We have a while to wait Hades 2And And if you need a roguelike to fill the hole Hades Left behind, then I wish you a nice death You must do well. I had a chance to try out the game first at GDC and then again now that it’s available on PC and Nintendo Switch, and I was immediately blown away by its dark humor and easy (but hard to master) combat.
You play as Death, CEO of Death Incorporated, who has outsourced the task of reaping souls to their trusted henchmen who, after countless millennia of dealing with humans, have decided to go rogue and create a death and death machine. As their boss, your job is to traverse the bowels of the Death Inc campus, defeating these so-called “thanagers” (a very good pun). Along the way, you earn perks, skills, and weapons that make it your mission to bring your wayward employees to heel.
The cinematic opening of I wish you a nice death Absolutely outrageous. First, she harvests a peasant farmer, who wanders around long enough to see his wife break down in tears over her husband’s body. Then, it takes a woman dying in a hospital bed as her grieving family clings to her in her final agonizing moments. Next, you take a guy who’s been in a car accident, his lifeless body strewn with shards of glass and hanging from the windshield. From there, it’s a montage of all the people death takes, morphing from single stories we spend a second or two with into a blur of post-harvest reaping, flattening death into a continuous stream of faces without a name or personality.
I don’t think the developers intended it since the rest of the game hammers so much at death and all the dumb ways humans can die, but it was an elegant, if unsettling, metaphor for how we’re so used to the everyday tragedy of life.
Death begins each run with their signature machete weapon. As they make their way through the corridors of Death Inc, defeating minions who have gone rogue, they can pick up magical and secondary weapons that pack an extra punch when executing combos. Therefore, the fight becomes very diverse. I enjoyed mixing and matching weapons and spells which, when combined with curses work very much like divine blessings from Hades, It can lead to some very unique configurations.
But the problem is, I die pretty quickly before I can really figure out what works for me. This is probably a “getting better” situation, but enemies hit like a friggin’ truck, and my general strategy of putting up with a few shots to the face doesn’t serve me well. In addition to, to hand in Is that trick thing where, after a few deaths, it asks, “Would you like to switch to easy mode?” I know it doesn’t bother me on purpose, and the easy modes are a good thing for people who want to try something outside of their comfort zone or boxed-in video game references, but it feels sarcastic and makes me want to throw my Switch across the room. How dare you, a rigid set of blades and art, how dare you.
The game also seems to be quite stingy with how it distributes healing items. You start out with one potion and can earn up to two more potions, but they don’t seem to heal you much (and there’s an annoying health mechanic where damage can lower your total HP in general normal potions won’t restore), and earning them is a pretty rare treat.
This seemingly punishing difficulty is offset by the fact that Death Inc’s various decks, though intricately designed with multiple levels to zip up or down, feel very empty. Enemies don’t come at you in waves. You have to find them only behind breakable barriers and off-screen platforms. Not a deal breaker — it just feels a bit slimy.
If I can get over the growing pains of the game, I guess I wish you a nice death It is the perfect “catch and put down” mini game. It’s not anything that seems to have to be completed or even played in marathon sessions, but a little date game where you can cut back a bit, then put it down and pick it up again when the mood strikes. And I like those kinds of games that don’t require a lot of my time, especially The Legend of Zelda It loomed very large in the distance.
I wish you a nice death Now available for PC and Nintendo Switch.