Roguelike games never appealed to me as a genre. I'd never imagine I find myself writing a review praising a roguelike game but Hades is definitely an exceptional masterpiece of an exception. Here's my Hades review as a player who's unfamiliar with roguelike.
What drew me to buy Hades was not only the visual presentation but the deaths in the game being requirements for story progression. With that neat mechanic and the story being the protagonist Zagreus trying to escape Hades itself with his father's elements against him in search of something precious.
As I started the game, naturally I didn't last long on my first few runs but the game didn't feel unfair or cruel even to me. Slowly I feel myself getting better and farther in the game, weapons and speedy controls were easy for me to get the hang of and the flow of going through many many fights were fun and felt so good. I was never good at fast isometric fights but it felt naturally entertaining for me in Hades. Caution your hands and controller will ache and break.
As advertised, when you die (intentionally or not, beginning or end of the trip) story and events happen and progress. Pieces of the main story is slowly revealed to you everytime you return back to the Hades Household. You bond with characters by talking to them, give them gifts and help complete their story subplots. The several different sources you collected during runs and boss fights can be used for upgrading weapons, upgrading Zag's stats for faster runs, add furnitures to the house, unlock music and unlock character requests.
One of the best parts of the game are definitely the characters. Not only are they gorgeously drawn, they're very compelling, funny and fascinating each in their own way (your favorite is easily guaranteed). The voice acting are definitely the greatest I've heard in a long time like listening to characters on a stage play. Dialogues are plenty, characters will say something different everytime, some made me laugh in shock and others made me tear from endearment.
With Hades you definitely need to put in hours and hours of play time but it never drags, it's so fun to play and there's a lot of stuff to do and discover. The path from start to end is four floors ( a boss per floor) and for story progression you need to climb these floors many many times. Any other game I'd say NO WAY!!! and rage quit but with Hades I never felt that. The game never intended to be frustrating or discouraging. There's an option to make the difficulty fairly playable and an option to make it really hard for your fun. I played for 100 hours and the game hasn't felt boring to me in the slightest.
My only gripe with Hades is the economy. It's not just one currency, there's seven each one with it's own value and uses. Common ones are easy to gather plenty with time but more valuable resources take longer time to get either by winning one per boss kill or trading the lesser valuable resource for the higher value ones. Boss fights, fishing and trading help to an extent, but upgrades, gifts and purchases demand loads of the most valuable resources. I either to need to grind the game for 10,0000s of the common resource to trade up to the most valuable or fight the bosses several dozen times. Gathering the resources I need is the one thing that drags and feels exhausting to me. I finished the prologue before I could gather enough resources for what I need. I wish the developers could add more features to earn more resources like Shades making personal requests in exchange for rewards.
Overall, Hades is really a fun gem of a video game and I had a lot of fun with it. I'm shocked that not only did I play a roguelike game, I finished it with all achievements unlocked. I don't think it will change my mind about roguelikes for now but I appreciate that I played an exception. It's one of my favorite games of 2020 and maybe even one of my favorites in recent times. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has the slightest interest in roguelikes, in Greek mythology or even the game itself. It's worth every penny and definitely worth the 100+ hours of your time.

This game is my first experience with Katamari. This is the game I would have and wished I grew up with.
The objective of KDR of literally rolling up everything in sight and turn them into stars is unique yet addictive, chaotic yet charming, mischievous yet innocent. The controls were a first time for me but I got into them really fast.
I couldn't get enough of the game's unique vibrant colorful visual designs from cute and funny character designs to a fun lively menu segment.
There's a time limit for every level but the time amount granted is really generous which I like since not only you have to beat the level's main objective with plenty of time to spare but also go back to levels for exploration, beating your score and rare collectables.
The game's OST are new to me, there are crazy mixes of Japanese pop and I love them, I easily jam to them in my car. The songs vary instrumentally from each other but sure are toe tapping. Some are bouncy and energetic listening to them during a level will make you hysterical as you roll around and around. Some are also slow sweet gentle tunes like the menu screen where you just want to listen to the strumming guitar and hums as you watch the prince walk around in his home planet.
I wish I could keep singing praises for KDR but there are a couple of things that bother me and made playing for me a struggle, especially fir completion.
One was the controls. Now I love moving around with two analogue sticks it's unnatural any other way, but the controls are really bad for me when I had to dash, climb or quickly move the camera. I could do them fine but losing time and items was almost inevitable for me. I'm not sure if Steam version is at fault, the game was like this since the PS2 or it could just be me.
The other thing is that you lose your items way too easily. When I hit a wall or was pushed is not bad since it's my fault but when I got stuck, had to climb for items or lots of things pushed me at once I ended up losing 10cm to 20cm worth of items. Whenever I collected anything rare I had to be extra careful and watch my katamari to make sure I don't drop it until I was home free
I didn't mind these faults during my initial play, but they were an annoyance during my completion run, turning the fun collection hunt into a struggle and a chore.
Overall, I really adore and had a good time with KDR. This is the game I would have easily loved, cherished and played during its PS2 era. It is different but sweet and inviting for anybody, there's no other game like it with lots of things to offer, even if you'renot Japanese. I really hope more Katamari games will be coming to Steam. I'm really looking forward to that time.