This review contains spoilers
The story and by extension its ludonarrative (hah, funny word) integration is what carries this game.
You play as the Son of Hades, not as Hades himself, initially trying to earn your father's approval but later on trying to escape because your father's a bureaucratically-buried asshat.
Things improve later on and the context of the game changes, but you're still trying to escape and fight bosses all the same.
The gameplay is well-balanced and Hades has more to offer later on just when bosses get a bit stale, but you're still fighting the same 4 variants of bosses as you go.
What I'll say is that the gameplay is... inoffensive. Some status effects are virtually identical to each other. Drunk vs. Doom for example, with the former being a fast acting variant of the latter, and the combat being the standard catchy fare of Supergiant games.
If this were any other game I'd rate this a 3.5, but the magical Supergiant touch makes this work, because so much thought was given to integrating the story together with the game, that despite seemingly having an excuse plot, it's not an excuse in the sense that it's bad, but rather it continually justifies in a meaningful way why you keep trying to get out of Hades.
You play as the Son of Hades, not as Hades himself, initially trying to earn your father's approval but later on trying to escape because your father's a bureaucratically-buried asshat.
Things improve later on and the context of the game changes, but you're still trying to escape and fight bosses all the same.
The gameplay is well-balanced and Hades has more to offer later on just when bosses get a bit stale, but you're still fighting the same 4 variants of bosses as you go.
What I'll say is that the gameplay is... inoffensive. Some status effects are virtually identical to each other. Drunk vs. Doom for example, with the former being a fast acting variant of the latter, and the combat being the standard catchy fare of Supergiant games.
If this were any other game I'd rate this a 3.5, but the magical Supergiant touch makes this work, because so much thought was given to integrating the story together with the game, that despite seemingly having an excuse plot, it's not an excuse in the sense that it's bad, but rather it continually justifies in a meaningful way why you keep trying to get out of Hades.