I've been playing Hades, Supergiant Games' newest game, a lot. And by a lot, I mean, a lot, at least by my standard. I've been playing every single day (except for that one day) since the full release back in September 17. I've done 50 or so runs. According to my Switch I have over 50 hours logged into it.
And I'm not done with it, not even remotely. Not because I haven't gotten to the full ending or some other feat of completion, but because I still feel like coming back. After a day of work, or sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I always feel the pull of doing another run, of getting Zagreus out there, of fighting Meg and Lernie and Asterius again, of saying hello to Chaos, of dying and having another chat with Achilles or Hypnos or Dusa or [redacted].
The folks at Supergiant Games mentioned how they hoped their version of the Greek underworld will be a warm and welcoming place, and, well, it is. It feels good to stop by it, go another run, unlock pieces of its story. Feels like a home to come back to, in this very odd pandemic-haunted time when we're all stuck at home all the time.
Playing Hades makes me think of their previous game, Pyre, again. I played it the same year as its release which means it should be a while ago, shouldn't it? And yet that doesn't feel like a very long time ago. By the same vein, it doesn't feel like it's a very long time since I played Transistor, or even Bastion. But then I remember the events in my life that was accompanied by those games, the things I did back then, the person I was when I played them, and the passage of time hits me like a tidal wave.
I remember playing Pyre with my sister during a family holiday. I dragged my heavyweight laptop with me just so I can play it. This was back in, let's see, 2017. Same year I dropped out of college and then starting anew somewhere else. That vacation we had was short and simple---just a couple days trip to the mountains---but it was exactly what we needed. During the day we explored the mountain resort we were staying in, and at nights my sister and I sat in front of my laptop to explore the Downside.
It was really nice. We took turns voice acting the characters as bugs chirped outside and the highland wind breezing in. It was good times.
Transistor. I don't think I'll ever forget the feelings I had playing it, the discovery and exploration and everything else besides. I wrote a review for it, apparently, in this blog. It got me my first writing gig years later (cheers, @fahmitsu).
While I don't remember the specific moments in my life when I played the game, I remember the nights spent with my sister singing its songs. I remember, very vividly, of humming "The Spine" during breaks in class, in high school. I remember absent-mindedly writing the lyrics in my notebook, next to my high school study notes on maths and such. High school! That was a whole lifetime ago! And yet I remember Transistor like it was yesterday.
Bastion. I remember Bastion. It was among the last pirated game disc I bought (I got it legit later; among the first games I bought legit, in fact), back when pirated game stores still exist. That's a long time ago, is it? No one sells pirated game disc anymore, or at least it's very rare, but back then it was abundant. The only way most of us here can play video games, back in the days before the internet really took off.
I don't remember playing Bastion the first time, but I remember thinking a lot about its lore and story. I remember getting to the final dungeon and just stopping right before it, because I didn't want the game to end, and I knew that if I pass that threshold the game will end.
I finished it eventually, like closing a book. I never replayed it until years later, after I got the Switch, and I was older and more well-equipped to really take in its lore.
So, now we circle back to Hades. Hades feels like a natural progression from all the games that came before it. The folks at Supergiant Games mentioned of how each game they make is like a response to the game they made before. Something to counter it, something to become more than the game that came before it, but in the process also becoming something different and incomparable. At the end, Hades isn't better than Pyre, or that Pyre is better than Transistor or Transistor is better than Bastion. Each game is steps forward from its predecessor, but not necessarily in the same direction.
Playing Hades, I already feel like a different person from the person I remember playing Pyre, from the person I remember playing Transistor or Bastion. Steps forward from them, perhaps, but different, and probably not in directions I would have imagined then. Yet I still remember being all those people, in those different moments of my life, accompanied by those games. Moments turn into memories into the things that built who we are and who we will become.
I wonder what game the Supergiants will make next. I wonder where I'll be then.
