Triple Click - Triple Play: Hades

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Jason, Kirk, and Maddy dive into Hades, one of the best games of the year so far. They talk about their favorite strategies, honor the Greek gods, and try to pinpoint what makes the latest game from Supergiant Games so special.One More Thing:Kirk: Oculus Quest 2Maddy: Destiny 2 (lmao)Jason: Jackbox Party Pack 7Show Notes:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinA guide for playing PC VR games wirelessly with Oculus Quest: https://uploadvr.com/how-to-play-pc-vr-oculus-quest-2/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

There are many differences between Apollo and Dionysus. The most important one is that Dionysus gives you sweet smoke bombs and Apollo isn't even in the game. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking all about Hades, the game you may have noticed we've all become obsessed with. We're totally going to make it out this time. So grab your datilus hammer. Don't forget to pet Cerberus. And let's blow this popsicle stand.

I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shrier and we are back. Here we are. Hey, we're making a podcast. We're potting it up. Potting and casting. We're both potting and casting.

All of them. A little thing called podcasting. Welcome to Triple Click. Thanks for listening. As always, just a reminder that you can support us making this show, which is the only way that we make any money off of this show is from listeners support. Yeah, no pressure. We are owned, this show is owned by us.

We can't be bought. We love owning our own show. We love that you all support us. So thank you to everybody who's become a Max Fun member to do so. And if you would like to support us making triple-click and become a maximum fun member and support Maximum Fun and all of the cool podcasts that they create, go to maximum fun.org slash join to find out more. And doing so, we'll also get access to our monthly beans casts, which are a spoiler cast that we record about a variety of things, mostly games, sometimes not games. And we're actually going to record right after this episode. And it's going to be about Horizon Zero Dawn, which Maddie just finished.

Yeah, I beat that game. That'll be out toward the end of the month. There are a bunch that you can listen to that are already in the MaxFun feed along with bonus episodes from other MaxFunN shows. So anyways, become a member. Support creator-controlled media. Go to Maximumfund.org slash join. All right. We're going to talk about a video game. We're going to do a triple play.

This is going to be a triple play episode. It's going to be a game that we've actually talked about. It's in dribs and drabs over the weeks. But now we have all played it. We all really like it. And that game is Super Giants, Hades. This game's cool. Let's just, for starters, is it a good game?

I would say yes. I would say it's a cool video game of this year. I would declare right now that it is my game in the year so far as of October. Jason coming out with the superlative language. So many games coming out in November. Jason Trier doesn't give his shit. His goatee is Hades. It's already been declared.

It's hard to, yeah, it's hard to understand how much I've played, how much this game has like enraptured me. I don't know how much it has taken over my life. Yeah, it's that kind of game. It's very, it really kind of takes over your life. So just a little bit of background really quick. This is a game by Super Giant, the makers of transistor, Pire, Bastion. What a resume. What a resume. God. Every game they make is killer. A bunch of good games. Came out in early access in 2018. Has been out for, you know, kind of existing at the periphery for a while, but then was released in its one point of version along with, and I think this is a very important, a switch version just recently, maybe a month ago. And of course, has taken the gaming world by Storm. A lot of people are playing it. And, of course, has taken the gaming world by Storm. A lot of people are playing it. And, and, talking about it and now we have all played it. Worth noting, you say exist in the periphery, but the people who did play it in early access

wound up loving it. I remember last year... They did. Yeah, when I say the periphery, I mean the periphery of like the conversation. Sure, the discourse. It is now central to the gaming discourse where it was not before. Well, early access games are hard to like really... It's hard to get a lot of people into them because nobody wants to play an unfinished game.

Well, and that's the idea, right? That's like how they made it good. So last year, I remember Gita, Gita at Kataka, Gita Jackson, was fighting for Hades to be considered for game of the year. I remember, if I remember quickly, I argued that it should be, it should wait until it comes out for real, which actually I think is the right call. You're like, there's going to be a pandemic and there's not going to be enough games.

People are going to be getting obsessed or than in 2020. That's the thing about these games is that like they build up buzz in early access and that can only be a good thing because more people pay attention to them. And then they come out for real. And that's really when they have a shot to like hook the widest possible audience. Early access is fascinating. I don't actually really want to talk about early access. with regards to this game because none of us really played it in early action.

No, no, no, no. We're going to, let's talk about the actual game. But yeah, let's talk about the game itself, because we've all been playing it since the one point over. So another important piece of background is that Jason, you and I have gotten to the credits, which involves clearing the game 10 times, we'll just say. And Maddie has gotten up to Theseus and Astaireus.

Yeah, which is not even clearing the game a single time yet. It's the first major roadblock, though. And once you've gotten that. you've played a lot of the game. So that's just sort of where we're all coming from. I think that the first boss, Megara, I would consider her to be the first major roadblock for most people. But we can talk about that. So this game is a roguelike, but it's very much a game designed for people who aren't the biggest fans of roguelikes. And what kind of characterizes a roguelike is that you can, every time you play it, you kind of have like one shot to get through. You have perma death. And if you die on your run, you start from the beginning and you're,

have to do a new run and you have to pick up from the very start. There aren't typically, this is a big genre, so there are a lot of different experiments within it, but typically there are no checkpoints. There's no like skipping ahead to the last level that you just got off. It's not like a traditional game. It's very much a game that's built to challenge you to keep playing. Oftentimes they are procedurally generated as Hades is, so the level layouts are random and the rewards are random and enemies are random.

All sorts of things are just thrown at you randomly. But the thing that makes this game special, well, there are a few things, but one of them is that it's very, very good and never making you feel like death is a setback. And as an example, when you play something like, oh, I don't know, into the breach or enter the gungeon or really any of these other kind of like Permadeth style games, you always feel like, oh man, I died, now I have to go start from the beginning. And maybe I'll get to, if I'm lucky, I'll get to carry over a couple of things, but most of the time I'm going to be starting from scratch. In this game, because of the way it's structured and because it introduces you to new narrative every time you start, every time you die and it gives you new rewards every time you die. And there's a lot of different things you can maintain from run to run. It doesn't really feel that way. It feels like death is an opportunity to go talk to people and get new stuff.

And I think that is one of the things that really makes it stand out for me. Yeah. Yeah. Maddie, I have a lot of thoughts on that. I kind of want to hear what you think of this game since James. and I both talked about it so much, and you've been playing it more recently. But I have a million thoughts on that, so I'm going to try to remember them all. Welcome back to you. You just, you know, play Pades six billion times, and you're trying to remember everything that you did

in the game. And I'm earlier on, so I can remember more of it. Kirk, your thoughts will reset every time we go through a run. And so will this show. That would be a real editing challenge for Kirk. Let's not, let's not do that to him. But I think what's special about this game, and I don't really play that many rogolikes or rogue lights. So this is kind of my baby's first roguelike situation for me. And the reason why I like it and why I haven't really played other games like this is because I like a game with a good story and I like feeling as though I'm actually progressing in a meaningful way. And I usually don't like procedurally generated stuff in games just full stop because I just don't think that's artistically interesting to me.

But this game is kind of proving me wrong in every way because not only is it doing all the things I just described not necessarily liking. It is created a story reason for all of that to happen, which is that you are Zagrius. You're the son of Hades who rules the underworld. This is a Greek mythology world. And so you dying and getting reset back in the underworld again makes canonical sense. All of your deaths really happen. It's not like a Prince of Persia thing where you have to quickly rewrite the story and be like, that's not what really happened. I actually did everything perfectly. you are actually dying as many times as you seem to be. All the other characters acknowledge it.

You have to fight all the bosses multiple times in order to defeat them. And they all get to know you and refer to your past failures and make fun of you a little bit according to their characters. And that's how you get to know them. And also, you can unlock more story even if you're not that far in the game. like you can continue to unlock different story elements, even if you're stuck on Meg for a really long time, which I was. And you still can continue to see more and more of the story,

find out who your mom is. It's Persephone, of course. Everybody who took Greek myths growing up knows Persephone's deal with Hades and so on. And you like get to know all these Greek gods and everything, and you still get to know them even if you're dying a billion times. So it's like you're getting rewarded by the game, even if you're stuck. And also, mechanically, you can never really get that stuck because you always are collecting

more rewards, like Jason said, like not just figurative rewards, but literal rewards, like these purple gems that let you level up and you can just grind it out. Like you can never really get stuck without just having the endless opportunity to grind. Yeah, with this game, I'm struck by how it takes a lot of things that rogue likes have been doing for a long time, Rogue Legacy, and I really like Dead Cells that game, Binding of Isaac. Like, there's a narrative reason for the reset in all of those games and for the fact that you're going out and doing, I mean, even like, Souls games kind of reset the level and they provide this, like, reason for it. And, like, it's built into the narrative that you're sort of dying

over and over again. And yet, there's so much narrative in Hades, and it's so cleverly written and dealt with that it makes it just really enjoyable. I think I saw, this was on Twitter, Greg Kassavin, the writer, he was talking about how he saw it as his job to basically make jokes out of all of the game design constraints that they were working with. And you see that over and over and over again, especially with Zagrius's responses to things,

where he'll just be like, there comes a point where he starts wondering which of the furies he's going to be up against in the first boss fight, and he's like, all right, it's going to be Meg this time. And then it won't be, and he's like, oh, I was wrong. And he's like trying to guess because he's just done it so many times. which actually some of this ties back to our time loop movies discussion on that beans cast like talking about all these kinds of stories where the protagonist is aware that they're trapped in a loop

the thing that I wanted to get into that I think is interesting with this game that it reminds me of is it actually reminds me a bit of the rhythms of playing a surface game like a destiny or a warframe because and actually and Souls games are a good parallel to there's this thing with games like this where you repeat stuff over and over again and there's a narrative reason for it. and it explains it, that makes the game, first off, it makes the game really efficient. Like, you're getting so much use out of each item in the game and each enemy in the game. It isn't that thing where you're like, what Chris Stalin called, like, the Fall of the Roman Empire shit, where you're playing a modern warfare game,

and you, like, run through this amazingly rendered room and you're in three seconds. When you say efficient, you're talking about the, from a game developer's perspective. Exactly. But it's also, I think, a really rewarding thing from a player's perspective, because there's something about seeing the same thing over and over again in the context of a video game that really works. And this game, it's kind of driven that home for me in a way that Bloodbourne did as well and Souls games do as well,

is the familiarity you can get with a space and with, you know, your moveset and the enemies. Like, I feel so familiar with this game. I played like 40 hours of it. And I just at this point, it's so comforting because I know all the rhythms of it, even though it's all so different every time. And that too kind of reminds me of playing Destiny or playing one of these games because there's the draw of RNG that's just enough to not. feel gross, but each time you start a new game, you're like, what's that first datalus hammer

going to give me? You know, and then you open it up and it's some, you get, usually some weird build. I think I saw Cecilia Donisacio on Twitter. She was like, every time you beat Hades, that was the perfect build. I'll never get a better build. And then you play again and you're like, this is the perfect build. Like, I'll never get a better build. And that kind of RNG appeal also really just keeps me wanting to play because you're always like, well, I wonder what this run is going to be like, like within the parameters that I'm so familiar with. Yeah, that's the trick. It's the same as the destiny trick where it feels really good and you're constantly getting shiny new things that trigger endorphins in your brain. There's this crucial difference though and that's

in destiny, the R&G drops that you get are like permanent items that you keep and you really chase them and you really want them and they're like way longer term. Well, they're also much more rare. But you're also always throwing it away and that's this kind of big difference is that like no matter how great your build, it's just temporary. Well, so what Hades is really good at is like giving you the purpose. And permanence of other stuff. So like you know that if you clear a run with a weapon and Maddie, I'm going to get into a little bit of end game stuff, but I won't spoil anything. But it's fine. Basically part of the end game loop once you clear the game once or twice is like you can start, you can add these challenges to each run and then you can start getting more bounties. You can get more

of the end game items, the diamonds and the demons blood and stuff like that. That really helps you upgrade all your stuff. So you know that that build is going to provide you if you're playing efficiently and you're getting new bounties and stuff and playing in a way to get new bounties, you know that build is going to provide you the opportunity to get that stuff. So I think the game is really clever about the way that it balances that kind of stuff you know you're going to lose and stuff you know you're going to keep. And all the stuff that, all the temporary stuff is random. Right. And the long-term stuff is not random and you plan for it. And that seems very on purpose. And it makes the game feel like emotionally healthy to play. So that's kind of the thought I'm getting it.

That's part of it. The rarer and like long-term stuff that isn't random because it's establish rewards at the end of each stage of the game, but also along the way you're getting kind of like these micro doses of permanent stuff, like some darkness here or an ambrosia bottle here just in random rewards. So it's very clever about rolling that stuff out. But also part of the fun of the build, and part of the reason it doesn't really matter that it's temporary, is the discovery and figuring out all these combinations are like unlocking. So the way it works, to zoom out for a second in case folks haven't played it. As you play through the game, you're getting these things called boons, which are powers you get from.

the gods on Olympus. So you have your Zeus, your Poseidon, your Athena, etc., etc. And they're all giving you these boons that are themed around their specific powers. So like Zeus will give you lightning abilities. Poseidon will give you wave abilities or you can knock back enemies. And one of the cool things that happens is as you collect them, each game tends to give you like three, four, or five of them rather than all of them at once. And then once you start collecting them, so let's say I get an ability from Zeus that lets me attack and strike lightning with my weapon with my sword or whatever. And then an ability by Poseidon that lets me knock back enemies with my special attack. Then the next time you get Zeus or Poseidon, you might see a combo ability that lets you combine

the two. And every time you knock back an enemy, you'll also shoot lightning at them. And you get some really super powerful stuff. And part of the fun is just like that feeling I'm being constantly surprised and experimenting and finding all these new combinations and being like, like you said, oh man, what's the hammer going to give me this time? And I don't really think it matters that you're going to lose that because you know that every time you go,

you're going to get X number of boons. You're always going to see a hammer on the first phase and the first stage and the third stage. You're always going to see a ton of boons. And I think it's given out so frequently. I think it matters that you lose that stuff only insofar as like, you can never stick with a certain build. Like it matters in that you always have to experiment.

Like you always have to learn a new way to play. But I mean, I mean, from a, from a perspective of, like, player ownership and, like, player rewards and, like, feeling like, oh, no, I'm losing this. Man, this sucks. Like, you never feel like this sucks because I've never felt that way ever playing this game, right? I did sometimes. Because the game keeps giving you. Like, you never, you never worry that your boons, that you're not going to get boons the next time. So as an example, like, and Enter the Gungeon, as a good example, some weapons are way better than others as you're playing through the dungeon. And if you get a really, really, really. good weapon, you're kind of like, oh man, I really hope I don't die because I do not want to lose this weapon. That would really suck because it could help me clear the run in a way that other weapons can't. And this game, you never feel that way because you're constantly given boons and there are a million ways you could get these boons and combine them. And you always have the chance to build

a really powerful character, no matter what. I think that changes when you're beating the game and consistently clearing it for me than when I was dying a lot. Because the feeling of like, I had such a good build and then I just lost it and died is heartbreaking. I feel like I'm still in the thick of it compared to you too, where I'm still having some runs where I'm like, that was a really good run. And I wish I just hadn't screwed up those few things. And, you know, just done something a little differently. Or sometimes, I would say I'm new enough at it that even just remixing certain boons is new to me and figuring out what I even like. Because some of it is like, I don't know which gods I prefer and which weapons I prefer. I just am learning that as I go. But I will say that the game

does make that experience significantly less frustrating than most other games do. Like failure doesn't feel as bad as it does to me in some other games. So you're in an interesting place, man. And I think everybody who plays this game kind of goes through the same rhythms from what I've experienced and read online and stuff. And it's basically you get to Meg, you have kind of like a hard stop at her and that you get stuck a few times. You have to clear it a few times. You have to get your shit together at Meg. If you've, if you've been button mashing up to that, you need to figure out how to play the game. Second stage is generally pretty easy for people. The Hydra boss at the end of the second level is not that difficult. But sometimes you'll get stuck on him a couple of times. Yeah, I mean,

it depends on your play style. For me, I didn't think the Hydra boss was that hard. The third boss, Theseus and Astaireas, fucking suck. They will, they will be a really, really tough obstacle for a lot of people for a very long time. But eventually you'll get past it. And like, all you have to do is keep playing. And eventually you will get past it. Then you'll get to the final boss. The final boss has another, like, really, really tough stopping point for a long time.

And then eventually you get to this point that I think Kirk and I are both that. We're like, maybe not every single time, but like most of the time, maybe 50-50 or something like that or 60-40, you're clearing the whole game. And it's just a matter of like, like, you're good enough. First of all, from a player skill perspective, you're good enough. but also you've acquired enough upgrades over time and enough special abilities and darkness abilities and all the other jazz you can get that you've become like really powerful as a character and everybody goes through that it's one of the things that i think is so genius of this game yeah and i think also as you play you learn which combinations really work for you because all the weapons i would say the weapons are very well balanced in the sense that sometimes so i usually prefer to pick the weapon that has the darkness power up every time because why not just get the extra darkness if you can That's the way to go. You should. I'm early enough in the game that I may as well do that, yeah?

Yeah, I didn't do that. But there are certainly weapons that are not as fun for me to play. However, I've also had the experience of getting all the way to the boss I'm stuck on, even on a weapon that I'm not good at, just because I've gotten really lucky with certain boons, or just happened to figure it out for whatever reason. So I feel like it's definitely worth trying each weapon, even though some people have told me, like, just go ahead and specialize in a weapon. And I try that for a while, and I'm like,

honestly all the weapons are interesting even the ones that i don't feel i'm that good at they're still interesting and they still result in fun emergent things happening and like make it easier to fight one type of enemy than another because you have this variety of like long range and melee weapons and different properties within them and go with different boons in different ways yeah and then also different boons enhance those weapons in completely different ways that you would never be able to see if you didn't consistently try all of them so i at least recommend that for people in the early game but I also think it's just, it's just a matter of time. And I feel like I've only recently hit the point where I have a pretty consistent sense of which boons are valuable and which aren't. Like when you get to the stopping point where you can actually sell back some of your boons and be like, oh, I'm making a decision here. Like maybe I can use this gold for something more interesting than that.

The first few times I hit that, I was like, I'm just going to keep all my boons. I don't even really know which ones are benefiting me. Like, I may as well just keep them all. And like now at this point, I can much more cleanly identify. like, no, this one is actually not helping me. Like, I'm not using cast often enough that this is really providing a significant benefit or whatever it may, the upgrade may be. But that's just time.

And I mean, luckily, the game makes it entertaining. Like, if not for the narrative, I don't think I would have continued to play it as long as I have. Also, this show, of course. But I just don't, I don't think I would have stuck with it as long. I think it's fun. Yeah, I mean, the narrative happens to be great also. Yeah, it's so fun. I love all the characters.

And that's what's making it worth it for me. I mean, you know, the game's pretty cool. But I just want to know what's going to happen to all the great gods, you know? Yeah, there are all these things that I'm mechanically getting into now. Like, this game has a huge end game. Like, the aspects of the weapons are a good example to what you're talking about, Maddie, of like, you can imbue, once you have them all unlocked, you can start spending blood to imbue different weapons with different aspects that are transformative. There's one for the fists where you, like, pull people over to you with your special. I was just using that one.

I just started using. a Poseidon aspect, which I believe is on the sword, which I never really used, where you hit someone with your cast, and then you hit them with your special, and it knocks your cast out of them. And you can then, like, now that I know the game really well, I was like, oh, because there's an Artemis boon that, like, does damage when your cast leaves an enemy. So you hit them with the Artemis cast, then hit them with your special, then they take more damage when it goes out. And it's this like bananas combo that I actually have in my career run.

And like those kinds of things are when you're, like, That's a type of player skill, right? You get dexterously good at the game, but you also just learn what kind of builds you want to make. I actually almost never sell boons. I want to talk about God mode because that's really interesting. Actually, I'll just say that I think that God mode in this game is really, really clever. And if anyone listening to this has been stuck, you should totally try it.

I just played some on it to see what it was like. It was the exact same experience. What does it do? It just made the game a little bit easier. Like it makes you more immune to damage according to a percentage that increases every run that you lose. Right. So that's the crucial thing, is that it's a built-in game mechanic. It doesn't affect your stats or look bad or anything.

It doesn't ever make you feel bad for using it, and you can just turn it on and off in the menu, which is nice. And it gives you a 20% damage buff, and then each time you die with it active, it goes up by 2%. So if you're stuck and you're like, I want to see the story. Like, I want to clear the game 10 times and see all this cool stuff they made, but it's just too hard. Just turn that on. And it'll just gradually get a little easier and you'll get better. still forces you to play. It's still tough. Like, Hades is a tough friggin fight.

Like, even with that, um, all with the 20% damage buff, it's not that much. And then if you're really getting hammered, it gets better. So I think that's brilliant. But I want to talk briefly about buffs only because I want to know, and I know Jason, you've played a lot. And Maddie, you said you're starting to figure out your favorite buffs. The two that I never take or I don't like Aphroditey buffs. They're just not good. And I don't like Poseidon because they're so crowd controlling. And that's the thing I have that these trouble with. Like they always, like, I don't like the ones that knock people back because I want to be in there like messing them up and when they're knocking people

back. I like some of those. It depends on the enemy. I like any buff to a dash. If I can't manage to get a good one early on, I'll like take an Aphrodite or Poseidon just to have a dash buff of some kind because you're already dashing so much in this game that you may as well take some type of damage area dash that you, that's just my opinion. But I don't like any of the other stuff they offer though. I'll say that. I only take the Athena dash. That's like I won't even take dash until I can get... Well, hers is the best one. But if you can't get the Athena dash, then it's like, well,

I'll take somebody's dash. I'll, like, hold out for the dash until, like, I'm in the maze. Wait, so you're just dashing meaninglessly. So, first of all, Athena dash is good, but the Zeus dash can really, like, destroy. The Zeus dash is great. There are other good dashes.

That's true. Kirk, okay, so, here you go. So Aphroditees, if you get her weakness ability, and then you get either Aries or Dionysus, both of them have these amazing... Dionysus. Both of them have these amazing combos with weak, where basically you use her weakness on an enemy.

And then if you have Aries, you can, and you get this combo boon, you can make it so every time you use Doom on a weak enemy, the Doom just keeps hitting them over and over again. And Doom is like a delayed damage that just will hit them with a bunch of damage. Like a sword hangs over their head and then lands on them. And that'll keep happening with this combo. This combo is incredible. Aphrodite also gives you really good. good damage boosts with her weakness ability. You can get a special boost that's like 100 plus percent.

I've gotten her special sometimes. So she definitely keep an eye on her. She also has a really good call that shoots a hard end of enemy and charms them for a while. So her call, I don't understand. Now, when I'm fighting a boss, which is usually when I really need calls, it doesn't do anything. Or does it do anything to a boss? Well, then you max it out to, you max it out to greater call. And then it will do 2,500 damage, which has saved me a few times.

Oh, it does a lot of damage. As for Poseidon, so there's so many crazy combos you can do in this game. And part of the fun, especially as you get later on, is just experimenting with all the weapons and all the boons and just finding different combos. Artemis for me lately has been like, oh, Artemis is really good. With Poseidon, so what you just mentioned, the gloves boost, the gloves aspect you just mentioned, gives you an ability called the magnetic cutter that lets you pull an enemy to you. Imagine this. Imagine getting that. And then you can knock them away. Poseidon's attack boon that lets you push away an enemy and just keep pulling him and pushing them and pulling

them and pushing them. It works really well. It's really good. And then you can also combine that if you get Poseidon's abilities, you can combine that with like the hammer ability that like lengthens your glove or lengthens your spear attacks, which works really well. The gloves are very fun. It works really well with Poseidon stuff. The best ability in the game and this is probably going to get nerfed. So you guys to check it out while you still can is a Zeus ability that makes lightning strike where your cast diamonds is and you don't have to be doing anything. Lightning will just keep striking enemies. If you combine that with some other cast ability or really just use it on its own and you just fire a cast and an enemy, you can just move to the other side of the room and they'll like die.

Like I've beaten Theseus and Astaireus just by shooting a couple of casts at them, letting that ability work its magic and then just going. and fucking off in the corner. And yeah, and they decide. I've recently been getting into Zeus. Dionysus is really good. I like Dionysus a lot. Dionysus is great.

I mean, because Hangover is a really great ability. Hangover is really cool. That also combines well with weak and it can just like keep generating. That is what I thought you were going to say, Jason. I like the Aphrodite Dionysus combo. What is that combo?

I think I maybe just had that on a run. I'm trying to remember what it was. Yeah, it's the same as I mentioned before, except with weakness and hangover instead of weakness. Yeah, it's hangover and weak together. Yeah. And it was very good. I don't know why.

It just seems to really take people down. I don't know why it seems like more satisfying than other combinations do, but it just does. So I've been thinking about my, I've had a couple builds that were basically broken. There was a spear build where I had the like special, did the thing where it ricochets between seven different enemies. It was like a datalus hammer. Anything that unlocks where you can hit multiple enemies, like either with your shield, Captain America style or with the spear or whatever it may be is like, Very, very satisfying. I think it was that plus Doom and also the one where it lets Doom stack.

If you like keep going. The thing that I've really learned that's advice that I would give to anyone listening is chase multiple boons from the same god. Jason, you mentioned this kind of too. But that's like a good tip that I've really internalized now is like kind of make your build around one god. Like it's not that great if you take like one Artemis buff and then one Ares buff and what. But if you like really chase one down, you'll white. Like they really do. Yeah.

They're on top of one another. And you can completely win with any full goal. Yeah. Or keep leveling up the ones that you have to make them really good. That too, making them more powerful. So I have a few really good pro tips. Go give your tips. Well, so one is to experiment with all the artifacts you can get at the beginning.

Oh, you mean like the keepsakes? Yeah, the keepsakes. I've become really fun of the butterfly, which keeps boosting your attack power every time you clear. Yeah, I just started using that. That's a good one for when you're a little better. Yeah. Yeah. But Skelly's one, the one that gives you an extra death defiance is really pivotal.

Oh, you got to use that one. Yeah. Yeah. That's like, just go ahead and give something to the skeleton guy. Like, if you're a new player, just give the nectar to Skelly. I would give you the upgrade that gives you the highest number of death defiances, which is like essentially an extra life rather than the one that's like a new one every room because the new one every room is not having fun of the bosses.

Oh, really? Yeah. Are you talking about the purple upgrades? Like stubborn defiance versus death defiance? This is actually controversial, Jason. There's a whole argument online about whether people refer stubborn or death defiance. I happen to like stubborn. I think it works better for my play style.

If you're getting stuck on one boss, having four death defiances for that one boss will be a lot more helpful. Theoretically, yeah, but I don't know. It's kind of this. It just doesn't really work for me the rest of the time for whatever reason. I think it just depends on where you're at and how you're moving through the game. I mean, it's, I think that any of those things, It's just like everything in this game is so well balanced for the most part that you could. It is, but there are reasons.

Okay, so here's another thing, Maddie. If you get, if you pick the kind of black exclamation point in sticks while you're in the, or sorry, in Elysium, the third stage that you're in, you can replenish all of your death defiances. So if you've used it and then you, you wind up like finding. Yeah, plus Athena gives you that boon that there's kind of a lot of opportunities in the final level. But anyway, so the other thing I was going to say is, and this is, and this is, actually kind of like a universal pro tip. So here's, here's a very good pro tip. Um, priority for

which doors to select. Hammer is number one, always. Then is trial of the gods always. Anytime you see a trial of the gods, you want it. Then is, because that lets you get two boons at once. Trial of the gods being when there are two boons. Child of gods being when you see two boons at once. Yep. Yep. Then boons. Boons are always top priority. Then gold. Because gold lets you buy more boons. Gold is definitely something that I've learned to appreciate the more that I've played. I'm obsessed with getting money because having a ton of money, especially at the end of the game, you really want a lot of money at the end. Especially at the end.

Yeah. It's super helpful. But even when you're trying to beat physius and hysterias, you want as many boons as possible. Those are always top priority. Health, I think, is way lower priority. And upgrades are way lower priority. And obviously the stuff that's like darkness and construction materials, whatever. You don't need to worry about that stuff.

But, like, health and boons are not near, or health and upgrades are not nearly as important as you're playing and trying to get a good run as boons are, because boons will always just give you some special ability that helps you in some way. I feel like it just depends how you play. I've always been a tank player as a person type in everything I ever do. And so I am always like, I need as much health as possible. That's just how I think about games. I'm going to get really close in the mix and I'm going to fight hard like melee style. And I need to. play in a style that works that way. And you can absolutely do that in Hades and do well. So, like, you can play it as like a dashy warlock game as well and be like, I only care about DPS. And I'm going to level up my attack power for everything across the board and not care about my health being low because I'm not going to be in the mix that much. So I don't really care. I just feel like that's, those are two different ways to play that are both pretty valid. So my counter argument is that if you're, if you're, if you're thinking about like in terms of

game theory here and you're trying to max out your potential of beating every run. If you do a boon, your chances are higher of like getting some ability that will give you more value than 25. Of course. Of course you want. Or it will make you, but like, even if you're playing in a way, like I play in that melee way all the time where I'm just like literally dashing and attacking back and forth across the boss, chances are you'll get some boon that helps you do that and helps you avoid getting hit. And I think in general, if you're losing a lot of health, if you're taking a lot of damage, you're probably not having a good run anyway. Like in general, you want to be maximizing your ability to avoid damage. Yeah, because it is a game about dashing. It just doesn't,

health just doesn't really help you that much, especially as you start getting like upgrades that let you collect extra help, max health with darkness or like, especially if you get gold, you can always buy health when you get to Charon. True. And you want to make sure you're getting as much gold as possible, like gold from vases. Like you want that. that special ability that lets you get gold from vases. Is there any worse feeling than when you go through a door and then you see the gold? Yeah. Awful.

Or a fish. Sometimes I'll see a fish and I'm like, and you definitely want the darkness upgrade that gives you 100 gold at the start of a run. That's super pivotal. Oh, and the upgrade that gives you 100 health at the start. Oh, yeah, that too. You say health isn't important.

That's important. That's important. But it's a little important. You need some health just to get through the game. All right. So obviously, we've talked about this game a lot on this show. we could talk about it a lot more.

We've talked plenty on this episode, but there's so much more to say, really briefly, though, final thoughts. Jason, you go first. I know you have a lot of thoughts. What are your final thoughts on this game? I think this is an incredible game. It's like moving in unexpected ways.

The art direction is incredible. The writing is incredible. The music is incredible. The way it feels is incredible. I love everything about it. I just keep, I like keep... So when I got the credits the other day, I like, I minimized it.

I closed the app to open up another game on my Switch and then I started trying to play something else and I was like nope I'm just gonna go back and play more Hades this game is kind of like taken over I just want to talk about it and think about it and play it all day it's it's really freaking good and like there's so much good end game stuff too like I haven't even finished unlocking all of those bottom aspects for all the weapons yet there's still a couple that I haven't discovered yet there's still conversations I haven't had apparently there's a whole epilogue that you can get to after the credits so there's plenty more for me to do. And it's just so much fun to keep running and running and running, especially once you've

really gotten the hang of everything and learned all of the quirks that this game has to offer. Just really, really good game. I love it. Nice. Final thoughts, though. I know that you're not finished with a gamer, I'm assuming, not final. But final thoughts for this segment, Maddie. Intermediary thoughts from me. I am really enjoying the story of this game. I will probably get to credits solely to find out what happens because I love the characters so much. and I love the art style so much. The music is incredible. These are the things we didn't talk about in this segment

because we were talking about which boons we like, which is also fun. I've mentioned it before. I've shouted out Darren Corb. His music is incredible. This game rips. The full world of the game is really awesome. It's frankly cool to play a game about Greek mythology,

which is a culture that had no issue with queer romance generally. And so the game itself just has like Achilles and Patrick Liz's romance as part of the canon because that is part of the, to the canon of them. And I just, I don't know, it's nice to play a game that approaches it as being the norm. That's a really fun thing about it for me. And I'm also just enjoying the character design

and the fan art and all that other stuff. Eventually, I think I'll get to the point where I feel like I'm killing it at the combat. I will take Jason's tips and I'll probably talk about it and one more thing going forward whenever I beat this game. But until then, I'm just enjoying the world of the game. And that's something I really recommend to anyone. Maddie, I don't want to spoil anything, but you can actually have your own queer romance in this game also.

I do know that. It is also a dating sim. You can you can date people in this in this game. Yep. And it's got a fishing mini game because of course it's. It's very good at we didn't really talk about this, but it's very good at creating like the opening where you, every time you end up, every time you die, you wind up in the house of Hades. And it's really good at like making this homie feel where it's a bunch of characters that you get to know and you always enjoy having conversations with them. So anyway, Kirk, final thoughts from you. Oh, it's great. Similar to you, Jason, I got the credits and then just kept playing and got to do it in a clear because I was like, well, I want to see what happens. And yeah, it's clear.

There's a whole epilogue. There's the state of the world changes in their new characters and people keep talking. I have all these bounties that I haven't done in story related things. I mean, Orpheus and Eurydice. Yeah, you got to get those guys together. Yeah, why not. Yeah, got to get them to perform a groundbreaking stage musical. But it's great.

It's a great game. I love it. I'm going to keep playing it. The music is awesome. And I love it. So, yeah, that's Hades. All right, let's take a break, and we'll be back for one more thing. There's nothing quite like sailing in the calm international waters on my ship, the SS biopic.

Avest. It's actually pronounced biopic. No, you dingus. It's biopic. Who the hell says that? It's biopic. It's the word biography and pictures. All right, that is enough.

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And we're back for one more thing. It's time to talk about one more thing each, though. I'm going to cheat and I'm going to go first and I'm sorry, but I need to talk about the Oculus Quest too. And that's sort of going to involve talking about more than one more thing. But like, I've been playing with this new VR headset all week and there's so much stuff that you can do on it that I feel like I'm just going to talk about that. So that's my one thing.

But there are things I want to tell you about the Oculus Quest too, which I got to say. say. So last week I talked about had to make a Facebook account for this thing. It's sort of annoying. Didn't want to make a new Facebook account. It's definitely a thing that people don't like about it. It's fine. The Acoose Quest 2 is really friggin' cool in my experience. I am like really impressed by this thing. It was so much cooler than I was expecting it to be. And that's really for a reason that isn't to do with like what Facebook has made or what Oculus has made for the headset. It's something the headset can do that I didn't realize it could do. So what this thing is, it costs

$300. It's the new stand-alone VR headset made by Oculus, who is owned by Facebook. It's very aggressively Facebook implemented, so you have to have that account to make it. It has a operating system and a computer inside of it, so you just put it on, you can just play games anywhere. The last VR headset I had was an Oculus CV-1, it's called. It's like the consumer model, the first Oculus Rift. Before that, I played on the DK2, which was the Dev Kit 2 that you could buy if you wanted one that was like pre-consumer and I was like playing elite dangerous on that and writing about it for Kotaku. So I've been following this since like 2014 or so. This thing, it feels like a total generational leap compared to those headsets. Like the screen looks amazing.

There's no, there used to be like a screen door effect. There isn't at all now. You can read like tiny text. It's basically just looks like you can just see everything. Like it just looks totally clear. playing wirelessly is way better than playing with a big cable hanging off of your head. And the fact that you can set up, like the way it used to work, you'd have to set sensors around your room. And then you'd like spend forever drawing boundaries like with the controller so that it knew where there were items and where you could stand. And it was this whole huge pain in the ass process that you had to reset if you knocked a sensor over or whatever. And it never fully worked. And the sensors would like get occluded from one another because you'd be standing in the way or it wouldn't be able to see you.

so your hand would go crazy in a VR game. And, like, you kind of, like, I got used to all that stuff. And I played through Half-Life Alex earlier this year, and it's, like, the most amazing VR game I've ever played, one of my favorite games, easily one of my favorite games of the year. And I did it in this very not great circumstance of, like, I'm in my office, which is just a home recording studio that's increasingly full of shit and, like, musical instruments.

And I'm kind of, like, trying not to knock guitars off the wall while, like, shooting at head crabs and there's not that much space. So, okay, here's the thing that the Quest 2 can do. that I didn't know it could do. You can connect to your gaming PC wirelessly and play full PC VR games wirelessly over your internet, like over your wireless internet in your house. And it works super well, or at least it works for me super well.

I have like a pretty fast wireless router. So you have to use a thing. It's like side loading. You use a version of virtual desktop, which we can put a link maybe in show notes. If anybody listening to this, like wants to know how to do this because some people have been asking me when I talk about it. We'll put a link for like a how-to. There's sites that have done it, so I won't waste too much time on that.

But basically, there's a third-party workaround that lets you access your gaming PC wirelessly from this headset. And you can just, I just go out, I went in the living room and, like, moved the autumn and out of the way and have this huge living room space or comparatively huge to my office. And then you just put on the headset, it lets you see the world through the headset. So you, like, have cameras that just show you everything. So you can just be wearing it and walking around. you draw the boundaries with like a little laser pointer coming out of the controller just real quick on the floor

you're done the guardian system is up and then i just started playing half-life Alex and it like looks amazing like it looks amazing on the screen i can see all this detail i'm like reading all these little like i can read like the ingredients on objects that i pick up like on cans in the game world and it's so it's like way better looking way better experience there's no wire on my head so i can just walk around the space freely and it just feels like i'm in the future like it it's this thing that i just was not expecting. It's like I bought a car and it turns out it's a hovercraft. Like it can fly. Like it really, it's like I just didn't know this was possible, which apparently it has been for a while. Anyways, I'm freaking out about it because now like Emily is like playing Beat Sabre. We've got all this

VR stuff going. People like Google Earth just works in the living room. We can have people over and just show them. Don't have people over though. Well, I know. That's the one thing is that. You can have very specific select people over for a Google Earth's tour. It's such a bummer. This thing, I feel like this is the closest thing. It's a device that will convince a lot of people of what VR can do. And it's cheap. I mean, it's $300. I know it's like totally cheap.

But like for what this thing can do, that's ludicrous. Like the other VR headsets are like $1,000. And this thing is just, it's in an affordable-ish price range for like a luxury electronic good. And just, I don't know. It's really, really impressive. I'm like impressed by almost everything about it. And I wasn't expecting to be that impressed. Because I just didn't know this wireless thing was going to be possible.

So it's really cool. And I have now yelled at both of you about the Oculus Quest 2 for my allotted period of time. I'm just, I think it's cool. It sounds great. I'm really happy for you. I'm glad it's going well. Must be nice. I like to play games on my switch and my PC with a controller and not in the PR.

Yeah, same. Same. I like using a mouse and keyboard personally. It has a switchy quality to it because it can do the like. Yeah, but you have to put a headset on your face. Put a thing on your head. Yeah, I'm not going to do that. Yeah, I don't know about that.

Kirk's face, he just looks so crestfallen. You just spend five minutes, like, raving about this thing, and you're talking to two VR, like, skeptics have no interest. I genuinely, I think it's great that you're enjoying it. Yeah, me too. I am jealous of you. I cannot play it, but I mean, zero, zero interest. I don't think I'll ever have interest.

I think one day they'll get there in terms of the comfort thing, Maddie, I hope they, I think that they will. I hope they do too. I hope they do too. I know there are a lot of different things they're trying to do to make people less nauseated when playing. And I think eventually they're very much aiming this thing to be a thing that everybody can play. And I think this is actually something that like a lot of people who don't play video games would be interested in. It's like a we. It feels like the we to me.

And certainly the next one after this will feel even more like that. So yeah, hopefully they fix the comfort thing. But I know the two of you aren't as into it. But I'm excited. And I know some listeners are too. So anyways, a lot cooler than I was expecting. Maddie, what's your one more thing? Oh, well, you know, still trying to beat all those Destiny 2 raids with my raid group.

And by trying to beat, I really just mean we're not trying to beat them anymore. And we're really just hanging out in a place where a raid is happening. Because the stage that's gotten to is that like every week or every couple weeks will kind of be like, well, all six of us are free for an hour. Or we're free for maybe two hours, but like barely. like we'll all have hard outs or like some person will be slightly laid and everyone's very forgiving. So it's like we can't beat the raid we're in, but we've just all become extremely chill about it. And like the first half of it. Is this Leviathan still?

You're still in Leviathan? We're playing Eater of Worlds, which I would not say is a very difficult raid for people who aren't us. But it's like we just have memorized the first half of this raid like down to a science. You jump on a bunch of platforms. then you shoot some guys, that part's really easy, and then you have to run with some skulls. Do you guys remember picking up these skulls? I'm trying to remember is Edera Worlds is a ray layer, right, for Leviathan?

Is this the one where at one point you're launched out of the stomach of the thing or whatever into space and you fall out? Yes. Yeah, okay. And it's cool as hell. That part is really, really good. Yeah. Anyway, we just, we're just hanging out is really what it is. And maybe people should just play Destiny 2 raids to hang out.

Maybe they shouldn't even worry about being the boss at the end of the raid. Like maybe you just run around in a cool space with your friends. And then somebody has to go and you're just all like, okay, well, maybe we'll see the end of this someday. But maybe we never will. Are you excited for Beyond Light? Like, how excited are you for the new stuff on a scale from one to ten? I'm excited. I do not.

You know, Kirk has explained the destiny lore to me before. And it's like, I feel like for a couple weeks I understood it. And then more time went by. And I have played more destiny, and yet I still don't really understand anything that's happening in the game. And it just kind of washes over me. Well, when you play this story, like, Beyond Light will be a self-contained story that, like, you'll just understand what about. But I won't understand because I've just sort of, I'm just sort of in the gravy of destiny. I'm saying it will be understandable.

Like, all of the campaigns are just kind of like, when I say understandable. Oros Morn has returned from the under layer of the moon, which he fought Orix. You know. I just feel like recently the story campaigns have been more like, okay, here's a dude. Go kill the dude because he killed your friend or whatever, stuff like that. It's more simplistic. I can always understand the emotional moment of go kill this dude because he killed your friend. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Those are the stories that I can understand. Eris Mour, the Moon, the traveler, it's called something different now. It's not called the traveler anymore, I guess. Oh, really? I don't know. I don't even know that. There's other stuff happening. Yeah, Kirk, we're going to have to catch up on.

Because the odd light is very lore. I mean, it's all very, like, the darkness and the light. Like, it's, like, profound lore shit. So I think it... Well, there's like a vault. There's a whole thing about the exo and a vox, like, the exo race being born and a vault. Oh, well, that we've known. Clovis Bray Corporation made the exor race.

Right, but we're going to see the vault apparently where they were created. You're like, right, right, of course. Of course. We all know that. We all know about her from the Hormind deal. We all know about that. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting.

Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited, Jason, to answer your question. I'm excited. I don't understand what's happening, but I'm very excited about it. I feel like kind of like a child at Christmas who's like too young to understand what a present is, but it understands that other people are opening them. Yeah. And like you can wrap up a banana and hand it to me and I'd just be excited to be included.

That's how I feel about the banana like shot sweet aliens. Yes. Have you guys seen there was like a trailer the other day about the new weapons they're adding and they're doing some wild stuff. There's like some bonkers weapons that they're adding to the game. I haven't but I'm. Looking forward to being surprised. I don't even remember the specifics, but a lot of them are doing things that I did not expect to see in a destiny weapon, like jumping through physics and stuff like that.

Nice. They kind of need that. More kind of more weird stuff. All right, Jason, what is your one more thing? All right. My one more thing is actually a new thing, not just the things that I have talked about in previous weeks, unlike the two of you. Great. Oh, I hadn't talked about the Aculus Quest two in previous weeks.

I just talked about Facebook. But anyways, go right. But you're always talking about VR or something or another. Am I? Am I? Anyways. I've never talked about Destiny 2 before. So I don't know what you remember that.

That's true. That news was wholly original. My one more thing is this past weekend, my friends and I played the Jackbox Party Pack 7, which is a new one. It actually just came out last week. I mentioned before in the show that I have a group of friends and we like to play Jackbox together every so often. It's been like, it's become the equivalent.

We used to play it in person also, but now, especially. on Zoom calls, it's become the equivalent of like a dinner party or a cocktail party with your friends. It's like, okay, let's get together this Saturday night and play jackbox because we can't actually see each other in person anymore. So first of all, I had an interview with the CEO and he shared some interesting stats. Like, apparently they are on track to hit 200 million players by the end of this year. And that's that's kind of a misleading statistic because a lot of those are like people playing in the audience while their favorite Twitch streamers are playing together. Okay.

Or other celebrities are playing together. Because you can join on your phone. That's so cool though, actually. Yeah, of course. Of course you can be an audience member. Yeah. So you can join it. And so you can vote.

And it's actually really interesting because if you're playing like Quiplash or whatever where people vote on the outcomes and you have like 3,000 audience members, then your votes as players don't really matter because it's like the thousands of people are going to be voting. Yeah. I never thought about that. Yeah. That's really a cool way to use it, like on a stream. He also told me that like this.

games day one sales were like five times the sales of jackbox party pack six that game it has a fascinating history that company like from the you don't know jack days in the 90s to like a long hiatus to coming back as jackbox games from jellyfish jellyfish in jelly vision back in the day anyway so i play the new one um most of the games nothing really great to share about them they're all kind of like whatever the game that i always come back to them my friends and i always come back to is quiplash and what's really cool with the new one is that it brings a new version of Quiplash. And so for those of you who don't know Quiplash, Quiplash is essentially the game gives you prompts and you have to respond to those prompts and the funniest way you can

think of and you play with all your friends and you, two different answers will pop up on the screen and everybody gets to vote on which is the best, which is the funniest. And for my group of friends in particular, we love this game. We go all sorts of like insane directions and and do some fun stuff. but previous iterations of quibblash the third round the third and final round has always been kind of like a momentum stopper because it always they always put some twist on it that isn't very fun like in the last one this is a common jackbox problem we talked about this i know on our like on our quarantine games but it's it's always like at the end like the same thing with standard like you don't know jack or a trivia murder party there's always some yeah some weird third round

like in the in quipash too it was like it would be like comic strip and you have to like fill in a comic or like word lash and you have to fill out an acronym or something like that. I have great news and that is quip lash three finally nails the third round. It has this awesome third round. So the third and final round in quiblish three is it'll give you a new prompt, except you now have to enter three answers to that prompt. And those three answers will be displayed on the screen like one by one. So you can play around with comedic timing. timing. You could have like two straight answers and then one funny one. So like an example, like it might say, what are your three favorite podcasts or something like that? And then it would have you answer three things. It'd be like triple click. Strong songs. Kirk Hamilton like whispering in

my ear for sweet nothings for whatever. Whatever. But like you could do it in a few different ways. And like you as the player have to kind of choose like they don't have three funny entries and like have them all trying to make people laugh for like to like the classic comedy start. of like two straight answers and then a total twist hilarious answer for the third and anyway it just makes it suddenly feel like a whole new game and like this version of quiplash is by far the best one yet because of that um so yeah high i'm gonna play it highly if you're into and jackbox is really like i said i mean it's just such a good game for playing with your buddies who like maybe don't play games but you hang out with regularly and you miss them because you're you're not leaving your house

it's a good option and very easy to screen share on Google Hangouts and such. Yeah, that's it for me. That's a good reminder to play some Jackbox. All right, nice. Well, that does it for this week. I am going to go play some more Hades. I'm going to go see what I'm going to do with this amazing Artemis, but like that going. But until next time, I guess I will see the two of you next week.

Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie, Myers and me, Kirk Hamilton. I added and mixed the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to Maximumfund.org slash join and consider becoming a member. Doing so helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple click episode each month. Find us online at triple clickpodcast.com on Twitter at triple clickpod and send email to triple click at maximum fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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