I tried so hard to like this game but as a game I just cannot like it all that much. I'd much rather read/listen to all the dialogue, look at all the pretty drawings than actually play the game.

There are multiple reasons why I ended up feeling so very mixed on Hades. On one hand, you have some really cool illustrative art in game, you have really well done voice acting, a funny and charming script. But the gameplay becomes unbearable and tiresome.

For one, It's because after the first few runs, you have really seen the rooms. After having to battle the elysium boss many times, I really got sick and tired of having to see both Tartatus and Asphodel, after that time the feeling never really left even with the small edits after having beat hades himself, the rooms pretty much stay the same few new enemies boss variations aside.

Secondly, the RNG at the first two thirds of the game (pre-beating Hades) is super annoying. You end up stuck for quite some time before you can actually meaningfully edit that RNG to be somewhat favourable so that you can get good items to make runs somewhat more fun. But the early rooms will always feel like a schlock after a few handfulls of runs.

It doesn't feel like I actually improved very much in the gameplay itself. I think the skill ceiling of Hades is not that high. It is mostly waiting for some kind of good boon to come up so the game actually becomes more enjoyable. I feel like there is no true skill progression. Most of it is just waiting for better boons or upgrading the mirror so you get better boons easier. Because good boons makes it so that you can get good DPS.

I think the most enjoyable runs that were to be had when you could actually get an insanely lucky sum of boons. (and yes i did use selling mechanic to change up the pool but it doesn't help that much.) When you had this insane luck suddenly you have really weird and curious combo's. I wish I had more of those. There's some super fun Spear, Bow and arrow and sword builds. Too bad I spend most of my time dealing with semi mediocre builds that didn't lead to anything exciting.

Yes I know, there's a mirror upgrade that can reroll. Great! It would have been nicer if I didn't need it...

Maybe if Hades had more different rooms it could dish out at each part of the tower in different points of different runs it would be more interesting to play. It is just too limited.

As I mentioned earlier, even after you beat Hades the game feels relatively the same. There's some new stuff and I appreciate that, but not really anything that substantially makes it more exciting. That's the point where I'm at rn. Just waiting for good items in my runs. Because it's not that the game is hard. It isn't. The fact is if you don't have a fun build, the game isn't fun to play and fun builds are limited. It's because of all of this that I'm stopping myself from playing more, because I'm just not really enjoying myself for most of the run. When those runs last 30~40 mins it starts weighing down on you a lot.

There's also another problem I'd like to mention and is specifically in more roundish structures in both the snowy mountain top and the elysium boss battle. It is impossible to see when your in a safe zone. This is something inherently to the artstyle. I know it might have been hard to find a solution for that that still looked good. The amount of times iv been hit just because I was guessing where tf I was supposed to stand was so damn annoying.

I'm kinda done doing more in this game so I'm stopping myself here. Played around 35 hours, with multiple attempts going past Hades.

I don't really feel like writing more down so cya. Not really a good review either but I frankly cannot be assed to do better rn. I should probably add more but I don't feel like it.