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After 60 Hades Runs, I can safely say Returnal is a bad Roguelike.

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
To start off, I loved Returnal. It had some fantastic combat mechanics, incredible atmosphere and is easily my runner up for GOTY as of now.

However, playing Hades over the last few weeks has made me realize just how flawed Returnal is when it comes to rougelikes, and it's infuriating that Hades came out almost 8 months before Returnal because Returnal took nothing from it.

Hades has a better end game. Better build variety. Better weapon variety. More depth. Better storytelling. More unlocks. Way better sense of progression. And best of all, the game saves whenever you enter a new room or die so you dont have to leave the game in rest mode and you cant save scum.

- Better Storytelling
Beating Hades does not mean you have seen the ending. The game continues to offer new story bits and dialogue every single time you beat the game. I am 60 runs in and still finding new dialogue. The story is also very well written by Greg Kasavin who should be well known to any of the Gamespot oldies here. I cannot tell wtf Returnal was about. I cant even tell you who the main character is and wtf those flashbacks were. I dont mind vague David Lynch stories, but there is a time and a place, and this is not it. If you fuck up a run, it's a waste because the story does not move an inch.

- Incredible Depth
I am 60 runs in and I havent unlocked everything yet. I am missing weapons. Weapon Upgrades. Companions who help out in battles. There is a whole secondary upgrade system I havent even touched yet. There are 10 different gods who offer different upgrade paths ingame so every run feels entirely different even if you take the same weapon over and over again. And they dont limit you to five upgrades per run like Returnal does. I can carry almost 30 boons at once. There is no penalty for taking every upgrade. In fact, they encourage it by offering you damage buffs for taking upgrades from multiple gods.

- Better Progression
This was my biggest gripe with Returnal at launch and something they didnt even bother fixing. There is just one progression system in Returnal. Your weapon perks. Nothing else. Hades lets you carry over 5 different currencies that let you upgrade 40 different skills, and 4 weapon perks per weapon. No run feels like a waste of two hours because you are always getting stronger. More attack power, more health, better RNG percentage, more spells, more everything.

It's frustrating that not only did they not learn from this amazing game, they also havent updated the game at all since release. Zero post launch support.
 

sackings

Member
What is a rougelike? Haha anyway I haven't played Returnal yet but just got the plat on PS5 yesterday for Hades. It is indeed a fantastic roguelike. While there are ideal builds, pretty much anything is viable before you start on high heat runs.
 
It's the gold standard for roguelikes.

Ultimately what it shows me though is that the best thing about a roguelike is how much it deviates from being an actual roguelike, and offers robust and meaningful progression. Meaning, I personally don't like roguelikes and think they're a cheap and lazy alternative to a real action game that has pre-built custom stages, with new enemies, stages and bosses from beginning to end. Then offers unlockables and increased difficulty to help replayability. Ninja Gaiden would not be better as a roguelike, even a good one like Hades.

Hades is a masterpiece for managing to come up with a story that actually fits this dumb genre - you're in hell and go back there when you die, so it actually makes the roguelike make a tiny bit of sense. Hades also has fantastic gameplay, art, story, voice acting - but you do get a little sick of the same 4 stages. If they made a Hades 2 where he breaks out, and explores Earth and Olympus, and it's an action game and not a roguelike - it would be a better game. A short 4 stage roguelike is something that should really just be an extra mode on a real action game.

Returnal, from what I've heard, leans in hard to the roguelike structure which will please hardcore fans of the genre. But the less it acts like a roguelike, the better it will be. If it went all the way to being a full blown normal campaign like any real TPS (Vanquish comes to mind), it would be even better. Vanquish has a 6 stage challenge mode that is just a little bonus. It's not the entire game to beat the challenge mode on 1 guy.

TLDR: roguelikes suck. Hades is good for trying hard to not be one.
 

llLeonhart

Gold Member
I don't think Hades being amazing makes Returnal bad. I like both. One thing that is infuriating me in hades, is the bonus currency system, it should be random, to encourage usage of multiple weapons, but the past 22 runs or so it has given me only shield and spear with a single machine gun in the middle.
It's incredibly annoying and makes the game feel more repetitive for me. As I have beaten with shield on heat 6 already, and still havent beat even without heat on the sword, which is my favorite weapon. Still haven't even played with gauntlets thingy or the bow. And keep in mind that I already saw the "ending" meaning I've beat it 10 times I believe.
 

Chukhopops

Member
It’s odd because the main flaw of Hades is that it lacks run variety and after a while feels a bit same-ish (same bosses, not a lot of room layouts, etc.). It lacks the crazy factor that other games offer.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
You beat Hades 60 times?

How long is this game for a playthrough...
25 minutes. All four bosses. Though the first time you beat it, its probably an hour. Game gets easier as you learn the mechanics and the upgrade systems.

And I didnt beat it 60 times. I had 60 runs. I beat it on my 30th run and have since beat it around 25 times.
 

Dr Bass

Member
Returnal was a better game than Hades IMO. You just like to constantly crap on PS stuff. It's so blatant and extremely tiresome.

The story is FAR better in returnal. It's actually mature, and extremely well told. Similar to Silent Hill 2 in execution. You're wrong here. Hades is a comic book.

Who cares about weapon upgrade comparison? Returnal is more about getting good. It took me 40 some odd hours to complete my first entire run through of Returnal. Then I beat the entire game in one sitting from beginning to end without dying once. This was because of how much better I got at the game, which was much more satisfying to me than learning to use all the weapons in Hades.

Again on the progression. The progression should be within you. If you feel like you "wasted" your time because you died ... you're missing the point. BTW, I never had a run two hours long in Returnal that didn't result in some kind of gain (each Biome only takes about an hour to beat at MOST, and that's if you are slow), so you are either really bad at the game or not being entirely honest here to try and make a point.

Why should Returnal "learn" from Hades? It's entirely it's own thing. I'm glad it was different in the way it was. Why would I want Hades in a Sci Fi wrapper? I'll take the fresh, extremely well executed and fantastic experience that was Returnal every day of the week. I thought Hades was fantastic too, but I preferred Returnal.

And I'm certainly not gonna go out and take a dump on one at the expense of another.
 

GymWolf

Member
Oh, absolutely.

Returnal is a GREAT tps, but a shitty roguelite, and when grubb said this in his review all the sony fanboys were in shambles, but he is not even the only one who said this in his review.

The only good sense of progression was with the perks in the weapons but it was not nearly enough compared to a good roguelite.

The discovery and unlock of the objects was underwhelming because the majority of them was kinda useless or very situational and not really exciting.

This was my fear before they game was released, when you do a triple A roguelite with good graphic, is far hardwr to put a fuckload of contents like in more simple looking games like isaac or dead cells, hades already is a step up in graphics compared to these 2 and it doesn't have nearly as many contents (but it a lot of story and vocie acting contents).
I liked the enemy variety tho, one of the best thing about the game.

The difference in story\protagonist between the 2 games is also gigantic, nobody gives a fuck about selene and his confusing (and totally open to interpretation) boring ass plot compared to the sheer amount of goodness in hades.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
It's the gold standard for roguelikes.

Ultimately what it shows me though is that the best thing about a roguelike is how much it deviates from being an actual roguelike, and offers robust and meaningful progression. Meaning, I personally don't like roguelikes and think they're a cheap and lazy alternative to a real action game that has pre-built custom stages, with new enemies, stages and bosses from beginning to end. Then offers unlockables and increased difficulty to help replayability. Ninja Gaiden would not be better as a roguelike, even a good one like Hades.

Hades is a masterpiece for managing to come up with a story that actually fits this dumb genre - you're in hell and go back there when you die, so it actually makes the roguelike make a tiny bit of sense. Hades also has fantastic gameplay, art, story, voice acting - but you do get a little sick of the same 4 stages. If they made a Hades 2 where he breaks out, and explores Earth and Olympus, and it's an action game and not a roguelike - it would be a better game. A short 4 stage roguelike is something that should really just be an extra mode on a real action game.

Returnal, from what I've heard, leans in hard to the roguelike structure which will please hardcore fans of the genre. But the less it acts like a roguelike, the better it will be. If it went all the way to being a full blown normal campaign like any real TPS (Vanquish comes to mind), it would be even better. Vanquish has a 6 stage challenge mode that is just a little bonus. It's not the entire game to beat the challenge mode on 1 guy.

TLDR: roguelikes suck. Hades is good for trying hard to not be one.

I think Ratchet shouldve had a rougelike mode to offer it more depth. This should be a secondary mode in every single player game.
 

Holammer

Member
WeZapzq.jpg


Rougelike you say?
 

GHG

Gold Member
It’s odd because the main flaw of Hades is that it lacks run variety and after a while feels a bit same-ish (same bosses, not a lot of room layouts, etc.). It lacks the crazy factor that other games offer.

Pact of punishment is your answer here. Plenty of variety becomes available once you finish your first run and then it's down to how much difficulty you're willing to take.

There's also plenty of build variety. Each weapon aspect needs to be catered for differently and there are a ton of lengendary/duo boons to hunt down, some of which are game changers. If you're selecting the same boons over and over then that's on you, literally everything is viable in this game as long as you intelligently plan for it.

SlimySnake SlimySnake conpletely agreed BTW, said similar things in other returnal threads. While that game has great gameplay mechanics, as a rouguelike it really isn't up to standard.
 
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reksveks

Member
25 minutes. All four bosses. Though the first time you beat it, its probably an hour. Game gets easier as you learn the mechanics and the upgrade systems.

And I didnt beat it 60 times. I had 60 runs. I beat it on my 30th run and have since beat it around 25 times.
You started to make the runs harder?
 

Dr Bass

Member
It's the gold standard for roguelikes.

Ultimately what it shows me though is that the best thing about a roguelike is how much it deviates from being an actual roguelike, and offers robust and meaningful progression. Meaning, I personally don't like roguelikes and think they're a cheap and lazy alternative to a real action game that has pre-built custom stages, with new enemies, stages and bosses from beginning to end. Then offers unlockables and increased difficulty to help replayability. Ninja Gaiden would not be better as a roguelike, even a good one like Hades.

Hades is a masterpiece for managing to come up with a story that actually fits this dumb genre - you're in hell and go back there when you die, so it actually makes the roguelike make a tiny bit of sense. Hades also has fantastic gameplay, art, story, voice acting - but you do get a little sick of the same 4 stages. If they made a Hades 2 where he breaks out, and explores Earth and Olympus, and it's an action game and not a roguelike - it would be a better game. A short 4 stage roguelike is something that should really just be an extra mode on a real action game.

Returnal, from what I've heard, leans in hard to the roguelike structure which will please hardcore fans of the genre. But the less it acts like a roguelike, the better it will be. If it went all the way to being a full blown normal campaign like any real TPS (Vanquish comes to mind), it would be even better. Vanquish has a 6 stage challenge mode that is just a little bonus. It's not the entire game to beat the challenge mode on 1 guy.

TLDR: roguelikes suck. Hades is good for trying hard to not be one.
The Returnal story fits perfectly into the structure of the game as well. 🤷‍♂️
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
I think Returnal leans much more to being a roguelike whereas Hades is definitely a roguelite.

I can see why somebody would try to compare them but in my eyes it doesn't make that much sense.
The core gameplay loop is to different and the goals these two game want to accomplish are too.

Hades is also way to easy even with the Pact of Punishment on Heat level 20 and higher. It is missing the dread from dying in seconds.
A good game sure i agree but Returnal feels just much more satisfying in its moment to moment gameplay.

The sense of accomplishment is undeniable higher in Returnal.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I don't think Hades being amazing makes Returnal bad. I like both. One thing that is infuriating me in hades, is the bonus currency system, it should be random, to encourage usage of multiple weapons, but the past 22 runs or so it has given me only shield and spear with a single machine gun in the middle.
It's incredibly annoying and makes the game feel more repetitive for me. As I have beaten with shield on heat 6 already, and still havent beat even without heat on the sword, which is my favorite weapon. Still haven't even played with gauntlets thingy or the bow. And keep in mind that I already saw the "ending" meaning I've beat it 10 times I believe.
That's bad RNG lol. I always pick a different weapon on each run and I typically get the bonus on something I didnt use the last time. I am upto 5 Heat on pretty much every single weapon.
 

Mozzarella

Member
I still havent played Returnal but i believe its getting overhyped, i'm not sure but i just feel it, its being overhyped for now.
Hades was very good game, its maybe my GOTY choice for 2020 when i finished it, but now i think i had more fun with FF7R than Hades, and i dont know maybe when i play Half Life Alyx it will be the GOTY. Still Hades was very good game, in terms of rougelike it was fun but i had more fun with Gungeon and Dead Cells because they are better "roguelikes" than Hades, i still appreciate that Hades tried something unique for Roguelikes by going more story driven approach, with that said i prefer roguelikes for their quick run and gaming sessions and rng and run variety, and Hades lacked that, same bosses and similar boons unfortunately, but what is not similar was the story/dialogue.
Returnal seems like a decent roguelike with Triple A flavor, i dont know if i will love it as much as indie roguelikes though.
 
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To start off, I loved Returnal. It had some fantastic combat mechanics, incredible atmosphere and is easily my runner up for GOTY as of now.

However, playing Hades over the last few weeks has made me realize just how flawed Returnal is when it comes to rougelikes, and it's infuriating that Hades came out almost 8 months before Returnal because Returnal took nothing from it.

Hades has a better end game. Better build variety. Better weapon variety. More depth. Better storytelling. More unlocks. Way better sense of progression. And best of all, the game saves whenever you enter a new room or die so you dont have to leave the game in rest mode and you cant save scum.

- Better Storytelling
Beating Hades does not mean you have seen the ending. The game continues to offer new story bits and dialogue every single time you beat the game. I am 60 runs in and still finding new dialogue. The story is also very well written by Greg Kasavin who should be well known to any of the Gamespot oldies here. I cannot tell wtf Returnal was about. I cant even tell you who the main character is and wtf those flashbacks were. I dont mind vague David Lynch stories, but there is a time and a place, and this is not it. If you fuck up a run, it's a waste because the story does not move an inch.

- Incredible Depth
I am 60 runs in and I havent unlocked everything yet. I am missing weapons. Weapon Upgrades. Companions who help out in battles. There is a whole secondary upgrade system I havent even touched yet. There are 10 different gods who offer different upgrade paths ingame so every run feels entirely different even if you take the same weapon over and over again. And they dont limit you to five upgrades per run like Returnal does. I can carry almost 30 boons at once. There is no penalty for taking every upgrade. In fact, they encourage it by offering you damage buffs for taking upgrades from multiple gods.

- Better Progression
This was my biggest gripe with Returnal at launch and something they didnt even bother fixing. There is just one progression system in Returnal. Your weapon perks. Nothing else. Hades lets you carry over 5 different currencies that let you upgrade 40 different skills, and 4 weapon perks per weapon. No run feels like a waste of two hours because you are always getting stronger. More attack power, more health, better RNG percentage, more spells, more everything.

It's frustrating that not only did they not learn from this amazing game, they also havent updated the game at all since release. Zero post launch support.

So you've played the best Rougelike that released in recent times and now you are trying to shit on other games of that genre.

As someone who played and still plays lots of roguelikes, returnal is still quite a good one.
Hades is simply on another level.
 
Thanks for reminding me.

Greg Kasavin is a legend in this industry. Perhaps the best game reviewer of all time and a superstar Indie Developer. What a treasure. Gamespot is a shadow of the site it once was without him at the helm.
I had a pleasure of meeting him and interviewing at E3 2013 or 2014. I don't remember which year it was. Very cool fella.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
You started to make the runs harder?
You are pretty much forced to make every run harder after you beat the game. Before you can start a run, a menu pops up asking you to put negative modifiers on. Every single time you beat the game with that weapon, it increases the number of modifiers by 1. Keeps the game challenging and different. For example, one modifier makes the bosses gain new powers. One boss gets a chariot while another gets two sisters to come and help her.
 
Agree. Hades is great. Returnal not so much. If Returnal had progression like Hades I'd probably still have it installed.
It really does. But, it's less obvious.

Anyone who has finished the game can tell you how easy the game is to keep finishing by the time you get to that point because of all the upgrades you've unlocked, upgraded weapons, etc. Not to mention bosses only need to be beaten once, then can be skipped every following run.
 
However, playing Hades over the last few weeks has made me realize just how flawed Returnal is when it comes to rougelikes, and it's infuriating that Hades came out almost 8 months before Returnal because Returnal took nothing from it.

I'm sorry, what now?

Because Returnal wasn't developed in 8 months.

Because they're two games by two different devs who aren't even in the same country.

Quite how did you realistically envisage the Returnal devs to take anything from the Hades devs during development?

What a bizzare comment!
 
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