Topic: Hades.

Well, I'm up to 6 completed runs and had a streak of 4 in a row! The Adamant Rail is still my most successful weapon with three of the runs using that (still not finished with the spear or shield) and the final one at just heat level 2.

I've been looking up some of the trophies and the level of depth to get some of the relationships built up is pretty mad. Think I need to have another look and start being a bit more strategic, particularly to get the companions.

@Thrillho Nice one! It's great when you can get stuck into the heats and experimenting with the different modifiers can be quite fun. One of my favourites was the one that allowed you to mod the boss fights as it felt like it added some freshness into it for a while.

Doing all the relationships and getting all the keepsakes levelled up feels like it takes an age. I tended to stick with using the same few keepsakes to start with and it's only once I'd successfully escaped a few times did I then start to mix it up a bit more. It's then that I realised I probably should have done that from the start as it would have made the job a lot easier. Building up the relationships of some characters will move the story on as well as it was quite interesting to see what order my wife got some of the story elements in compared to me where we'd done things differently.

@Indoorhero hey every game isn't for everyone but it's a bummer you didn't like it. I liked how you advanced the story with both success and failure, the variablity in builds between runs, the art style, soundtrack/VO and the general flow of combat. Hope you enjoy what you play next

@Indoorhero I've heard nothing but good things about dead cells, will have to give it a try sometime. The procedural generation for levels sounds interesting

@Indoorhero It might that this is just the wrong time for you and you could come back to it months or years down the line and enjoy it. Hope you find something you want to play soon.

@Indoorhero I've been loving the game so far! I'm on around 50ish runs and having a great time, and have seen the credits roll after beating the games enough times.

I much prefer it to Dead Cells as each run can come together well enough for a decent go at getting far whereas DC you can spend half the time scrabbling round to try and get a decent weapon. Hades also has much more currency that rolls over between runs so you're always unlocking something new. DC felt like you hit a wall too often and so many of the weapons were utter garbage.

I'm really enjoying the story in this game too which is a nice surprise for this sort of game. But each to their own

I finally managed to trigger and complete the epilogue last night so that’s another main thing ticked off. Just a handful of trophies left which include the two high heat runs and then I’m done.

I still enjoy mixing it up with the weapons but for hard runs I certainly find the shield with the Zeus aspect (the one where it carries on spinning in the air) is great, especially when mixed with lightning damage or Doom. Getting the duo boon so dropped cast items cause lightning damage is fantastic too and I even doubled that with a legendary boon to give me two extra casts on one run.

@Thrillho Doom was always my favourite mixed with deflect which meant I could make easier work of the later levels where there were a lot more projectiles. It’s a great game for having something for every play style and I like how it pushes you to try different things but offering you the reward for using a specific weapon or by using the different keepsakes.

Good luck on the high heats level one but it’s sounds like it should be easily manageable for you now 👍

@render The Ares boon that lets Doom stack is rather handy too!

Yeah, I enjoy mixing up which weapon and boons to use but it can be too easy to just stick with ones you regularly use. I’ve started using the Festive Fog cast a bit too, the chill ones can be great, and then the ones that give Weak generally have high extra damage modifiers.

Deflect works well with dash but is a bit rubbish to link to attacks. Artemis’ critical ones I don’t like and Poseidon’s knock back effect can actually be a bit annoying sometimes too.

As well as the heat runs I think there’s one more modifier from the pact I haven’t completed a run with and then the one for getting the butterfly keepsake to a high level (the one that increases attack for not getting hit). So hopefully just a few more evenings worth of runs!

@Sorteddan I thought I'd post here rather than the other thread.

The main time killer for the plat is the trophy for getting every keepsake up to level 3 as that is a lot of runs, particularly if you haven't been mixing up your usage from the start. Plus, there's one you only get after you've seen the credits roll.

That said, completing the epilogue also takes a LOT of time as you'll obviously need to "beat" the game first and then have to trigger lots of dialogue in the House of Hades (which is quite random) and then get your relationship level with the Olympus gods up high, with quite a few of them at full level so you'll need to complete their favours (mini goals which unlock the top relationship ranks which you need ambrosia rather than nectar).

There are loads of other trophies which take time as well (completing the prophecies to do with Orpheus, Sisyphus, and Achilles; beating Hades with all the different Pact of Punishment settings) and tricky ones like beating the game with Heat level 16.

One I would easily have missed is beating Hades with all the different perks from the mirror as I didn't realise that each perk had an alternative setting as well!

Overall I'd say pushing on for the epilogue really isn't worth it unless you're like me and loving the gameplay loop as it takes ages to do. But if you are going to push to do that, then it's worth looking up some of the trophies as it's worth ticking some of those things off as you're going along and it's a cool way to keep things interesting too.

@Thrillho

I've already been switching up keepsakes but only maxed a few so far so am set with that one. Have started using the green mirror perks rather than all the red ones but only just started using pact of punishment things when I noticed I get unlocks from the bosses again (titan blood, diamonds etc).
Guess I'm gonna have to make a list of which characters need full heart relationships nd work towards them, have been fairly scattergun approach so far.

But really, I'm in no rush. Hades is just something I enjoy at the moment. I usually have a run before I decide what else I'm gonna play that day.

Thank you for the information. Your enthusiasm for the game is obvious. It's just a shame when you actually finish something like that isn't it, I've have similar games that leave me wishing I still had more to accomplish or feeling a need to replace it with something similar.

@Thrillho
So didn't really settle on what is call an actual build but definitely had some boons I was happier with than others.
Id generally go with the shield out of preference and would hope to get:
Divine dash - deflecting my way out of bullet bell scenarios.
Special that did chill or hangover or doom.
Attack that did Poseidon knockback effect stacked with rupture
That Dionysus cast which put pools of hangover all over the screen (trippy cast maybe?)
After those I was quite happy to mix and match whatever it threw at me.

Oh and used the keepsake from Persephone that levelled up a random boon every few encounters.

For the high(ish) heat run for Skellys second prize I just maxed the extreme measures and trap damage ones and that got me over half way to the 16 I think so just picked a couple of more manageable ones to get to the limit.

All in all a hell of a game (pun intended)