The Supergiant Run | Hades

"My ransacking was a delight, thank you for asking."

The Supergiant Run is a mini-series where I chronologically play through all games made by Supergiant before the official release of Hades II. Some of my favorite games are made by this amazing indie studio, so I want to relive the experience of playing them again and share my thoughts. You can check out the previous entries here: Bastion, Transistor, Pyre.

Play time: Almost 100 hours
Played on: Steam Deck
Difficulty: Default with God Mode on

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Defy the god of the dead as you hack and slash out of the Underworld in this rogue-like dungeon crawler from the creators of Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre.

And now, folks, for the grand finale of my Supergiant Run series - the game that skyrocketed Supergiant’s fame and got even me playing a roguelike game: Hades.

I am pretty late in posting this, as I was planning to have it out before the release of Hades II. But they announced the 1.0 so quickly that I did not have any time to even revisit Hades. Now that things have settled down and I’ve been enjoying Hades II, I can go back to Hades and write about it.

A combination of its predecessors

I’ve mentioned this before many times in my other posts in my Supergiant Run series: Hades takes everything that Supergiant learned from their previous games, made them stronger, and applied them to Hades in the best fashion: Bastion’s combat, Transistor’s art, music, and vibes, and Pyre’s branching storytelling. This is one of the reasons why Hades became the masterpiece that it is - it had a long learning process for the team that made it. They saw what worked, what didn’t, and made changes accordingly.

Hades is a game that is hard to put down when you pick it up. “Just one more run,” turns into many more runs, and before you know it, you just spent 2 hours instead of the planned 30 minutes on the game. Not many games can make me do that, honestly.

Great cast and an even better protagonist

This will probably be a hot take but here goes: I think I like Hades’ cast better than Hades II’s. Both are good, but the relatively lower stakes in Hades make it easier for the characters to have more varied interactions and joke around, whereas in Hades II, with the war going on, the characters are understandably more focused on the war.

Zagreus himself is the main factor that brings the levity to the game. When I initially saw his design, I thought he would be the kind of character who is reserved, cold and brutal. I was delighted when he proved to be quite the opposite.

Looks like he could kill you, but is actually a cinnamon roll (unless you cross him)

His witty remarks, sarcastic comments, and sometimes intentionally deadpan delivery makes for really fun dialogues and runs. I mentioned before that Supergiant Games loves yappers, and Zagreus is the ultimate yapper. Him messing around, wreaking havoc everywhere while roasting gods and other mythical beings is so funny to me. Him being so sarcastic works really well with serious characters like Hades, Thanatos, Megaera and many more.

Imagine him saying this in the most sarcastic way possible

But Zagreus is not just there for the zingers. As witty as he is, he is also a very kind and loving character who always does his best. I always love a main character who is determined, respectful and shows a lot of personality.

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I’m always amazed that Darren Korb gave us one of the best soundtracks of all time while recording around 8500 voice lines for Zagreus! And he voices Skelly too! I don’t know how he ever manages to find the time to do all that, but I’m glad he did because I cannot imagine Zagreus as anyone else. The emotion he manages to convey as Zagreus is so diverse and impressive, not to mention managing to sound like an entirely different person as Skelly.

No fail state

This game has no fail state. You can die over and over again, and yet you still make progress in the story. This is something they tried with Pyre and succeeded, and incorporated it into Hades in an amazing way. No run feels wasted, and in my 100 hours of playing, I don’t think I’ve ever come across the same dialogue again. You are always encountering new things, new dialogues, and unlocking new features.

The characters have unique dialogues depending on what caused your death. Dying is not seen as a failure, but as a stepping stone to your end goal. I really like this approach, as it allows me to fail, again and again, until I’ve learned the enemies’ movesets and mastered my own moves. The sense of satisfaction when you finally manage to get past a boss that was previously giving you trouble is priceless.

Banger soundtrack (again) and the Greco-Turkish influences in it

By which I mean the heavy use of bağlama in the game, which might be why I am particularly attached to this soundtrack. For those who don’t know, bağlama is a plucked string instrument that is predominantly used in Turkish folk music, and also used a lot in Greek music.

Darren Korb uses this instrument in Bastion as well, and, as much as I love it (as evidenced here), the use of bağlama in Hades feels somewhat more authentic, compared to the trip-hop vibes in Bastion. I think it’s because of the Greek setting, which in some parts is very similar to Turkish culture, being neighbors and all, especially around the Aegean Sea. I don’t think there would be anyone from that area who isn’t familiar with bağlama.

Darren Korb playing bağlama

The OST for this game heavily uses bağlama, electric guitar and theremin, which is a combination that you don’t really see elsewhere. Darren Korb is an experimental artist, as has been apparent since Bastion, and he mixes these two kind of obscure (from a western point of view) instruments with a more common one. Fusion of music genres has always been a favorite of mine. The mix of modern and traditional has always been interesting to me, and I found that I’ve been leaning heavily towards such sounds in my own music taste lately as well.

And well, you take progressive rock¹ and add traditional Turkish folk music elements to it, and you get one of my favorite soundtracks ever. Darren Korb himself says that he wanted to use a Mediterranean sound palette by asking himself what kind of instruments people might play in this place and what kind of music they would enjoy.

You hear No Escape when you open the game, and you are immediately hit with all the elements I talked about above. At first, the bağlama establishes the leitmotif that will be apparent throughout the rest of the soundtrack. Then the electric guitar starts accompanying the bağlama. Just a little afterwards, theremin comes in and all three instruments start working in harmony.

And take a listen to the bağlama solo at the beginning of The House of Hades! If you made an unsuspecting Turkish person listen to this, they might think that this is from an actual aşık² about to tell an epic story. Then the song goes into a more upbeat direction, which is awesome.

I can never forget the first time I heard Good Riddance in the game. I will keep the moment you hear this vague to avoid spoilers, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it. It was during a particularly chaotic run that I heard it, and wow did it leave an impression. Ashley Barrett is back again with her heavenly vocals, and delivers perfection once again.

Hades II’s soundtrack is just as amazing and has a similar style. One prominent difference between the two is the usage of the instruments. Hades leans more heavily into bağlama and guitar, whereas Hades II starts with the theremin right off the bat with Death to Chronos, therefore solidifying the witchy vibes.

Also a really fun fact: Death to Chronos uses No Escape’s leitmotif but in a different time signature. This was a great discovery for me, especially considering who our main enemy is in Hades II. This change in time signature is important because of two things:

• It immediately establishes a tie with the main antagonist of the game: Time itself.

  • There is also a mid-way tempo change that fits with this narrative as well

• It also gives us the familiar leitmotif in No Escape while changing it up to make it feel more ‘‘new’’ and ‘‘odd’’. ³

No Escape in Hades establishes THE leitmotif that we will come to associate with these games as soon as we hear it. Keep an ear out for it. Especially when you hear Titan of Time in Hades II, and take what you read here about time signatures and tempos into consideration.

I know this is not a post about Hades II (posted that here), but I just had to mention Coral Crown as well. An amazing boss fight song, and they used such an awesome way to put this song into the game, and it gets you incredibly hyped. I was obsessed with this song when I first heard it during Early Access.

Overall Thoughts

Hades has become a staple of the rogue-like genre, with its innovative way of storytelling and polished gameplay, combined with amazing art and music. The critically acclaimed game is praised with good reason, and you immediately understand why this is the case when you play the game.

With its addictive loop, great characters, art and music, you won’t be able to let this game go that easily.

There is no escape… DUN DUN… DUN DUNN

1. Darren Korb also states that the rock/metal elements in Hades were there to represent the ‘‘hell’’, i.e Tartarus that Zagreus is trying to escape.

2. […] traditionally a singer-poet and bard who accompanies his song —be it a dastan (traditional epic story, also known as hikaye) or a shorter original composition— with a long-necked lute (usually a bağlama or saz) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashik

3. No Escape sounds like 4/4 but uses a weird notation that makes it feel a bit ‘‘off’’. The notes are not always on the first beat of the measure and it confuses my untrained ears.

Death to Chronos sounded like 7/8 to me, but I’m not knowledgeable about music theory at all, so I looked it up. Darren Korb himself apparently said that it’s mostly in 7/8 with some tempo and time signature changes at times. So, VINDICATION.

The tracks related to Chronos all seem to use odd time signatures, which is also very common in Turkish folk music as well.