I finally got to the epilogue!
I only needed god mode to get to 40%ish damage reduction.
I’m interested in going further to see more of the story, how certain circles are squared and the fall out of some choices, but I think it’s going to take a long time.
I was talking with a friend about Hades recently. I played enough to beat the big man once, with God Mode probably in the 15%ish range.
I felt the game was ok, but didn’t like it as much as a lot of people seem to. I think I figured out why.
Health is such a precious resource, and chances to replenish it are relatively scarce. That led to me playing safely, because why take a single point of damage to finish off the last 2 dinky little enemies? I’ve got 45 rooms to go.
And that led to taking a long time in every room. And it was just slow, and not super fun.
IMO the game doesn’t have enough healing opportunities. If there was more, I think I would have enjoyed it more.
I just picked up Hades two months ago, and it’s been fantastic.
For me at least, with practice and upgrades, I moved from thinking about enemies and avoiding damage, to enemy types, to rooms and bosses, to overall levels. It becomes more about the joy of execution of play with the loadout I was offered. Avoiding damage is very important but becomes easier to manage, until you sign up with the Pact of Punishment and then it starts to become a challenge again.
Beating the final boss once feels like exploring maybe a sixth of the game. There’s more plot to uncover and resolve—and a lot more dialog interactions—if you keep playing.
At the moment I’ve exhausted the plot, have exactly one Fated List item to complete, maxed out keepsakes, maxed out all-but-one option from the Mirror, and bought most of the things I care to. There are currencies that are no longer relevant. I still do one run a day. And there are some things I’m not going to bother with, like the Resource Director.