Recent reviews by Janube

It is difficult to adequately describe just how good this game is.

The writing is excellent, but the core premise of the game is superbly designed and executed on.
This game knows exactly what it wanted to be and *nails* it in presentation.

This is a game for philosophy nerds, but it's also just crafted in such a way that anyone can approach it and understand the themes and messages underneath the surface.

What an absolute treat this was to play. Buy it now. Do it or the princess will never exist, and if she doesn't exist, you will have doomed the universe to a quantum state where she is both slain and saved at once.

I think people in these negative reviews are fundamentally mistaking a lack of polish for a lack of quality. Big recommend with caveats. I'll start with the negatives to lay some context for the polish issues:

1. The models and animations are bad. No two ways about it, they're rough. A professional modeler and animator would do the game a huge service. BUT, I would say that this isn't a massive black eye since those are elements that can be improved pretty easily compared to core systems (and these core systems are very *very* good!)

2. The combat isn't crunchy. Art and animation have a lot to do with this, but so does the sound design and the floatiness of the characters. I would call this the hardest sell about the game because it's so core to what makes an ARPG roguelike feel good. This is exacerbated by the starting abilities being very dull -- But I think it's saved by the system designs.

3. The terminology is a cute series of portmanteaus and puns, but the result is a kind of convoluted mess of mechanic names that I couldn't keep track of because of how unintuitive many of them are.

4. The mid-run font upgrades are pretty boring for how few of them there are. I can forgive this since they take a backseat to the character-specific upgrades.

5. There are very few maps, so the game will feel aesthetically repetitive.

6. Some of the intended builds feel underwhelming or lacking in skills.

7. It was hard to tell what made each enemy distinct from one another late into our runs. This is a significant departure from the Risk of Rain enemies that players have gotten used to, who are exceptionally easy to tell apart even at a glance.

Now the good. Holy sh**, the systems are either excellent or they show enormous promise.

1. Each ability has its own perk pool modifying that ability in unique ways.

2. Those perks are *interesting*! People may underestimate how much this matters, but perks that give you incremental stat buffs are boring and Vellum doesn't do that for virtually any of the perks. Perks tended to massively change how the ability functioned in an interesting and thematic way.

3. The perks have synergies and reverse-synergies with other perks in a way that makes many perk decisions impactful.

4. The meta progression has a unique spin on it, since you don't just get every upgrade linearly - when you unlock passive upgrades for an ability, you have to choose between one of three to use at a given time, giving you a deeper sense of choice with each build.

5. Choosing the enemy perks gives players an enormous sense of agency in a way that feels excellent.

6. Quests and daily/weekly bounties are just a great way to incentivize playing outside of your standard build.

7. The mission-specific Font upgrades are great. The mission-specific ascension rewards (for accepting higher difficulty) are amazing. Getting the wolf summons for doing the wolf quest on higher ascension levels? Beautiful.

8. The system of adding penalties for greater rewards is nothing new to the genre, but it rounds out the game very well as a whole.

This game has clear rough edges that will need polished. And if you want combat as snappy and crunchy as RoboQuest, then this isn't for you. However, I think its roguelike and progression systems are better than RoboQuest's and LEAGUES better than Gunfire Reborn's despite the worse polish.

This game conceptually scratches a lot of the itches that I care about. It's a metroidvania, it's a roguelike, it's a soulslike, it has abilities you unlock per run that are interesting and different, permanent weapon upgrades, and the theme is a juicy creepy world that feels eldritch in nature.

That said, this game doesn't scratch any of those itches well at all in the first hour and some change of play.

1. The UI is one of the worst I've ever seen in a game. It's confusing, cluttered, and goes largely unexplained as though the game was still in alpha.
2. There's no story, and it feels like it's trying to be like Dark Souls in its limited "direct" storytelling, but it just misses the mark entirely in the opening act by making the player wander aimlessly.
3. The foreground blends way too much with the background, making it difficult to tell which elements are interactable and which are strictly decorative. (Games like Super Metroid should be a case study in game design 101 for making the foreground distinct in color and vibrancy from the background)
4. The combat wants to be its strong point, but it's like if someone took Dead Cells and drained all the fluidity out of the combat system. Movement is chunky, shooting is awkward, melees feel like they have no range, there's no different key for stepping on a wounded enemy vs. normal melee, and the monsters have jerky, difficult-to-predict movement. I also wanted to make a separate point about this, but some of the enemies are straight-up invisible 70% of the time, so the counterplay is memorizing where they are, which is awful design. Super Metroid did an excellent job with shooting mechanics while moving almost 30 years ago, and somehow this feels much much much worse.
5. The level design is incredibly samey and confusing. I had no idea where I was most of the time, and it didn't feel like I was making meaningful progress toward any sort of goal.
6. The upgrade system borrows a lot from Dark Souls, but instead of upgrades being relatively minor, these are 20%+ damage upgrades at a time, which is an enormous amount, making it feel like the impetus is to grind for resources rather than try to progress the story.
7. The abilities use a mana system or an item system depending on the ability, and some just feel like they weren't balanced against each other at all, leaving abilities feeling wildly disparate in efficacy.

And this is just subjective, but the asset art style feels too granular. There are a lot of gritty details that are mostly impossible to tell apart because of the intended pace of the game and the speed at which entities move. I much prefer relatively simplistic designs if they're meant to move quickly. The more details there are, the harder it is to tell what's going on with the asset, which isn't good in a faster-paced game.

I came in excited about this game for a ton of reasons, but walked away extremely disappointed.

Have you always looked longingly at the Diablo franchise and thought "This seems like so much fun, but every time I boot it up, I cut through a swathe of enemies like they're made of a fine spider's silk"?
Then Hades may be for you. It's basically Diablo, if the combat was fun and engaging.

With all the charm, excellent writing, voice acting, visual design, and excellent roguelike mechanics one might expect from Supergiant's latest game. I'm always surprised at how good (and how incredibly different) their games always are from one another.

I only tentatively recommend this game.

It is incredibly well-written, subverting VN tropes well and handling delicate situations with some finesse. It is inherently limited in its capacity for nuance due to being only a few hours long. It's primary goal is 100% reached, however, and I think that's what defines it as an excellent piece of media. It has an objective and it achieves it almost flawlessly.

NONDESCRIPT SPOILER:




It should have a trigger warning or two. It desperately needs them.

I talk a lot about video games. They're a hobby, sure, and they're a passion; that's fine.

But I love being reminded why I see them as an art form, with the potential to carry unimaginable, provocative experiences on their backs.

What Remains of Edith Finch was that reminder for me this weekend. A "walking simulator" built around a collection of short tales about a family cursed to die before their time.

But as is often the case with compelling writing, this story did not seek to create moments of tension or suspense (barring one contextual example). Instead, it sought only to create meaning between these fictional family members and to make you care for them and their stories.

If you've ever wondered whether or not games can be art, or if you've ever been skeptical of their ability to tell amazing stories (even for people who don't know how to play games), then please pick this up and give it a try.

This is easily one of the best indie games I've ever played.
Art - Flawless
Soundtrack - Beyond perfect. Best OST of 2011
RPG elements - Excellent and endearing
Plot - Captivating and uniquely organized
Voice Acting - Superb

I really couldn't tell you how spectacular this game is.