Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep40: Hades
76 Plays7 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they die over and over in an attempt to escape early access this week with Hades! (spoilers, it is good).
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Unraveling Hades' Escape
00:00:02
Speaker
Where do you think you are? Who do you think you're talking to? Nobody gets out of my domain, whether alive or dead. You wish to learn the hard way? Fine. Then go, get out. Don't let me stop you. Heh. Wasn't planning on it, father.
Introduction to Soapstone Podcast
00:01:03
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going good. That is good.
Game Recommendations and Playtime Delays
00:01:14
Speaker
I know that this episode's been a long time coming and that you've been playing the game for a lot longer than me. Oh, you mean how I'm like, hey, Jake, check out this game. You like it. And then we wait three months? Yeah.
00:01:28
Speaker
It's like, but I mean, like after Undertale, it's like, I really trust your judgment, you know, it's- The Undertale is a hot piece of shit. I know. And literally, we're probably gonna talk about it later, but the the inverse is true as well. Because I started playing Subnautica this weekend, and I was just like, oh. So they weren't lying. No, it is a heck of addictive. Heck of addictive.
00:01:54
Speaker
So this is yet another episode where we're going to do a Supergiant game that's not Bastion. We're never covering it. Never Bastion, I think. We'll cover the new game, but not the first game. We're not getting there. The one more people have probably played.
Diving into Hades' Gameplay and Development
00:02:07
Speaker
I don't know if that's true, but Hades. It's a place, or it's a person. You decide. But yeah, Supergiant's latest early access game
00:02:22
Speaker
Yeah. On the Epic launcher. Ah, yeah. So we'll get the hard truths out of the way first, right? Kind of unconventional for them. They've only released...
00:02:35
Speaker
full games before. Right. But I mean, every single game that they've done has been in a different space, technically. Right. Like, they've never followed the exact same format. Like, it started isometric. They continued the isometric, but added, like, a different combat system. Yeah. And then with Pyre, it was basketball. Yeah. And now it's... A roguelike. An actual roguelike. Yeah. Isometric top. It's all different.
00:03:03
Speaker
It is different. But the early access thing is definitely a big jump. Because I know, as soon as we saw the trailer, we're like, super giant. Hold up. Because early access, as many other game studios have kind of taught us, is not to trust that. Because it's like, hey,
Initial Impressions and Comparisons
00:03:18
Speaker
you bought it early. We have no guarantee that we're going to do stuff later. Yeah. But it's like, it's $20. We're going to cover it eventually. So I bought it.
00:03:30
Speaker
like a week after it came out. So again, we'll dig around, we'll try it. And initially I was going in looking for something binding of Isaac, like, because I have several thousand hours on that. You have bound Isaac. Yes, also I just never turned off my computer. And it wasn't that. So I was initially kind of put off, but then as I continued to play through,
00:03:57
Speaker
I really liked what was there. What is there? What kind of game is this? If it's in the Binding of Isaac space, but it's not Binding of Isaac, right? It's very different. No, it's just rogue-like. So it is an isometric. I go around with the controller. You kind of dash, you have some different weapons. You can choose from, initially I think to start with the sword. You have your basic attack, which is like slashes, and each one gets a little bit stronger, and the throw one kind of knock enemies back. Right.
00:04:27
Speaker
which is important because if you don't get these into walls, you get bonus damage. Yeah, get that wall smash damage. There's a lot of cool interactions there. You also each weapon has a special. For the sword, you kind of like summon down a sword from the sky. It does like this AOE and pushes enemies away. And then you always have a cast, which is like you're throwing out your blood. It's like a blood crystal thing, a blood shard. But yeah, you start the game, you only have one of them.
00:04:55
Speaker
and as part of the meta progression, which we'll get into, you know, you can get more. And the setting for it is probably the first thing that really like drew me
Admiring Art and Audio Design in Hades
00:05:07
Speaker
in. Supergiant has a very clean aesthetic to their games, like coming off of Pyre. This one's very, you can see they have the same artists, you know, which is good because it's good art. But Hades has its own kind of,
00:05:24
Speaker
Hub world feel well a literal hub world also. Yes, you return to the same area Basically when you die your goal is to escape Hades. That's your Your end goal get out of Tartarus Get out of aspdale and get out of whatever other areas are eventually added and escape beat the game and
00:05:48
Speaker
and then just do it again, I guess. I don't know exactly what your loop is. Once you can't escape, but... Once you do escape, it just uninstalls the game. Congratulations, you've won. You've done it. But the aesthetic feels really polished in the super giant way for all the characters, their interactions, and the animation itself, which is important because I feel like... I feel like...
00:06:16
Speaker
Transistor could have a lot of hectic stuff happening on screen, but it could not have as much hectic stuff as happened in Hades. And if they didn't have very clear reads on projectiles and characters, it gets really cluster-y. Can you say that for me? I can't say that. Cluster-fucky. Yeah.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, basically the trailer is what initially sold me. Cause also at Supergiant, I know what I'm buying into. And it just looked good, the voice acting, the music with it. And they actually put up the soundtrack before the game was out. And I was like, oh you motherfuckers.
00:06:58
Speaker
Got it on that but then like in the hub world you have all these like different side characters you can interact with yeah, and their dialogue So if you go through the game you die you come back to the hub world. Mm-hmm You expect to be like, oh they're like a shopkeeper. They're like, hey, how's it going? No, um It took me. I don't even remember how long before I got Repetitive dialogue. Yeah, like I go through and they're like
00:07:25
Speaker
each time it's different. It's like story progression or plot progression or like your reaction with a character has changed because of some event or something else. But like you got really far or you died to that guy or you know something like that. Yeah and I was just like how is it how much did they record and how many times did they keep having these voice actors come back in the studio and be like hey we gotta do
00:07:45
Speaker
DLC in a month, I think. Yeah. I imagine a lot of it was probably recorded up front and then they're just, you know, getting the coding for any other assets. Would it be inconvenient for them to, like, have people change their schedule and keep them back every month? On tap, yeah. They actually just meet up, they play Smash on Fridays, and then they do a voice-out session. But they get that choice Skype audio. Just call in and say, you motherfucker. Thank you. Yeah, based off of some of the quality of the voices,
00:08:15
Speaker
They have some pretty quality voice acting equipment there, because they pick up whispers, which is the way a lot of these characters kind of talk in a very soft-spoken manner. But I appreciate that, obviously. We're also in the audio business to a certain extent now. I have foam on my walls. How to tell.
00:08:39
Speaker
There's a joke there, I'm sure, but I'm just going to let it go. So I don't get bruised anymore. So where do you want to go with this? Yeah. Do you want to talk about side characters? Do you want to talk about some of the gameplay? Yeah, I mean, I think so. You definitely, I mean, have more experience with it than I do. You probably played around with the weapons a lot more. They have this part of the meta progression is you have like a mirror of darkness, a mirror of eternity or whatever it's called.
00:09:07
Speaker
and you can spend your darkness points that
Understanding Hades' Progression Systems
00:09:09
Speaker
you get. It's like a consistent currency through runs. Money, coins you can use to pay the Ferryman Charon. That is throughout the run though. Yes. It does not persist between runs. Yep. That goes away with the exception of like one item you can get. But for the most part, it's darkness you're accumulating and keys. Those are your... Good job. Here's your currency rate.
00:09:33
Speaker
And they start you off, like you said, just the sword, which I kind of switched off pretty quickly. I haven't really gotten back to it, but I imagine it's actually pretty good. Finish your spiel, I'll come back and say. Yeah, I'll finish the spiel.
00:09:49
Speaker
But after that, once you have multiple options, when you start a run, you get to pick your weapon to be like, what do you want to, what do you want to bring? What trinket do you want to bring? What weapon do you want to bring? And they'll give you a bonus to your darkness games on like a random weapon to try to get you to vary it up. I was going to ask if you ever do that. I did a little bit and then I stopped because I found that I love the shield too much.
00:10:14
Speaker
Um, it depends on what I'm in the mood for. Cause it's only like a 10% bonus if I'm correct. Has it really depends. Yeah. But I'm at the point where I don't really need, like I'm not capped yet, but we're fucking close. Imagine with the time you put it and you've got a lot of those upgrades maxed out in the, in the mirror. We're getting there. Yeah. Very close. Um.
00:10:40
Speaker
it's kind of right now I need to farm keys to get like that last unlock that they added where it's like how many Oh 35 keys I have to like they weren't used for anything for a while. Yeah, you can like the game kind of unfolds. So first run year basically
Olympian Boons and Their Strategies
00:10:58
Speaker
Like we said, one weapon, you'll get a boon from a god, which is a key mechanic here. Basically, the Olympian gods are trying to give you blessings to assist you in escaping Hades. Yeah. Everybody thinks your dad's kind of a dick, and you're like, yeah, you should come up and hang out on a lip. That'd be cool. Yeah. And I get this kind of vibe. It's like a...
00:11:19
Speaker
almost like a meta game for them too, where they're just like, I wonder how far we can get them to go this time, you know, right? It's kind of like a rat in the maze. They're just betting on you. I wouldn't doubt it. I think Ares would. But you get like a random boon from a random god and some orb and upgrade. The other option is a thing that'll just upgrade your weapon directly, the Daedalus hammer. And then you go through the run, clear rooms of enemies, much like binding of Isaac.
00:11:48
Speaker
But the pacing is a little bit slower, I think, in the rooms. That's not always the case, but towards the end there are some pretty large rooms and a lot of enemies in several waves. I want to rope you back a little bit because we're kind of jumping. Yeah. So the boons. Yeah. These are blessings from gods that can kind of modify
00:12:14
Speaker
Something yes, so it kind of varies between it could modify your dash Maybe it'll have some when you dash and effect will happen. Maybe it'll boost your attack after you dash Maybe it'll boost your cast. It'll have some elemental damage and maybe some other effect Mm-hmm. Maybe it'll modify your auto attack or your special ability which varies depending on weapons and
00:12:37
Speaker
Or maybe it's just something else entirely. Yeah, like a passive. Like, I know Athena has one like, you take less damage from traps. I'm like, I'm just going to try and not stand on the traps. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. She also has one that's just like, you take less damage, which is also pretty good. Or if you take damage, you get, essentially it's like thorns or a blade mail effect where the damage is returned. Yeah. You reflect a bunch of projectiles.
00:13:07
Speaker
And the gods all have these, like you were talking about the dialogue. Yes. Every time you encounter a god, they've got this new, they have some dialogue for you. Forget that initial direction, like, hey, cousin, nephew, you know, whatever. All the gods are related. It's a little bit weird. But... Hashtag Zeus. Yeah, thanks Zeus. But they've got their own distinct personalities, as all super-giant characters do.
00:13:37
Speaker
and their perks, their boons, a lot of times reflect that. Or just reflect, as you were mentioning. Alright, so Athena is one of my favorites for sure. It's not even something I'm conventionally the way I would go in on a game like this.
00:13:58
Speaker
This is a game where clearing runs quickly, whether you win or not, is better for your overall progression than trying to get really far, for instance. So you'd want to focus on attack, right? You're just like, I'll just get tons of attack. I'll clear all the rooms as quick as possible. I'll play like three hours instead of six hours, and I'll get a bunch of stuff done.
00:14:24
Speaker
And then I just get absolutely destroyed by how many projectiles exist in the Aspadel, the second area. So I'm like, I'm going to take all of the reflection passives, and all of my abilities will just reflect projectiles. And it'll be great. Reflection is also pretty good. So what Jake's talking about with reflection, let's say it's a...
00:14:49
Speaker
modifier for the basic attack for the sword. Anytime you would slash or do your attack, if it were to hit a projectile, that projectile would be sent back and deal damage to the original caster, regardless of where they were standing. It can also block attacks. So if somebody's coming at you with a giant mace, if you time it right, it will be negated. That's harder to do, I like never recommend it. It is possible though.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I like it on the dash in particular, because it gives me these, you're basically invincible while dashing. You just can't be hit by any sort of projectile. So Athena kind of just gets my vote for how far she's gotten me through the game. But there's a lot of other really cool options. Obviously, Zeus is a big one.
00:15:46
Speaker
Zeus is probably, if he's, it's between him and Athena I think for my favorite. I mean Zeus is just dope because a lot of his stuff will add lightning effects. So if you're attacking really fast, each hit will do a chain lightning trigger. Look at that math going up and all that damage and wind clear. So on something like...
00:16:09
Speaker
the sword or I love it on like the bow. Yeah. Cause you just hit it's the extra damage and then it will bounce to somebody else or anything that you can do. It has like a really fast attack. It's just super nice. But I think it's all of his stuff pretty much is chain lighting. It's, it's chain lightning. He has, um, retaliation lightning sometimes. I think everybody has some form of retaliation. Yeah. Um,
00:16:36
Speaker
But he's got really nice modifiers in that his cast, or where you throw out your blood shard, having that bounce to multiple enemies really quickly is amazing. Say the rest of your build is set up so you can dish out a lot of single target damage, but there's a bunch of trash in a room. You can clear it with a couple tosses of a cast, which is quite nice.
00:17:05
Speaker
Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about the cast. Normally the way it works deals like a flat amount of damage. If it doesn't kill the enemy, it stays in the enemy. And you have to kill that enemy to take the shards back. There's like some meta progression in the mirror where if they have the shard in them, you will do additional damage. So maybe like you get a couple shards in one big fatty and then you hack them up.
00:17:33
Speaker
But certain ones will not actually lodge in. Like, I think chain lighting, it does just bounce. Yeah. Yeah. And there's another one of the goddesses here, Artemis. I know she has one of her boons is it causes the projectiles to fall out of enemies more rapidly. So you can kind of like recover, focus more on the casting initial damage and less on the amp for having the projectiles in them.
00:17:58
Speaker
There's a lot of build questions for things like that. You have a lot of options when you're going through this. It's usually if you're going to go more standard attack-based, special attack-based, or cast-based. Now, maybe somebody's doing something around just dashes. It is possible. You can with Zeus, right? You can do lightning on dash. Every time you dash, it summons a lightning bolt. I would never recommend that.
00:18:29
Speaker
You could with... You have such low damage. You could with Ares as well, right? With the blades, although I've never liked the blades. So, Ares is next on the list anyway. Ares is one of my favorites, because I used Bow a lot. And it's just stupid good. He has a modifier where it will do delayed damage after a time. Yeah.
00:18:51
Speaker
So let's say you shoot somebody with a bow for 40, and then after like a second it'll do a flat whatever the damage is for the boon. So let's say another 40. I think it is. And it's just, it's stupidly high damage for what it can do. But as far as like cast modifiers, instead of throwing out your shards as kind of like a straight, imagine like just throwing a rock, it throws out this spinning blade.
00:19:17
Speaker
And you can get other modifiers throughout the run later if you're kind of going more Ares build and those keep coming up. Where the projectile time will last longer, the area effect of the blades will be bigger. So I'm like throwing out these giant Blendtec blenders and it hits enemies multiple times and it kind of lingers so enemies can walk into it. So it's really nice for multi enemy clear, not as much for single target.
00:19:46
Speaker
but also Aries, all of these characters have amazing voice acting and character design. And they're very direct and soft spoken, but like have their own personality. Where Aries just like, hey, so you're killing stuff. That's awesome. I'm gonna help you do that. It's all about the merger. Aries is like the older senior that's like buying cigarettes for the younger kids just to like destroy society. He's like, this is fine.
00:20:15
Speaker
I'm going to encourage this. Here's a boon. Boon of cigarettes. I actually probably had the fewest interactions with Ares. He has not shown up for me, not at all. So I will say to that end, there are items in the game called... Is it ambrosia? The ambrosia is the gift, yeah.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah. So you can give it to a character throughout the game and it will increase your reputation with them. And the first time you give a character this, they will give you a trinket. That kind of is affiliated with them. So if you do it for a specific god, they will give you
00:20:57
Speaker
a trinket specific to them for like Zeus, it's the Thunder Signet. And if you have it equipped, the first boon you get will be from that god. And anytime you interact with that god for a boon, you'll have a high percentage of getting a rare boon. Because sometimes you can get, oh, I got like the Thunder modifier and it's like shitty and like 10 damage. And other times you can get like, oh, epic Thunder modifier. And it's like 35 damage. You're like, hey, what's up? It's pretty good. So I tried to give...
00:21:27
Speaker
My ambrosia to everybody kind of spread my seed to all characters so that if I wanted to guarantee somebody, I could be like, well, I'm going to quip their trinket and then just go in my run. And it does like, there's a split after you beat the first main boss, um, where you can pick another trinket and like influence your next, uh, your next reward. So each of the trinkets is like, your next boon will come from this God.
00:21:58
Speaker
And then, additionally, any time you get that god's boon, it'll be a higher rarity. As soon as you see that next boon, it's gone. Like, that first part's gone. The buff, that buff is gone. You actually have to unequip and re-equip the trinket on level two if you want to guarantee a boon again, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, typically though... So this is something that Jake and I were like recapping beforehand. You cannot stack...
00:22:25
Speaker
modifiers. So if you have something that's like boosting your main attack to do lightning damage, I think I said thunder damage really, but that would be cool, but it's sound. You can't. You do get the option throughout the game to have these palms of power, which you can either buy
00:22:44
Speaker
or it gets a room reward where you can upgrade an existing boon you have. So if you're dealing 30 damage bonus lightning on attack, maybe it'll go to 35. So you can kind of invest in those because sometimes you'll get a boon from a god, you're forced to have a choice. It's like, hey, pick one of these three options. And you're like, none of these really fit my play style. So this one seems okay. And you get it and you move on with your life.
00:23:12
Speaker
Where is there going with that? I don't know, but there's another thing related to that that we don't even have in our notes here, which is the rivalries or rooms where boons show up for multiple gods. Those are the best. They are the best rooms because you get the first boon without fighting any enemies whatsoever.
00:23:31
Speaker
And then the other god will be pissed off that you didn't pick theirs. It's like, what? Are you too good for me? And then you'll have to fight a roomful of enemies, but the roomful of enemies will be modified based off the god you pissed off. Yeah. So for example, if you piss off Athena and you don't take her boon, the enemies you face will have periods of invulnerability and they'll just deflect everything. You're like, oh god.
00:23:58
Speaker
The payoff, though, is after you do clear those enemies out, they're like, all right, all right. That was, you know, we got it out of our system. It was a prank, bro. It was a prank. Just a prank. Just a social experiment. Here's my boon. But I think the boon you get from the god you pissed off is not as good, if I'm correct. It could be true.
00:24:15
Speaker
I'm willing to believe this. So usually I'll try and go to God, I'm trying to run the most. To who?
Boss Battles and Game Challenges
00:24:21
Speaker
Well, so like most recently Dionysus came out, right? Yeah. And the attack modifier effect is it'll put like stacks of poison on them. So I can't increase the poison unless I get palms of power. Right. I can't add another modifier on my auto attack.
00:24:42
Speaker
but I can get other things related to that poison if I keep trying to get that god's boons. So maybe the poison now will slow people or it will have some other interaction.
00:24:53
Speaker
It should be beneficial. Yeah, there's there's advantages and disadvantages to stacking like multiple effects from the same God. Sometimes you just got to get in there, diversify your bonds and try to get a build that will get you through the game. Speaking of getting through the game, I have not beat it yet. I've gotten really far, though. There's two main areas, like we were saying, Tartarus and Asphodel. And the boss of Asphodel is like
00:25:24
Speaker
an endurance run compared to like every other encounter in the game. Yeah, I mean, I've gotten it to like 10% life or something and then lost. It's real frustrating. It's a pain in the ass. It's called the bone Hydra. Everything in Ashfordale is surrounded by lava. Yeah. So sometimes you like jumping between platforms because if you stand the lava, it will obviously damage you over time. But the bone hydras up in the front,
00:25:55
Speaker
at the top and we'll do some head slamming attacks or shoot projectiles at you. But every time you get it to another fourth of damage, it will become invulnerable and summon other little bone hydras on the outskirts. So there's four pillars or columns you can stand behind. You're like, oh, he can't get me here. But then you look behind you and there's another bone hydras.
00:26:24
Speaker
So, I find what I'm doing like...
00:26:29
Speaker
late game bone hydro that is like he summons six as his last phase and i'll be dashing around like a fucking madman in between like attacks special attacks throwing out blood crystals um and trying to dodge all of these projectiles and enemies and everything it's fucking nuts yeah the the time i actually got closest to beating bone hydro i actually was using pretty much only my special attack on the shield so it's basically a captain america throw
00:26:57
Speaker
That's literally what it is. People know what you mean. It's a pretty clear one. It's like you throw your shield. And that's it. It never comes back. I wish I had a weapon. But it takes longer. It doesn't really do as much damage.
00:27:17
Speaker
as if you were like smashing somebody against the wall with a shield. Or doing like a charged bull rush, which is the other move for the shield. But it's safer. And maybe I have reflect on my shield throw. I don't like, all right, we'll wear the boss down. I've gotten so close. Pretty sure I'll beat it pretty soon, but not quite there yet. I did that for a while too. Cause it'll either like hit an enemy, bounce from another enemy, come back.
00:27:45
Speaker
or next game plays, you can actually bounce it off the wall into an enemy. It's kind of forgiving with the bounce angle. But I do like shield. A lot of times if I'm going shield though, sometimes I'd be like, hey, we're not gonna help you boost your special through this run, but maybe we'll give you more knockback on your auto attack. And it's already the beefiest one as far as knockback. It doesn't have a combo. It just hits. It's very thunky.
00:28:13
Speaker
So in Ashfordale, if I'm not having crazy DPS, I'm like, okay, we'll work on positioning. So there's lots of bone-lungy guys who'll come at you. And once they're in striking distance, I'll line it up so that their back is against lava. And I'll just push them in the fucking lava, which surrounds the entirety of every single stage in Ashfordale. It's pretty good. And then they're out there and they're like, fuck, and then die.
00:28:43
Speaker
It's a very measured play through when I do it that way. Yeah. But shield's pretty cool, I like it. That's for all my times, mostly Vince back. I think I've tried all the weapons at least once, but. Going back to the sword quick. Yeah. I know we talked about the Daedalus hammer, which is an upgrade you can only get once throughout your run if it shows up, where it modifies the weapon and how it behaves. So it might modify the basic attack or the special
00:29:11
Speaker
Swords, some of Swords modifiers, because there's like six or seven per weapon. Yeah, there's a lot. One is Flurry. You don't have like the strike combo that knocks him back. You just mash your attack button and it goes... And just pangolier. Yeah. It's very switchbladed, but it's awesome if you have on-hit effects. You can do that a lot faster.
00:29:35
Speaker
There's another one that I know Justin tried called World Breaker, where it says, hey, we're not gonna give you the attack combo. You're gonna have one attack where you kind of bring up the sword and bring it down for 400% damage. So any modifier you put on that gets, it might be the damage first, then the modifier, but putting crits on that was great. No, that sounds crazy.
00:30:03
Speaker
Because I would just like one hit even enemies that have armor. Yeah. And enemies that have armor obviously have additional health. Right. But if a certain effect is supposed to hit them, it will not be applied while the armor exists. So as far as like if you hit an enemy normally, there's kind of like that brief mini stone. It's like, oh, you hit me with a fucking sword, dude. Yeah. And they pause. You what, mate? You fucking what? But if you hit them with armor, they're like,
00:30:33
Speaker
That's cool. This is hacks going through. Yeah. But it was, it really threw up my play style. Cause I'm used to dashing in, stabbing people in the back a couple of times and then getting out. Yeah. Just in life. You know, I'm a general experience. Why is Dave running at me so- Oh fuck.
Intermission: Smash Bros and Gaming Reflections
00:30:53
Speaker
And that sound means it's time for intermission where we talk about wherever we want, whatever we want. Whatever we want. Yeah, there we go. I should have been in charge of that. Yeah, that's all right. But what do you want to talk about? We played some Super Smash Bros the other day. That's true. I was not coughing for a small percentage of the time, but the rest of the time I was. It was fun. I like to play Bowser and Space Bowser. Those are my two.
00:31:21
Speaker
He means Ridley. Jake loves pressing B and sides B, but sadly I'm having trouble with that at points in time. I actually do realize now that I didn't even think of this, but both of them have
00:31:36
Speaker
Fire Breath B, that part I knew. Side B is Command Grab on both of them. Bowser in Space Bowser. But no, it's really freaking fun. There was a point where I couldn't even kick Jake out of my apartment. He's like, let me show you these other cool things about the game. Here's Story Mode, here's other Story Mode, here's Co-op.
00:31:59
Speaker
Cool, and he's like, stickers! I'm like, all right, I get it. But we played for like a good three hours, I'd say. Yeah, it was maybe even longer, actually, because I think it was around six or something. Oh my god. 1030.
00:32:12
Speaker
It was a decent amount of time, but it went by really quick. And I just remember commenting that my armpits were sweating, even though it's not... I went to the gym today, and I was telling Jenny, I did not sweat as much at the gym as I did last night. I guess my body's just like, this is intense, you gotta focus, you gotta exude sweat. Yeah. No, it's a freaking fun time. It's kind of like...
00:32:40
Speaker
We play a lot of games, and sometimes we play games for critical analysis, or we'll play a game because we think it's worth talking about. It wouldn't have been on the agenda to play it that week if we didn't think it was worth talking about. And then Super Smash Bros. is just fun. It's just competitive, like, I'm going to try to destroy you in this fun.
00:33:03
Speaker
I don't know. It's a cleansing. It's nice because we also need more healthy competition between us because usually we're doing co-op stuff. We're not doing it as much in the way of versus that I can recall anyway. I don't usually prefer versus in things. Smash Bros. is different though. It's good versus. I can finally get my unhealthy aggression out on Jake.
00:33:29
Speaker
I remember I did Ganondorf, DDD, Ness. Yeah. I think you're like my big three right now. So Ness in there. Yep. You had like a little bit of K rule, right? You put like one round. Maybe like two. Yeah. He's just a fun heavy. Yeah. It's, it's good though. I'm tempted to, uh, to pick up the online just so I can diversify my bonds even further, but I don't know. We'll see if that happens.
00:33:57
Speaker
I just like getting to give people to do some like one-on-one. I like the grudge match style. I don't like the, hey, we'll do four people and items. I mean, that's fun if like I'm drunk, but then I just, I like to play, I sound like a pet of asshole. I want to play to win or lose. I want it to be like my skill measured against somebody else's. And if I get beaten, I want to be like, okay, I fucked up here. Here's something I can do. Or like maybe this is a cool combo I can try out.
00:34:25
Speaker
And I like the self-improvement on it. Yeah. Because we did, like, some grudge matches of, like, the same characters against each other. Yeah. We didn't have much in the way of mirrors. We should have had more, but that'll be a later session. But, like, there were times where, like, if I was stomping you with a character, I'd be like, okay, I have to diversify so he doesn't, like, learn how to counter all my shit.
00:34:48
Speaker
Whereas if you were stopping me with somebody and like, okay, what's he doing? What can I do to solve it? We adjusted the tiers a little bit, right? Someone's like, I feel like Bowser's my strongest character. So you weren't like taking your weakest guy against him. Yeah. Cause for some reason I suck at dodging your smashes and I would just get like drop kick for 35. It was just a bad time. It's fun though.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah, so we had other topics other than just Smash Bros. for this though. Unfortunately, some of those are in the Dota 2 scene, Midas Mode 2 is announced this week, which is Suraction Slacks and the rest of Moonduck's tournament, right? And it's always the cheesiest thing imaginable. Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
That's something that they're looking to start doing. They don't have sponsors like much planned yet. Yeah. Slack started doing a blog on how that whole process works and what he's going to do. Yeah. It will have updates when he has updates. But it's really like a passion project for him and other people who are involved in it. And it's just really fun. It kind of capitalizes and focuses on like the fun part of Dota.
00:36:03
Speaker
Because a lot of it's very try hard in the professional scene for obvious reasons. Any competitors. Yeah, it's like a tournament thing for money. So people need to try and be their best. But they would always add things that were fun. I was watching some recaps of, oh, you get a bonus for gold for your team's bank, which you used to spend on heroes in the draft. Exactly. Where if you planted an iron branch in the enemy fountain,
00:36:27
Speaker
That was a thing you could do. You'd complete a bounty almost. Yeah. And they'd have little challenges like that where it forces you to do some cheesy gameplay throughout. And that spirit I just love so much. And I'm really hyped for the second one. Yeah. There's a lot of meta-economy things going on where it's like, oh, we want to pick good heroes, but those are expensive. So we'll pick some garbage heroes to save bank. Or we'll just random and get bonus gold. Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
And it's pretty great. So hopefully that pans out. It was kind of funny getting to the end of the video and it's like, and this is the announcement of the intention that this will be a thing. And I was like, oh, okay. Well, hope it's a thing. But should be, it's good. The most important thing though, I think is... But I think that one was probably one of my favorites as far as uniqueness.
Weapon Strategies: Bow vs. Other Tactics
00:37:24
Speaker
What weapons do you run, though? I know this is one thing we haven't broken down our disagreement on the bow. Because I was like, I don't think the bow is good. And I'm ready to be wrong.
00:37:37
Speaker
So maybe there is a difference between, because you were playing keyboard and mouse. Now he's playing controller the right way. There is some aim assist on the bow for the controller at least. I'm not sure if it's the same way for keyboard and mouse. Confirmed and I? I didn't notice any. I could have been overriding the aim assist by trying to move my right kill if it did exist. Okay. So when I played it, this lock on to the nearest enemy, I can also aim it if I need to.
00:38:08
Speaker
The auto attack draws an arrow. At a certain point if you release it, it'll deal more damage. Also your range of the bow goes up the farther you draw. Surprise! The special attack, you're kind of fretless.
00:38:22
Speaker
Fire a spread of arrows. Yeah, it's like a sprinkler for arrows. And you kind of like lean back while you do it. It's pretty cinematic. It's a Legolas move for sure. Yeah, it probably is. I've already killed six. Yeah. But I really like the bow because I can position myself, draw, get like the full damage, and it goes up to like 80 without any modifiers. Yeah. And I'm just destroying things. Also, the bow goes through enemies for the standard attack.
00:38:53
Speaker
And it was just great on damage. Yeah. And then with like the Daedalus modifiers, you can have it auto fire at like full distance for like a damage cut. Yeah. Or you could fire like three arrows at once, which I usually want, or one that's like, Hey, the further away an enemy is you will do even more damage. Yeah. And those are all really good.
00:39:17
Speaker
So just having that type of range and any type of modifier was pooping out the damage. Yeah, I think my main gripe with it was just how exact opposite of the shield it was. The shield, I'm just like, I'll charge, I'll block, I'll hit. And that's exactly, here's all of my time being invulnerable almost, right? Minimize time vulnerable. And the bow's like, I need to stand still for a second.
00:39:46
Speaker
See, that seems like your playstyle is more bad. I wasn't gonna say that, you said it. But it's more defensive. Yeah. Mine is very aggressive. I feel that I get rewarded when I go through and try and like on a dashy stabby murder spree. Bow is a little more reserved because I have to position then strike. Even so, you can still do a lot with it.
00:40:15
Speaker
Also, the lance was probably the hardest weapon for me to learn. Because it has pretty short range. It stabs really fast. Fastest base attack speed. This is the spear, the throw. Yeah. Yeah. Did I say javelin? You said lance. I don't actually know what the difference would be. The long stick with the point. There was a point at the end of it, yeah. The halberd.
00:40:41
Speaker
So we say in spear? I don't know. It's probably spear. I think it's a spear, but that's only because when I think of lances, I think of like jousting, right? Yes. But... Did we mention the whole game you're mounted on a horse? Right, you are on a horse. Alright, spear is probably the correct term. Yeah. You have these really quick fast stabs. You can throw it out and bring it back.
00:41:06
Speaker
which I didn't really know the usefulness of initially. And if you attack and hold it in, you can have charge up, and then when you release, you'll do a big AoE. But the cool thing about throwing the spear and calling it back is, as you put more points in your mirror, you can put points in, I'm gonna do extra damage if I hit somebody from behind. A backstab.
00:41:31
Speaker
I think that's what this goes called. I could be wrong. No, you're right. Don't look that up. So you can throw it out. It'll do initial face damage. And then as you call the spear back, it'll touch their butt. Yeah. Touch your damage. It touches the butt. But it was really weird to get used to because you have to get really close to people. But once you were there, you could strike really fast. Yeah. So I did like the way the spear felt.
00:41:57
Speaker
It feels like it's got a lot of range which is nice against some of the more dangerous melee enemies I just haven't put the time into it yet, and I've been lazy and shield throw But yeah, I don't know it's there's a lot of variety to it, and you'll usually after you've gotten enough
Meta Progression and Character Roles
00:42:24
Speaker
keys, you can unlock your next weapon. So it's not like they're all dumped on you at once. I will say the game felt a lot better once I started getting some of those unlocks. You're actually at the greatest disadvantage mechanically at the start of the game because of the way the meta progression works. Like there's another advantage to the mirror, a really early one, something, I think it's the first one I maxed out.
00:42:46
Speaker
was just like gain a health when you enter a new room. Yeah. And then you can level that up to three and you gain three health whenever you enter a new room. And that adds up over like however many rooms there are, right? It's a little minor thing, but it just makes it easier. And there's a lot of stuff like that. Another one's just like bonus health. You just have more health. Yeah, that's good. More starting money, having additional dashes. Oh, yes. Yeah. Girl.
00:43:16
Speaker
It's expensive. The first one I think is reasonably priced. The next one's like 250 darkness or something. It gets up there. But it's incredibly useful to be able to chain dashes together. Especially when you can have modifiers on those dashes. And then also you can put points in, hey, I would like to have an increased rarity for boons I get from gods.
00:43:41
Speaker
which I put all the points in first because all I care about is getting those cool passes. Those boons. Boons. But we talked a little bit about the characters. We've really only talked about the kind of the main Olympian gods that you get boons from. Is there anyone in particular from the other parts of the Pantheon that you appreciate on an individual level?
00:44:08
Speaker
Are you asking me about non-moon characters? Yes, non-moon characters. Kind of like your mentor throughout the game who taught you how to fight and really is rooting for you to get out of hell is Achilles.
00:44:26
Speaker
who, you know, murdered a fuck ton of people. But now he's a great chill. He's like Dr. Light. Yeah. But he's just really cool. I forget what his exact trinket does, but he's the one who can give you a trinket. But he's always a really cool guy, cool dude.
00:44:48
Speaker
Dusa, who's like a little Medusa head who cleans and is very neurotic. The most Sundar character. Well, no. Not Sundar. Not Sundar. Yeah, starting to imply like passive aggression. She's just very shy. Very, very shy. But it's in like a cute, comical way. Yeah. And like when you're at the hub world, it breaks it up nicely. Mm-hmm. Because like once you talk to a character,
00:45:14
Speaker
That's it, you don't get to keep talking to them and having ongoing dialogue. You have to come back for another run. And sometimes they're not even there in the hub world. Another character I really love, as you know, is Megara, who is actually the boss of the first area, Tartarus. And she's employed by your dad to make sure people don't leave Tartarus. But one thing that's cool about her fight, every time you have this unique dialogue,
00:45:42
Speaker
They've obviously known each other for a while. She has this very soft-spoken, passive-aggressive ASMR voice, which I am drawn to in a weird way. Your father sent me. All in all, I'd rather be on your bad side than his. Now you can turn back like a good little man, or I can send you home the painful way. What'll it be? I'll have to go with the painful way. A man after my own heart.
00:46:09
Speaker
But when you kill her and defeat her as a boss, you see the kill screen for her in the same way that if you were to die through a run, so like it goes all black, your body kind of goes up in the air and then falls in a pool of blood. In a pool of blood, yeah. You like seep into the ground. Yeah. Your feet kind of just stick there for a second too.
00:46:28
Speaker
the first time i saw that i was like oh did i lose because it was kind of like neck to neck i hadn't learned the mechanics yet just the same for me yeah but i just thought that was really cool but the interactions with her at the hub world are kind of like hey you got me this time but like next time i'm gonna kill you yeah and it's like this nice ongoing back and forth yeah i think my favorite my favorite line from her that she said was something like um
00:46:54
Speaker
If you beat me again, you better make it all the way. Yeah. It's like because I don't want to be shown up by somebody who's just going to die in Asphodel. And I'm like, yeah, I got you. I died, but I got you. What about you? Anybody stand out if I didn't mention? I think... I actually really like the training skeleton. You have him named here as Bones McGee.
00:47:23
Speaker
So I'm gonna just assume that's correct. But I knew you wouldn't remember, as soon as you looked at the TV, I'm like, his remembers the name. Yeah, I don't know his name. It doesn't really matter. But he's basically just hired by...
00:47:37
Speaker
Hades to be a training dummy or something. Maybe not Hades, I'm not sure exactly why. He's hired to be a training dummy, so you can just use your attacks on him. And he's got a lot of nice dialogue. He'll give you like tips periodically being like, hey, you know, you can like hit enemies against walls and things like that. But there's some fun dialogue where like,
00:48:01
Speaker
Protagboy is like, hey, could you fight back a little bit? You know, maybe like we can spar, you know, try a challenge or something. He's like, no way, I have not paid for that. I'm just gonna get ground into dust. And I don't know, he's got this fun sense of humor that I appreciate. He also can give you a trinket. Oh yeah, I can't remember which one his is.
00:48:25
Speaker
But I did get, I've gotten most of the trinkets. I have all of them except one, I think. Missing out, man. I know. I don't know which one it is.
00:48:34
Speaker
Oh, another god as I'm thinking about right in print gets chaos. Oh, yeah. Part of the early access is they're doing I think updates once every month. It looks like a month. Yeah. The previous one, they did the chaos update where they added a couple of different things. The main one being the god chaos. Yeah. So as you're going through our runs, you'll have one or multiple doors at the end of each area.
00:48:58
Speaker
where you can go through and it'll tell you the room reward at the top. You're like, oh, I need more keys. I'll go this way. Yeah. Um, there's also sometimes a little portal that'll open up where you pay health to get in. You go get a boon from the God of chaos. This is not someone I recognize. So in the name of Hades, um, hello. May I ask who's calling? How might I mend the fabric of existence for you, son of Hades?
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah. And you'll get some initial negative effect. So maybe be penalized on speed, take more damage. A recent one was like, any enemies that you kill will throw chaos bombs when they die. I'm like, oh, good.
00:49:40
Speaker
So, but then after that, you get some positive effect. Right. So maybe you'll have like a delayed heal. Maybe your auto attacks become stronger or something else cool. Yeah. So I'm the type or like, I'll, I'll suck a dick for any passing. I like that progression over time, just becoming even if like small, like 2% of things given to me, it'll happen. So I try and go as many boons as possible. Yeah.
00:50:08
Speaker
You really need them by the end. The game gets really, really quite difficult. Unforgiving. Yes. Unforgiving is a way to put it for sure. We should talk about some of the enemy types because...
Challenges in Tartarus and Asphodel
00:50:18
Speaker
They don't really have context for what they fight, I guess. They're mostly like skeletons or... I don't know how to actually group them all together. It's kind of tough.
00:50:31
Speaker
So in Tartarus, they have wizards who throw projectiles, which are kind of simple. They'll have num skulls, which are like these low health enemies, which are kind of like lungy when they're in range. Don't do a lot of damage, but there's usually more of them. And also there might be a spawner for them.
00:50:50
Speaker
There's like a fat enemy that will lunge at you. There's some other guys who are also red spirits who will kind of whack you with the giant mace. Get within range. And there's these little
00:51:07
Speaker
Throughout the game, there are pots you can break. Golden ones will have money. Otherwise, it's just scenery. But there's these enemies that look like little pots, but run around and go like, hee hee. And now they throw mines, which will, once you get within range, techies mines, they will detonate after a time. Yeah, he has a little countdown. Here's the death circle. Get out of the death circle. It's cute, though, because I'll kill everybody in a room, and I don't get the reward.
00:51:38
Speaker
Alright, where is it? I look around for the pot and I see one standing still like, it's not me. But they don't really have a lot of health. No. Either.
00:51:51
Speaker
I think that's most of it for Tartarus. There's also traps throughout, which if you step on, not good for you, but you can position enemies into them and they'll still be affected. I've done it accidentally a couple times. I don't know if I've purposefully used it as part of my strategy to like... Own it, Jake. To destroy the traps. But you can step on a trap, jump off, and then let the salvo run into an enemy or something.
00:52:18
Speaker
Or, like you said, enemies themselves will trigger traps. You could probably knock them back onto trap plates, I imagine. Going back to that Aegis shield. Yeah. Just being like, you go here. And they're like, oh, spikes. And that's like 100 damage for them. It's less for you. You die. Yeah. I think you get like 10 lives, 5 there. Yeah. It's...
00:52:40
Speaker
The enemies are designed in such a way to kind of like vary up the way you have to approach the fights. You can't just hang back against everybody and you can't rush in against everybody. And you may have to, since they'll use like mixed unit tactics, I use tactics here a little loosely, very loosely, but they'll have guys that rush you and then like wizards casting in the back, stuff like that. And you got to prioritize who you're taking down based off what weapons you have in skillset.
00:53:08
Speaker
It definitely has the depth in the combat to keep that varied and it doesn't take long out the gate to become challenging. Yeah, I think early on it's like, hey, here's some enemies, learn mechanics, patchy on the head. But then as soon as you get to Ashfadel, also with the addition there's
00:53:31
Speaker
other room types. Typically it's you go into a room, enemies will... I'm talking with my hands, I'm not Italian. Enemies will spawn, and you will kill them, get the reward, and leave. Other times, Hades will kind of interject and say like,
00:53:47
Speaker
kill my son. Yeah. And enemies will keep spawning. You need to stay alive for the duration, which starts at like 45 seconds. Yeah. So I'll just run in a circle slowly around the room. That seems to work. I have done that as well. Zero kill run in one of those rooms. But other times it will maybe have like a, hey, if you take a hit in this room, you don't get a reward. Yeah. So that can suck. But in Ashfadel,
00:54:14
Speaker
It really encourages you to, you can't sit around because they have like giant like thwomp blocks, which will kind of go to your location and try and land on you. Yeah. So I have Medusa heads or I guess Gorgon heads shoot out these stones, which will petrify you and turn you into a rock for a couple seconds. Yeah. And that kind of has like a bit of a homing shot.
00:54:38
Speaker
And then they have other enemies that will shield other enemies. And people throw in projectiles, and there's lava everywhere. And the stage is trying to fuck you up. It's just, it's so many things. And you really need to become comfortable and get good with...
00:54:53
Speaker
getting in an enemy's face, taking down targets, and getting good with positioning. Because it becomes very unforgiving very quickly. Yeah, the meta progression kind of gives you the edge. So players that are not super good, like me, or you know, qualified,
00:55:12
Speaker
Like me, players that are struggling will get that little bit of edge by failing over and over again, but getting darkness, building out the mirror. But you do have to figure it out by the end. The meta progression will not curve you over a passing grade when it comes to boss number two.
Hades vs. Binding of Isaac: Randomness and Progression
00:55:32
Speaker
Um, at all, like you're not going to get, um, so comparing this kind of to binding of Isaac, which I know, you know, one of us has played more than the other, but binding of Isaac has like some builds that can go completely broken very, very quickly. And it's like, I would say it's even more RNG based than this is by a significant more like portion. Um, which is probably why you can restart runs so fast, right? Like.
00:56:01
Speaker
But for this one, I haven't found a combination where I'm just like, this right here, the fact that I have this combination just won me this run. Like, I have to still use the skills, dodge the projectiles, get through the bullet hell that is the Hydra. Yeah, you always have the power to fuck it up. Yes. That's what I want. There's nothing so broken as you put it.
00:56:30
Speaker
A lot of the times I've done really well or gotten like a quick run is because I did lock into a build where I had like triple shot on the bow and the delayed hit from Ares. And that became a lot of damage and helped me with clear, but I still needed to position and dodge things and time stuff. But it assists. It's like a training wheel, but it won't direct you where to go. Yeah.
00:56:59
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely some builds that are better. Sometimes any roguelike, you're gonna have a lucky run, right? But this game rewards you with a lot of meta progression content and then just getting better over time. It really will get you there. But I feel like at this point, people probably have a good idea, at least hopefully, of what the game is. How do you feel about Hades, where it's landed, the fact it's early access,
00:57:27
Speaker
the kind of scheduled release for content. And is it the best roguelike ever made? Well, I will say, like I did before, to kind of reiterate, I wasn't a huge fan of it early. It's definitely grown on me a lot. I've definitely sung a decent amount of time into it. Like a fine mold.
00:57:56
Speaker
I think it's good. I will still check it on at least once a month for those updates because most recently was the update where they added the new god Dionysus and his boons. And they also added a fucking gun, which we haven't even talked about, but I don't want to. It's like they'll keep adding content and it's cool. I'm glad I got in early because it's 20 bucks. I'm not sure if the price is going to go up.
00:58:22
Speaker
but it's really solid in this space. It has rogue-like elements. I wouldn't say it's more akin to something like Rogue Legacy, where after you die, you can put some of that stuff towards the overall meta progression to help you with those tools to just beat the game.
Roguelike Run Times and Player Engagement
00:58:40
Speaker
There's a lot of meta progression in this. Yeah. Like, most currencies you keep, it's only your...
00:58:48
Speaker
your ferryman bucks to lose out on. But like, compared to Binding of Isaac, I've done that so much where it's become rote to a degree. I'm familiar with most of the enemy patterns, the room designs, the bosses. So a lot of that is just from experience over time, not me being good, but it's kind of slow paced gameplay. Whereas with Hades,
00:59:14
Speaker
You heard me like button mashing last night at 2 a.m. You're like, Dave, you're picking up through Discord. So I just like signed up Discord instead of meeting myself. But I really like to go through and just murder things. I like how fast paced and intense it can be. Right. Yeah, I would agree. The room to room combat feels really good.
00:59:34
Speaker
Um, I guess one, I, I, I, maybe it's a little bit cheating because I came to the table with this prepared a little bit. I don't know once they introduce areas beyond the Hydra, like how, so there's how much content you should put like in a session before you feel like you should be able to beat the run. I don't know. Let me, let me rephrase that. Like.
01:00:00
Speaker
a run through a roguelike game, say like Binding of Isaac. How long does it take to clear a Binding of Isaac run? It's like 20 to 40 minutes. Sometimes it might take more time to try and optimize something or whatever. But I would say half hour is on average for most blankets, even most times. I feel like if they add another area,
01:00:26
Speaker
After this one, which presumably they will, right? The time to get a successful run is gonna be long enough that like losing After the bone hydro before the next boss or something like that or at the next boss is gonna like Kill my incentive to keep playing for the evening for the session and that could just be like a personal weakness on my foot my part. Yep, but
01:00:51
Speaker
I, if I, if I spend a lot of time on a game, I don't want to fail. Right. Like that sounds really dumb. Right. Like if I want a failure to happen, I want to reach, I want to get to the point where it's like binding of Isaac, I'm overpowered. I know I'm making it because the game doesn't function on a mechanical state anymore with like the powerups that are flying around.
01:01:13
Speaker
Um, or, uh, I want to fail because I screwed up before I could reach that point. I feel like it's going to continue to be challenging, which it should be. But, uh, if the Hydra is like kicking my butt over and over and over and over again, and then I like beat it one day and then I die, like the next. Map over. And then I, my, my win rate's not up against the Hydra. It's going to like, wear me down a little bit.
01:01:42
Speaker
I mean, I see it to a degree. When I started out, there's like a first mini boss before you even meet Megara, which you're not even guaranteed to have that fight. Is it the Skelebros? It is the Skelebros, like they throw bombs or like slime bombs in the ground. Bomb dancers, skeleton dancers, whatever they are. Yeah, and I had slime dancers. That's what it was. Thank you for clarifying.
Skill Progression and Game Balance
01:02:04
Speaker
Sorry, that's the right term. So I had issues with that for like several times.
01:02:11
Speaker
And I kind of like maybe narrowly get through. I'm like, okay. But now it's a fucking joke. Even Megara now, I'm like, if I wanted to and I took my time, I could go through and not get hit. But I'm greedy. And I always try and play aggressively and sometimes fuck up. But it's not an issue. Like I'm never like, oop, having trouble with Meg this time.
01:02:37
Speaker
Bone Hydra, I'm still getting there, but because of the way the fight is mechanically, it can be very punishing and mean when it doesn't need to be. Maybe they'll balance it or change it a little bit. They've already done it a little bit once. I did notice the difference between when I first played him versus the Chaos Update.
01:03:00
Speaker
just the way like they had the things you could stand behind for dodging projectiles and some other stuff. Did they add those or were those always there? So initially instead of like those four columns in between those columns were like two walls. Okay. Interesting. Hmm. And I did actually see a patch notes that previously
01:03:22
Speaker
The hydro projectiles could not be reflected. Yep. So I could see that being a rough world to be. I mean, yeah, it was great because I would like go in for my attacks and then dash behind the wall and just fucking wait because they don't all shoot straight at you. They kind of home and arc a little bit. They'll go around the wall. So they don't all start from the same point. So you always have to worry about the shit. I'm like, I'm just gonna wait behind the wall.
01:03:47
Speaker
and try not to die. Because if you got hit by one, you'd probably get hit by another, because it would stunlock you for a brief second. Anyways, it's a tough game, and they'll have to figure out balancing, but they've already shown some initiative in that as they go. Obviously, it's early access, right? You'd rather have your bosses be really hard and have some people beat them, and a lot of people fail, and then you turn it down slightly,
01:04:13
Speaker
be like oh no the boss was literally too easy sorry guys yeah if your first experience is like what is this game for babbie yeah um you want to be like hey it's been three months hey come back and play our game it's challenging now yeah because you're like i don't know splatoon i don't know
01:04:30
Speaker
I think it's in a decent space right now. I think it'll continue to get better. I'm sure they're getting feedback. I should probably provide feedback as I've played it a shit ton. Yeah. But just, I like, I like where it's at currently. I'm looking forward to more. It took me a while to beat Bone Hydra and then I realized, oh, I've beaten the current game content. Yeah.
01:04:55
Speaker
I also really like that they don't invalidate your save games when there's major patches. That would kill this game in early access for me. I just wouldn't play it if you lost all of your progress. But you keep all of your meta progression, which this is the kind of game where you're expected to be playing a lot, getting a lot of runs if you want to unlock everything. So losing that would suck. And I'm glad that that's not the case, because it would suck.
01:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, I guess that's, that's Hades, right? Yeah, that's pretty much the game. Yeah. I know we didn't really talk about it at all, but music is also a pretty fucking choice. Yeah. That's kind of an assumption, right? For Supergiant at this point. I will say I don't like it as much as some others. It's somewhere between a pyre, it's like a more rocky version of pyre. Yeah.
01:05:53
Speaker
I think that's fair. But like a slow rock. It's like a nice molder, slow burn. Pits of hell. But if it's more so there. Yeah. I'd agree. It's got that there's not, there hasn't been, and maybe it's because of the amount of attention I have to pay to the game while it's running. But like, I don't notice tracks as much, except like the boss fight tracks. And then I'm just like, it's real. It's real.
01:06:21
Speaker
And part of that's probably because they have that bit of dialogue with Meg every time before it starts. But yeah, it's
Final Thoughts and Listener Engagement
01:06:30
Speaker
pretty solid. So I was not originally planning on picking it up, but I feel like picking it up, even in early access, is pretty worth for people who like Supergiant games. The Epic Games launcher is not all that bad yet. Yeah, it doesn't do anything other than launch games, which is like...
01:06:51
Speaker
Cool. I think they have the friends list all of that nonsense. I don't use it really, but I don't know. It's unobtrusive enough that I feel like they can sponsor us for the podcast. Along with everybody else who really love to sponsor us. But yeah.
01:07:12
Speaker
I would like to thank everybody for sticking around for another episode of Soapstone. As usual, you can contact us at our Gmail, soapstonepodcastatgmail.com. Send in thoughts, requests for new episodes, anything else. You can also discuss this episode with the rest of our listeners on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. Always fun to interact with people there. And we will see you in the next one. Bye.
01:08:45
Speaker
you