time: 42.6 hours (total game time) / 4.1 hours (session game time)
20221008:
I got some more wins in today. I think having a long distance cast against Hades is good. Speaking of long distance, I saw a technique where the player can use the Coronacht special at close range to deal a lot of damage to a single target ("shotgun"). I tried to incorporate it into my gameplay but couldn't really make good use of it. On the topic of Coronacht, the one aspect where it auto targets the last foe attacked is underwhelming, because it's just four arrows.*
Festive Fog is decent when spammed but sometimes better when thought goes into spreading it out for more AOE or as increased damage.
Steam Game Time:** 47.5 hours (total game time) / 4.9 hours (session game time)
*20230228: However, when it is fully upgraded, auto-targeting 8 shots onto a single target can actually be a good amount of damage which is also safe, because the player can focus on dodging and using the special for free damage.
**This game time includes time spent past 11:59 PM.
20221013: Steam Game Time: 52.6 hours (total game time) / 5.1 hours (session game time)
20221014: Steam Game Time: 55.6 hours (total game time) / 3.0 hours (session game time)
20221015:*
Steam Game Time: 59.2 hours (total game time) / 3.6 hours (session game time)
20221016:*
Steam Game Time: 67.7 hours (total game time) / 8.5 hours (session game time)
20221017: Steam Game Time: 71.3 hours (total game time) / 3.6 hours (session game time)
Okay, I might have finally reached my fill of this game. I'm not sure if I'm tired of the game, or tired of trying to collect all the Legendary Boons and Duo Boons (I'm close to collecting all of them).
20221018: Steam Game Time:* 76.0 hours (total game time) / 4.7 hours (session game time)
Today I finished the story.
20221019: Steam Game Time:* 83.9 hours (total game time) / 7.9 hours (session game time)
Very addicting.
20221020: Steam Game Time: 85.7 hours (total game time) / 1.8 hours (session game time)
20221021: Steam Game Time: 86.9 hours (total game time) / 1.2 hours (session game time)
I got sleepy a little before midnight, but I was trying to do a run and nodding off. That resulted in me wasting precious seconds from the time pact. As such, I reset. Afterwards I was checkong off some of the boons I have left to take. I have 4 more Duo Boons to go, about 1 or 2 Legendary Boons to go, and about 1 or 2 regular boons to go.
20221022: Steam Game Time:* 93.6 hours (total game time) / 6.7 hours (session game time)
I played until 2AM 10/23. This game is very addicting.
20221023: Steam Game Time: 96.2 hours (total game time) / 2.6 hours (session game time)
20221026: Steam Game Time: 99.9 hours (total game time) / 3.7 hours (session game time)
20221027: Steam Game Time:* 102.6 hours (total game time) / 2.7 hours (session game time)
*This game time includes time spent past 11:59 PM.
20221020 Comment:
At this point I find the following are useful components of a build:
Originally Ares cast with Artemis targeting duo [20230228: I recall the difficulty was consistently setting up this build]
Crystal Beam with Artemis duo; doesn't synergize well with cast drop
Rocket plus 5 special on Eris plus a soft CC cast such as Trippy Shot
Stygius reset cast with special and... probably Trippy Shot
Poseiden's Aid
Coronacht with +3 arrows to special, and applying Doom
Trippy Shot with Zeus duo is strong ("Your Festive Fog effects also deal lightning damage periodically") whereas Poseidan-Aphrodite duo is just okay to me (I previously said it was "strong, felt useful, yet not over-powered."
Quick cast drop and/or Stygius reset with cast dislodge damages
In addition to the above, I've also made the following notes:
Artemis's Aid is crap.
Crystal Beam without being fast is just okay. Without being able to move quickly, it is much more reliant on being positioned further from the enemy.
20221030:
During the last run of the night I was going for Deadly Reversal, which was the last Duo Boon to collect for the prophecy. To be honest, I wasn't sure of True Shot level 5, but combined with some other boons it did well. Aspect of Aris increases damage by +75% (assuming this multiplier applies to the Doom as well). Epic Urge to Kill applies +16%. Rare Excruciating Shot (increased damage of cast). Quick Reload so the cast ammo drops faster with level 3 Exit Wounds. That's (188 + 186)*(1+.75) + 186*(.59+.16) damage times 4 casts every 3.3 seconds, which is about 186*17 = 3162 damage every 3.3 seconds - though one should penalize this value by the time it takes to retrieve the cast ammo. But thanks to Greater Recall (cast ammo automatically returns), I'll assume it takes about 0.7 seconds for the cast ammo to return, then I would have been dealing about 3000 damage every 4.0 seconds! Even when Hades is using his beam in the second stage, I can still hit him from behind a column (an advantage of True Shot not available for other shots). In the second stage, I also used Battie for 2500 dmage plus a full rare Artemesis Aid which is 1100 damage (10 arrows at 110 damage each). Some remarks. First, these calculations don't event take into account additional critical damage. With that being said, I don't think I was making much use of Deadly Reversal, and I probably wasn't proccing Aspect of Eris very often. In any case, the order of magnitude of damage estimated here means I'm dealing about one or two Batties worth of damage every 4 seconds!
Steam Game Time: 111.8 hours (total game time) / 9.2 hours (session game time)
20221031:
Holy moly. So I had fully upgraded the Aspect of Chiron, which means 8 shots are fired from the special (and will fire at the last enemy hit by attack). Then in one of my runs, I also had Concentrated Volley, which reads +3 base for each consecutive hit. Assuming all 8 arrows hit, that's 3*(1+2+...+7) = 54 additional damage. I later checked with Skelly, and the special's base hit is 10, so a full hit with 8 arrows is 80, and thus the total damage with Concentrated Volley would be 134 damage per special. For damage multipliers in that same run, I had level 3 Tempest Flourish (+182%), Caustic Flourish (+95%), Pauper's Flourish (+90%), Chimera Jerky (+40%), and Strong Drink (+15%). On top of these my special was applying Rupture and my attack was applying Doom, so I'll assume Priveleged Status was typically up which is an additional +40%. That's a total multiplier of +462% damage. Thus every special is doing about 134*(1+4.62) = 753.08 damage. Typically a cycle consists of one attack (with Doom damage) followed by two or three specials, resulting on damage on the order of 2000 damage per cycle.
Steam Game Time: 116.0 hours (total game time) / 4.2 hours (session game time)
20221101: Steam Game Time: 119.0 hours (total game time) / 3.0 hours (session game time)
I had a good rail run with Cluster Bomb and ?. I think I also had a good Coronacht run but the upgrades were more even between cast and special and attack.
20221102:*
Steam Game Time: 122.1 hours (total game time) / 2.1 hours (session game time)
20221104: Steam Game Time: 124.6 hours (total game time) / 2.5 hours (session game time)
*This game time includes time spent past 11:59 PM.
20221109:
Recently all the games on my Steam Deck were somehow uninstalled. Upon loading up
Hades, I found that all my progress was gone! After further inspection, the games don't appear to be uninstalled, but rather deleted.* In any case, at risk of overwriting my old save file, I had such a hankering to play the game that I started a new save file. I couldn't beat Meg on the first run, but I beat her on the second run, and subsequently lost to the Hydra.
*I originally thought the culprit was a program I used called syncthing, but syncthing would have theoretically moved a deleted file to the `.stsversions` folder.
20221110:
I'm making faster progress than playing the first time around due to my familiarity with the enemies and boons. However, I still faced some difficulty without all the upgrades. Reacquiring some of the fated prophecies will be a grind, as too will be collecting gems and leveling up keepsakes.
Steam Game Time: 128.7 hours (total game time)
20221112 Snapshot: Steam Game Time: 130.6 hours (total game time)
20221117 Snapshot: Steam Game Time: 132.1 hours (total game time)
Encomposses play time on 20221114, 20221115, and 20221117
20221118:
Yay! I was able to recover my save files! I ran an escape attempt (got Cluster Bomb with Rocket Bomb) but was hasty in some places and lost too many Death Defiances. If I had one more Death Defiance or some source of health towards the end, I would have been able to defeat Hades. I had tons of damage. I guess I was trying too hard to use Cluster Bomb at the start of the run.
In any case,
this Reddit thread, "Steam Deck Method to Recover Lost Save File [...]," helped me arrive at a solution (though I remain unsure about the cause of the problem). I had also read the following related threads:
"Games on SD Card missing [...]" and
"Steam Deck deleting games automatically [...]". To recap, all of the games installed on my Steam Deck were lost (it later became relevant that they were installed on the Steam Deck's internal storage). I had identified that the games were not uninstalled, but removed (because when I redownloaded
Hades, a game that was simply uninstalled would have likely retained the save file). However, after reading the aforementioned Reddit post, it turns out the files weren't removed, but moved; they were moved from their expected location to `rootfs/run/media/mmcblk0p1/steamapps/`.
Steam Game Time: 133.0 hours (total game time) / 0.9 hours (session game time)
20221120:
I paused my current run with Coronacht. Before that I had a run with Stygius (sword) and I got Hermes's fast cast fire and Artemis's Exit Wounds (foes take damange when cast ammo is dislodged). Some other skills complemented the rapid damage. I simply unloaded (Poseiden) cast, dislodged the cast ammo, and repeat. The Hades clear with this combo was insane. A great compliment to this simple combo was Poseiden's Call which seemed to charge well and could be used often.
Steam Game Time:* 136.6 hours (total game time) / 3.6 hours (session game time)
*This game time includes time spent past 11:59 PM.
20221122: Steam Game Time: 138.3 hours (total game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time)
20221123: Steam Game Time: 138.4 hours (total game time) / 0.1 hours (session game time)
20221124: Steam Game Time: 141.0 hours (total game time) / 2.6 hours (session game time)
20221126: Steam Game Time:* 143.2 hours (total game time) / 2.2 hours (session game time)
20221127: Steam Game Time: 144.8 hours (total game time) / 1.6 hours (session game time)
20221129: Steam Game Time:* 147.1 hours (total game time) / 2.3 hours (session game time)
Today (at 20221130 1AM) I completed the run that triggers talking to Persephone with the prologue (
Olympians come to the underworld)
20221201 Snapshot: Steam Game Time: 150.6 hours (total game time)
*This game time includes time spent past 11:59 PM.
20230108 AM hours:
Before going to sleep, around 1 AM, I was testing out Steam Link (from my Steam Deck to my phone). I decided to first test it out with
Hades. I was in the middle of a run, after a boss fight, and had the shield equipped. In my short time playtesting, I felt like having all the action buttons mapped close to the right hand would be cumbersome. Perhaps using a controller would have been sufficient. After
Hades, I tested out Steam Link with
LYNE.
Rating: 5.6/5
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145360/Hades/
