I'm late to the party with Hades, but am enjoying the first game right now.
Also, wow, there's a familiar face in that video! I remember watching Greg Kasavin do reviews for Gamespot back when video reviews were still a pretty new thing. (found one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhb9ZpfU-mQ)
The first game is a masterpiece. I had so much fun discovering all the nooks and crannies of the story. And then doing speed- and challenge-runs afterwards. There’s content and gameplay for years of playing.
Plus it’s singlehandedly responsible for my kids getting deep into Greek mythology.
Do you have any tips for beating higher heat levels? I think I got to around 5 before things just started getting too hard, where I could barely finish a run after multiple tries. Would love to finish the game some day!
I’m not too good at high-heat runs, but I usually enable Tight Deadline level 1 and 2 first, and Extreme Measures 1 and 2, which is already 6 heat without much of a difference in difficulty. Extreme Measures 3 is a bit wild, IMO, but I guess it’s just a matter of practice, and then that’s 9 heat. Middle Management isn’t too bad either, and that’s 2 extra heat.
Other than that, I usually go for Malphon (fists/gloves) with Aspect of Demeter and a build with Ares’ Doom effects on attack and cast, Athene’s dash and special, which usually gives me access to their duo boon: Merciful End which triggers the doom effects when I dash into an opponent of use my special. It’s insanely powerful.
The Hades community on speedrun.com has some good guides and forum posts on builds — and videos of speedruns obviously, there’s a lot to pick up from them as well: www.speedrun.com/hades
How do you make Tight Deadline 2 work? Aside from rare good runs, I seem to spend 10-15 minutes in Asphodel, and 20+ in Elysium (due to my own damage output). Am I just picking the wrong boons?
Any specific enemies you have particular trouble with? I usually don’t run with tight deadline but have noticed that strategy for specific enemies can make a big difference in how easy and quick they are to take down.
And in general, I’ve noticed you tend to get better results dashing towards things rather than away from them. It’s even better with Athena’s dash boon.
I’d say it’s enemies with large amounts of health/shields. Specifically I’m thinking of:
those skeletons in Asphodel that jump around and throw stuff
all the regenerating dudes in Elysium
big rats and satyrs in the last one
For example, I had a run with the bow w/ homing special and Ares boon on special. Every regenerating dude in Elysium felt like at least ~6-8 procs of Doom (even with backstabs etc).
It just keeps getting slower and slower. I’ve tried using the butterfly to increase damage slightly, but that doesn’t seem to be enough.
Ah, yeah the bow is one of my weaker weapons in that game.
One suggestion is to try Poseidon’s main attack boon as that knockback will allow you to stun lock armoured enemies. But personally, I prefer the weapons with faster attacks.
Thank you for the tips! I don’t know if I just got very lucky or if your tips helped me play more aggressively - but I managed to win 5 runs yesterday and finished the main quest!
I played a couple of runs and it reminded me of another tip that might help even more: the secondary damage boons are where you get huge damage boosts. Like the rip current one from Poseidon and extra damage to bosses from knockback boons. Comboing your boons is huge, especially when you can combo into legendaries or duos.
Elysium is definitely the slowest, but time saved carries over, so if you’re fast on Tartarus, you’ll have more time in Asphodel, which is relatively short in terms of number of rooms, and subsequently more time in Elysium.
And as someone else mentioned, it saves time to be aggressive too, so never be idle and try to anticipate where enemies spawn. Enemies without shield (or when the shield is gone) can be stun-locked, so just hammer away at them.
Maybe I’m forgetting how much time and practice I’ve put into going faster, but if I can do it — everyone can, that’s for certain.
Drawing inspiration from speedrun builds is great, so maybe check some of those (linked earlier) out. There are builds for different play styles, so I’m sure you’ll find something that works for you. :)
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