Hades

The narrative is really good, but the actual gameplay is just OK and very repetitive (by design). Apparently there's a lot more story after the credits roll, but by then I needed a break. I might come back and finish it later.

Great game but in the end it suffers from not ending on time. At some point I want to see the end credits and get it over with, rather than having to beat the main boss 10 times. This becomes more time consuming and frustrating than enjoyable. I think it's similar to the latest Zelda which has a great main story but doing all the side quests becomes mind dumbly boring, and in this case I find it worse that I cannot say that I finished the game.

After finally beating Hades and getting most main-story content, I must revise my review. Ironically, however, I feel inclined to rate it even lower than before. Getting to the "end" of Hades has cemented my repulsion for rogue-likes as a genre. No amount of good writing can stave off the tedium of playing the same game over and over again for tiny titbits of dialogue, and the weapon upgrades don't do enough to reinvigorate each samey run through hell and back. I prefer Transistor over this.

A high-quality production with enjoyable enough combat, and I like the way narrative is meted out over the playtime. That said, it starts to feel a little repetitive and I've sadly found myself not really caring to keep playing despite still having more dialogue to uncover.

Good writing, tedious gameplay. Half of the weapons are annoyingly slow, and enemies have far too much health and armor. Which only makes battles boring, not challenging. Was fun for a while, then I got tired of plinking at the enemies.