Hades

WEBVTT

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Other Castle.

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The Other Castle, I'm Andrea.

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And my name is Tom.

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And we are the podcast that brings you the plot, lore and more behind all of your favorite video games, video games you haven't played, video games you should be playing, and your soon to be favorite games.

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And if this is your first time listening to us, you can check us out at our website, theothercastlepodcast.com.

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That's the othercastlepodcast.com.

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Over there, you can get links to all the different areas where we are accessible.

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We have our Patreon there, we have our Discord sign up.

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You can sign up for our newsletter, all sorts of different stuff, if you want to get involved.

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Our Patreon just did fucking Donkey Kong, and that was so much fun to get into.

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I did have like a minor like, fuck you moment, but still, in good spirits, it's good shit.

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Yeah, that was a really fun episode.

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The story of Donkey Kong and like its creation and all the stuff that happened around it is one of my favorite stories in gaming.

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The controversy and the lawsuits are fucking wild, and it's like, this should be a Suits episode, right?

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Yeah, exactly, right?

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And yeah, it's only $2 a month to sign up for our Patreon if you'd like to.

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But anyway, so over here at The Other Castle, we are doing a game that honestly, I don't think I would have ever done if we weren't doing this show.

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Really?

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Yeah, it was a really popular game.

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I'd seen it everywhere, but looking at it, I was like, eh, just probably not for me.

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It's still very popular.

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There was a second one on the way at the time of us recording this.

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Right, there is a second one on the way, and honestly, I don't know why I ever felt that way because this game is absolutely incredible.

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And that game is Hades.

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Hades, now I wanna shout out my friend Michelle.

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She is obsessed with Hades.

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It was like, this is such a fucking excellent Switch game.

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You're gonna love it.

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It's amazing.

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And I was like, I've heard about it peripherally, but I hadn't seen any gameplay.

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I think I'd seen trailers, but not locked into my brain.

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So I downloaded it and was like, hey Tom, I think I'm gonna run through Hades.

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And you're like, have fun.

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I don't know what the fuck that is.

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Yeah.

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And then you picked it up.

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I still have not played it.

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That keeps happening.

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It's so embarrassing.

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That happened with Bendy too.

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Yeah, where I was like, holy shit, this is wild.

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Never played it.

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Right.

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But now I know what happened, so I feel like I don't need to, because of this show.

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Well, before I start, I really just wanna give a shout out once again to Noclip documentaries.

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I've shouted them out before.

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This documentarian just kind of knows how to pick his subjects.

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Oh yeah.

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Because he documented the creation of Hades from about two months before release, up through two years after its release.

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That's so fucking cool.

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And he got to talk to the creators and everything, right?

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Like real behind-the-scenes shit.

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Yeah, he really did.

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He was right in there with them.

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If you want a super in-depth look into how this game was made, definitely check it out on YouTube because there's literal hours of content about the making of this game.

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Wow.

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That's so rare.

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Because we talk about Rockstar who's notoriously secretive about their processes and things like that.

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We talk about Insomniac, where they let some things leak, but you really don't hear about things.

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But getting into these kind of more indie creators, they're so open with what's going on.

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And it's so great to see someone kind of compile that and tell the narrative of the story.

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So it's like a cohesive tale of the beginning through the success.

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And it's so beautiful to see.

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Yeah, well, fortunately they just had nothing to hide.

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Yeah, thankfully there's no secrets, which is fucking great.

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Yeah, they were operating the way a company should be operating.

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It's kind of nice to see.

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You'd think, yeah.

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Well, anyway, so Amir Rao and Gavin Simon started Supergiant Games in 2009.

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They met working for EA, making the Command and Conquer series.

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Oh shit.

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And that was like one of the first big, top-down real-time strategy games.

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They started seeing indie games grow as a market, so they left EA and moved into the house I'm pretty sure they used for Facebook and the social network.

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Like dead ass.

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Like it looks exactly like the exact same house, and it's in San Jose, California.

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Oh, Silicon Valley, like that is actually perfect.

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It could genuinely be the house.

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Yeah, and they hired a small team of around 10 people, and they built a couple games out of that.

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With success, they moved out of the house and into a real studio where the team ballooned to about 20 members.

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So it's still a small team, but one that could get some serious work done.

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That's really cool.

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In 2011, they released Bastion, an RPG and a critical hit.

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Was that their first game?

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That was their first game ever, yeah.

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2011, like that whole teens years, that was such a great time for indie gaming.

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Like there was such a pop and bloom, like you mentioned of people coming together and being like, it doesn't have to be a AAA.

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There's people putting out really great content right there that don't have fucking deep pockets like EA right now.

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And a lot of them had AAA experience anyway.

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Oh, hell yeah.

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So three years later, they made Transistor, a sci-fi love story adventure.

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Oh.

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Another three years after that, they released Pyre, an RPG adventure with branching narratives and hundreds of different endings based on your choices.

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Oh, shit, that sounds like something I would play.

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Don't tempt me right now.

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Fuck, wait, I love everything about that.

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Also, that's a pretty quick turnaround for games.

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That's their thing.

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They wanna turn around these games really fast and they're still super high quality.

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Yeah.

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For the world of their fourth game, they set their sights on ancient Greek mythology since creative director Greg Kasavin had a deep fascination in it since childhood.

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Oh, who doesn't?

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He always felt the character of Hades was underrepresented, even in mythology.

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The best anyone could think of for Hades is the Disney character played by James Woods.

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Oh, he's so fucking good.

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Yeah, he's a wonderfully goofy villain for Hercules, and actually, eventually Sora.

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So they set out to make a family drama about Hades and his relationships with the people around him.

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They then tasked an in-house artist with the coolest name ever to create the look for these ancient beings.

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A person named Jen Z.

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Shut the fuck up, that's so cool.

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Yeah, so it's J-E-N-Z-E-E.

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Oh, I love that.

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With each game they made being a different genre and play style, they next wanted to dip their toe in a genre that had become really popular in recent years, a roguelike.

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Can you describe what a roguelike means?

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Absolutely, because I personally have heard this word a bunch in the last few years, but I never really understood what it meant either.

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I straight up just don't, so please do it for me.

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Yeah, I kept hearing different games being described as roguelikes, and they seemed like drastically different games.

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So you're like, where's the connecting line here?

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Yeah, and shockingly, a reference to a game from 1980, it was a freeware computer game called Rogue.

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It was an extremely ambitious title that wanted to be as big as possible, despite having less than one gigabyte of memory to work with.

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Oh my God.

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To create large and sprawling dungeons, Rogue was programmed with a ton of assets, and then it would randomly generate rooms to explore using those assets.

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Oh, that's a very clever use of space.

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Right, but due to the amount of memory being used for the dungeon generator, the game also didn't have any form of save system.

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Oh, it was just kind of an ongoing thing, like pick it up and figure it out.

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Yeah, but when you died, that was it, game over.

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Oh, shit.

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You had to start over from the very beginning.

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Oh, no.

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So games that incorporate both of these elements are considered rogue-likes.

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My brain fully went to like, well, the D&D class rogue-like, there's something there.

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No, not at all.

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It's about a video game called Rogue, yeah.

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That's fascinating.

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So technically, Supergiant's fourth game in today's episode, Hades, is considered a rogue-lite.

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A rogue-lite is a game that incorporates just one of the two aspects that make a rogue-like, or it has them both, but tweaks the mechanics slightly.

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And so that's why a game like Dark Souls and Minecraft are both considered rogue-lites.

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Despite seemingly not having any connecting factors.

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At all.

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And yeah, they both are more like RPG blenders, but they still both have rogue-lite aspects to them as well.

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Fascinating.

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And in fact, hardcore mode of Minecraft has all of the mechanics required to be considered a complete rogue-like.

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Oh, shit.

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Now with Supergiant's previous titles, they were traditional releases.

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Once the game was released, the team moved on.

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Yeah, reasonably.

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Yeah, maybe a patch here and there to remove some bugs, but mostly that was the game.

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Yeah, I feel like that's common.

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You release it, you celebrate, you have your big party, you're like high five for the first week watching sales, and then you're like, all right, what's the next fucking thing?

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Yeah, what's next?

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With Hades, they wanted to take a different approach.

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They were of the opinion they had a great game on their hands, but they wanted to be sure it was a game people would not play for just a while, but for years to come.

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Oh, okay.

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So they decided on a wild release tactic that I've only ever seen done in the movie industry, and even then, I've only seen one movie do this.

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So the plan for Hades was to release it for early access on the day of its announcement.

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Oh shit, like Cloverfield?

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Yeah.

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Is that exactly what you were thinking about?

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Yeah, for that Cloverfield Paradox movie.

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And they were going to do it at the 2018 Game Awards.

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Very cool.

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They wanted to debut the game with a trailer and have the trailer say, available now at the end of it.

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Exactly like what happened with Cloverfield Paradox.

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That was, I think the Super Bowl that year came out.

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They were like, here's a new Cloverfield movie.

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It's on Netflix right now, fuckers.

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And you're like, oh shit, do we, should we check that out?

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Should we stop watching the Super, well, we can't say that word, but yeah, should we stop watching the big game?

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Yeah, oh right, it's copyrighted, my bad.

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That's very interesting, like that's a ballsy drop.

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Then they would spend the next year working with fans of the game to deliver the ultimate Hades experience.

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That's really cool.

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So they're like, hey, we have a free beta essentially going out there.

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I'm sure it's a limited version, and then we'll take our learnings and give you a really, really, really good one in a couple months.

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Yeah, I'd say it was about a quarter of the game itself.

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And then after that, they would remove the early access and declare the game complete.

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So having come from EA, the heads of Supergiant were fully anti-Crunch Culture.

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Hell yeah, that's what we like to hear.

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So they took their time and were willing to grow with the game itself.

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You know, for being anti-Crunch Culture, it's still impressive they were able to turn out the previous games like two to three years, like paced out, you know, that's still knocking out some really tight timelines without killing people's personal lives.

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Well, setting realistic expectations and goals, you know, and then it's also kind of an attestment to like, oh, if you treat your people right, they'll do good work.

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Yeah, crazy concept in the gaming industry, unfortunately, but no, that's really impressive.

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But also being a small company in studio, there wasn't a ton of money.

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Ah, yes.

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So things like character voices had to come cheap.

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So performers would have four or five characters each, such as actor Logan Cunningham.

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He voices the titular Hades, as well as five other characters, scoring him a BAFTA for his work in the game.

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Wow.

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So first of all, you're telling me he did not get a big ass paycheck.

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Like this is not a Troy Baker level of contract negotiation.

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He came in, he knocked out a couple of characters, kind of flew a little under the radar, frankly, because this isn't a big title, and then still took home a fucking BAFTA.

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Yeah, killed it, right?

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That's some dick-swinger shit.

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Yeah, you got the best supporting actor.

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Hell yeah.

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Some of the other performers were programmers and not professional actors at all, because they liked being able to work on the fly.

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And if they needed a line recorded real quick, they were able to just kind of hop in the booth and bang it out.

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That's so cool.

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Also very indie, very startup of like, ah, shit, all hands on deck.

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Who wants to be fucking Zeus?

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Let's go.

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Yeah, everybody, like, in watching the documentary, especially, you see, they really do have this kind of family feel to it.

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And I hate when companies are like that.

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They're like, oh, we're a family.

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Yeah, that's a cult.

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But they also just really seemed to cooperate well, is what you really saw in the different groups.

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So you're telling me about this crazy concept where respecting the people you work with pays off.

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Yeah, entirely, right?

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That's a wild notion.

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Oh, and it was an extremely diverse group of people, too.

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All the ages, all the gender spectrums, all the races, everything.

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This is a very big, open group, too.

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That makes sense.

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San Jose itself is a very diverse area.

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It's just straight up.

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Walking down the street, you'll get smells of every cuisine.

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Oh my God, the burritos and the pho there are fucking amazing.

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I like, San Jose's food scene is wild.

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I totally believe that it's like a wide range of people that were there.

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Well, not only were they going to be launching at the announcement, they were also going to be one of the inaugural games on the Steam competitor, the brand new Epic Games Store launcher.

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Oh shit.

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The launcher was announced to go live the same day as the Game Awards as well, but they had already announced the launcher before the show.

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Okay, so they weren't doing a surprise thing the way Hades did, got it.

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Right, the surprise was that they were going to be on the launcher.

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On the day of the Game Awards, Amir Rao, Gavin Simon, Logan Cunningham, and the game's composer, Darren Korb, attended the ceremony.

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Now Darren Korb was along for the ride because not only was he the composer of the outstanding music for the game, he was also the voice of the playable character, Zagreus, who we'll meet later in the episode.

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Oh, the full protagonist was the composer?

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Yeah.

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That's fucking cool.

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So he really knew how to capture, like, the energy and feel the character was having.

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Yeah, I bet that insight really helped drive the composition of the music.

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That's beautiful.

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And the music is just un-fucking-real.

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It fucking slaps.

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Like, you played this so much, and I've just kind of been in and out or doing something on my computer or been in the room.

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And every time, like, the voice acting so fucking good and the music goes so hard, you're always like, oh, do you want me to turn the music down while you're working?

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Like, no, absolutely not.

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Yeah, it's wonderful.

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On December 6th, 2018, the Game Awards started and Epic kind of beefed the launch by making the game available about an hour early.

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Oh shit.

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But really only the team at Supergiant noticed because nobody even knew to look for it yet.

00:14:22.680 --> 00:14:33.640
Right, they were like, I know this store is happening, but who goes to a new online store the second it happens while there's a major video game thing happening culturally in like an hour of the Video Game Awards?

00:14:34.380 --> 00:14:39.120
If you give a shit about video games, you're probably watching the awards, not scrolling through the Epic Games Store.

00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:42.340
So the trailer played and the audience went nuts.

00:14:42.660 --> 00:14:45.880
Then the website playhades.com appeared on the screen.

00:14:46.580 --> 00:14:49.760
Now available in early access on Epic Games Store.

00:14:50.520 --> 00:14:57.820
The team back at the home office hit the computers to watch the traffic on their newly launched game, refreshing Twitter and Reddit watching for reactions.

00:14:58.060 --> 00:14:59.140
Oh, I love that.

00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:03.620
After about a half hour of nobody talking about it, they started to get worried.

00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:07.740
So they went to the website playhades.com and it was a dead link.

00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:08.880
No!

00:15:09.180 --> 00:15:11.360
Yeah, it was 404-ing on them.

00:15:11.520 --> 00:15:13.660
Genuinely, the hairs on my arm just stood up.

00:15:15.860 --> 00:15:19.080
I'm a professional marketer and have been for years.

00:15:19.400 --> 00:15:20.820
That is my fucking nightmare.

00:15:21.140 --> 00:15:25.200
How did no one check this before it went like, oh my God, I'm losing my mind.

00:15:25.640 --> 00:15:29.780
Yeah, they were able to fix that up very quickly and suddenly people were playing the game.

00:15:29.800 --> 00:15:32.660
Some pretty frantic texts were exchanged.

00:15:33.220 --> 00:15:34.360
Holy shit.

00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:39.260
Well, not only were they playing, but they were already streaming it on Twitch.

00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:41.020
Clever.

00:15:41.140 --> 00:15:43.040
Oh my God, immediately get it out there.

00:15:43.060 --> 00:15:43.560
Hell yeah.

00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:48.120
And they were getting to the final boss fight that was available in the early access version.

00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:49.500
Immediately, same night?

00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:50.560
Yeah, same night.

00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:52.420
It's really cute too.

00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:55.420
The whole team watched the first streamer beat it.

00:15:56.420 --> 00:15:59.860
Oh, so they were like cheering along with the streamer and stuff.

00:15:59.940 --> 00:16:04.600
And then after they beat it, they jumped into the chat to let them know that the entire team at Supergiant had watched that.

00:16:04.900 --> 00:16:06.320
Wait, that's beautiful.

00:16:06.340 --> 00:16:06.680
Right?

00:16:06.700 --> 00:16:08.060
That's fucking community.

00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:09.280
That's why we do this shit.

00:16:09.300 --> 00:16:09.960
Hell yeah.

00:16:10.020 --> 00:16:10.680
Exactly.

00:16:11.740 --> 00:16:19.140
Over the next year, they did what they set out to do and made tweaks and changes to the game, utilizing player feedback to make their adjustments.

00:16:19.160 --> 00:16:23.540
Oh, just obsessively watching streams to catch frustrating points or broken things.

00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:28.540
On December 10th, 2019, a year later, it released on Steam.

00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:31.380
That's a tight year turnaround too, wow.

00:16:31.640 --> 00:16:33.160
Well, it was still in early access.

00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:38.100
So they were going to release the final version a couple months later, but 2020 hit.

00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:40.220
Oh, that whole thing.

00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:42.120
And so that put a delay in the project.

00:16:42.420 --> 00:16:43.120
Oh shit.

00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:50.540
It was just a short one, and it would release the final version of Hades with its console debut as a Switch exclusive.

00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:51.380
Hell yeah.

00:16:51.780 --> 00:16:54.100
On September 17th, 2020.

00:16:54.380 --> 00:16:57.680
The other consoles wouldn't get Hades until August of 2021.

00:16:57.920 --> 00:17:00.080
Okay, so Switch had it for nearly a year.

00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:04.420
Right, I think that's really cool that Switch made it to land that for the console exclusive.

00:17:04.820 --> 00:17:09.720
You know, Nintendo plays better with indie developers than I think they get credit for.

00:17:09.760 --> 00:17:18.680
I feel like obviously PC is the home for indie, but Switch is very loving to smaller developers and publishers and stuff, you know?

00:17:18.700 --> 00:17:22.920
And it's wild because I would say Xbox was known for that for a really long time.

00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:25.900
But I think they've kind of dropped the ball on it in recent years.

00:17:26.180 --> 00:17:29.940
And we're obviously omitting PlayStation because they're like, are you Insomniac?

00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:30.240
Yeah.

00:17:30.260 --> 00:17:31.340
Are you Naughty Dog?

00:17:31.520 --> 00:17:31.860
No?

00:17:32.320 --> 00:17:33.840
Okay, good luck, I guess.

00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:36.300
Like, you can have a spot, but we're not gonna tell anybody you're here.

00:17:36.320 --> 00:17:38.020
Yeah, you're not getting in the newsletter, babe.

00:17:38.040 --> 00:17:38.380
No.

00:17:40.040 --> 00:17:43.620
Well, it currently has a Metacritic score of 93%.

00:17:43.900 --> 00:17:45.240
Out of 100, hell yeah.

00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:49.680
As it has captured the hearts and attention of just about every person who has touched this game.

00:17:49.740 --> 00:17:51.100
Including my friend, Michelle.

00:17:51.620 --> 00:17:53.880
And for me, it's a cozy game despite all the dying.

00:17:55.500 --> 00:17:57.220
It's a pretty morbid cozy game.

00:17:57.240 --> 00:17:59.900
You're literally in hell with Hades.

00:18:00.140 --> 00:18:03.780
Yeah, but I can just pick this game up, play it for a bit, and then put it down for a while.

00:18:03.800 --> 00:18:05.140
To me, that's what a cozy game is.

00:18:05.160 --> 00:18:07.980
That's, I mean, yeah, a core concept that is a cozy game.

00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:08.460
I feel you.

00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:13.600
And honestly, I'm so excited that I got to do this game because it's gone down as one of my absolute favorites.

00:18:13.820 --> 00:18:14.500
Really?

00:18:14.520 --> 00:18:15.280
Yeah, all times.

00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:16.500
That's beautiful.

00:18:17.420 --> 00:18:19.640
Get ready to die a whole bunch of times, goombas.

00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:22.860
Because this is Hades.

00:18:24.780 --> 00:18:31.380
The game opens with an image of an archway, and at the top of the archway are three skulls with big red jewels for eyes.

00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:35.600
The center head has its mouth hanging open, and it has a gold coin in it.

00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:38.640
The other two heads each look off to the sides.

00:18:39.820 --> 00:18:43.260
A gravelly voice speaks as the name Hades spreads across the screen.

00:18:44.560 --> 00:18:48.800
None of the skull's mouths are moving, but it's pretty well implied the center one is speaking.

00:18:49.320 --> 00:18:59.040
The narrator says that the story of Hades is one not many people talk about, because the name itself invokes fear and reminds us all that we are mortal.

00:18:59.220 --> 00:19:00.240
Memento mori.

00:19:01.400 --> 00:19:08.000
But the narrator, and I guess myself now, are going to tell you the tale, because neither of us fears death.

00:19:09.140 --> 00:19:10.460
You fear death a little, Tom.

00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:11.240
Oh, so much.

00:19:11.260 --> 00:19:12.160
Come the fuck on.

00:19:12.620 --> 00:19:15.600
The next screen takes us to just outside a giant door.

00:19:16.180 --> 00:19:20.400
The door is made of stone and marble, and it has the image of Hades' face carved into it.

00:19:20.680 --> 00:19:25.840
There's a rocky path that leads to a platform surrounded by the bloody River Styx.

00:19:26.700 --> 00:19:31.940
In Greek mythology, the River Styx is the river that dead took by boat to the underworld.

00:19:32.500 --> 00:19:40.080
Now, most of my understanding of Greek mythology is from watching Hercules and Xena in the 90s and then the Disney Hercules movies.

00:19:40.100 --> 00:19:46.340
So I will appreciate you explaining some of the Greek mythology references and lore as we go forward.

00:19:46.460 --> 00:19:50.580
Yeah, I think you'd be better off ignoring all the things you know before this.

00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:51.300
Oh, okay.

00:19:51.420 --> 00:19:55.480
Yeah, let's just say, start fresh on your knowledge of Greek mythology.

00:19:55.540 --> 00:19:56.980
Clean slate, go for it.

00:19:57.040 --> 00:19:59.560
Yeah, we're gonna learn a lot in this game.

00:20:00.520 --> 00:20:04.120
You slam down from above, landing on the path just outside the gate.

00:20:04.700 --> 00:20:09.100
You say goodbye, father, as you set out on whatever adventure is awaiting you.

00:20:10.040 --> 00:20:14.720
You play as Zagreus, son of Hades and prince of the underworld.

00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:15.880
Nepo baby.

00:20:16.360 --> 00:20:27.000
He's a stupidly good looking guy with a chiseled jaw and a reef around his short dark hair and the three headed skull of a dead three headed dog as shoulder armor.

00:20:27.520 --> 00:20:33.220
He wears a red toga with black and gold accents and carries a big ass sword.

00:20:33.760 --> 00:20:38.660
To add to his exotic looks, he also sports one red eye and one hazel eye.

00:20:38.840 --> 00:20:39.660
Like Bowie.

00:20:40.040 --> 00:20:46.500
When you run, you notice you have flaming ankles leaving little footprints of fire in your wake and just a level set.

00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:56.620
Almost every single character in this game is a literal god or goddess, making them all insanely good looking.

00:20:57.160 --> 00:21:01.860
Leave it to someone named Gen Z to give us a true bisexual nightmare.

00:21:02.080 --> 00:21:03.580
I love everything about this.

00:21:03.800 --> 00:21:05.280
Why is this game so horny?

00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:10.740
Well, Greek mythology is horny because this is the way that they were portrayed back then.

00:21:10.760 --> 00:21:15.240
You can't even use a word like woke on this game because this is just the way they were portrayed.

00:21:15.940 --> 00:21:17.260
Everyone was bisexual.

00:21:17.400 --> 00:21:23.220
They were all insanely beautiful, and the sexual tension in the air with these gods were at a constant all-time high.

00:21:23.560 --> 00:21:24.540
I love everything about this.

00:21:24.560 --> 00:21:25.600
They're pouring wine.

00:21:25.700 --> 00:21:26.540
They're fucking.

00:21:26.700 --> 00:21:27.380
They're hot.

00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:28.140
I love it.

00:21:28.220 --> 00:21:28.980
This is a dream.

00:21:30.140 --> 00:21:31.820
It was weird, too, because half of them were related.

00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:37.480
Aside from that, it's very fun outside of the incest.

00:21:37.540 --> 00:21:39.040
Yeah, they ignore that part in this game.

00:21:39.940 --> 00:21:44.820
We are in an area called Tartarus, and it is the first zone of the underworld.

00:21:45.280 --> 00:21:47.620
There's zero form of tutorial in this game.

00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:49.560
They're like, fuck it, figure it out.

00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:53.440
Yeah, everything you're gonna need to learn, you have to experiment and figure out on your own.

00:21:53.840 --> 00:21:55.420
I honestly like that.

00:21:55.500 --> 00:22:05.660
You know, tutorials feel so heavy handed in so many games, you know, and it's like, oh, I'm gonna stop the entire fucking game to tell you to press X, and you're like, can I just play the game, though?

00:22:05.780 --> 00:22:08.880
I appreciate a non-handholding tutorial.

00:22:09.020 --> 00:22:11.400
Yeah, there's no handholding in Hades at all.

00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:13.080
Ooh, handholding in Hades, that was weird.

00:22:13.140 --> 00:22:15.600
Madder than a hatter in a hat, have a dashery.

00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:22.080
Your basic commands are regular attack, special attack, dash and cast.

00:22:22.520 --> 00:22:29.380
You also have two buttons for calling in summons when you unlock them later in the game, but it's not an insanely complex battle system.

00:22:29.800 --> 00:22:35.660
The amount of strategy you're gonna need balancing those four basic controls will test even the most skilled gamer, though.

00:22:35.700 --> 00:22:37.220
So that's where the complexity comes in.

00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:39.220
It's not like you have this wild weapon wheel.

00:22:39.260 --> 00:22:45.480
It's just actually being strategic about how you attack and how you lay out your battle patterns.

00:22:45.780 --> 00:22:53.660
Yeah, you're gonna need to learn all of the enemies you're gonna fight, how they attack you, how you can avoid their attacks, how you can attack them, all sorts of things.

00:22:53.680 --> 00:22:54.320
It's chess.

00:22:54.740 --> 00:22:55.720
Yeah, very much so.

00:22:56.600 --> 00:23:04.200
However, it also makes itself accessible to a less skilled audience as you're going to advance over time regardless of your skill level.

00:23:04.700 --> 00:23:05.280
Oh, okay.

00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:07.820
Yeah, so you'll eventually experience the full game.

00:23:07.840 --> 00:23:10.040
A higher skilled gamer will just do it a bit faster.

00:23:11.180 --> 00:23:13.180
I'll get there on my own goddamn time.

00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:14.060
Thank you very much.

00:23:14.140 --> 00:23:15.260
Get there when we get there.

00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:22.220
As for our immediate environment, the stone platform you're on is covered in greenish ghostly apparitions.

00:23:22.620 --> 00:23:28.780
They are completely harmless, and they're called shades, as they are just the shadow of the person they once were.

00:23:29.340 --> 00:23:30.040
Oh, God.

00:23:30.760 --> 00:23:33.920
So all mortals who have died are called shades.

00:23:34.580 --> 00:23:41.120
The ones we're seeing here look like traditional ghosts as they're a green sheet with glowing eyes floating around.

00:23:41.140 --> 00:23:44.260
Is it just a new crop of the dead coming in from the River Styx?

00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:45.220
Yeah, basically.

00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:46.200
Oh, recruits.

00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:56.060
We'll also meet some shades who retain their human form, even in death, for one reason or another, and that reason usually being that they have a name and lines to speak.

00:23:56.200 --> 00:23:56.540
Yeah.

00:23:57.480 --> 00:24:01.900
Shades are the majority of the inhabitants of the underworld, and you'll see them everywhere you go.

00:24:02.340 --> 00:24:05.380
But the green ones mean you so little harm, they can't even touch you.

00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:09.100
So you head down the platform a short ways, and you come to a door.

00:24:09.460 --> 00:24:16.060
Instead of a knocker or a peephole, it has a big round basin, and in the basin is a giant glass sphere.

00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:20.140
These doors will appear in each room you enter through the entirety of the game.

00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:26.080
The image inside the glass sphere represents the type of reward you will receive in the next room.

00:24:26.620 --> 00:24:26.840
Oh.

00:24:27.820 --> 00:24:35.980
Once you defeat all the enemies in a room, you'll receive that reward, and you will be presented with one to three new doors, each with different rewards.

00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:43.800
The rooms, prizes, and bad guys you face are all, for the most part, randomly generated.

00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:45.520
Roguelike, got it.

00:24:45.540 --> 00:24:46.040
Yeah.

00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:51.240
The types of rewards you receive vary as there are multiple currencies and power-ups.

00:24:51.980 --> 00:24:57.680
The power-ups you receive, called boons, come from the Greek gods of Mount Olympus.

00:24:58.200 --> 00:24:59.860
I know what a boon is from D&D.

00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:00.840
Yeah.

00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:03.680
The gods that will grant you these boons are as follows.

00:25:04.560 --> 00:25:08.060
Ares, the god of Roar, despite what Kratos may tell you.

00:25:08.360 --> 00:25:08.560
Aw.

00:25:08.900 --> 00:25:11.180
He grants boons that deal extra damage.

00:25:11.580 --> 00:25:12.420
That makes sense.

00:25:13.120 --> 00:25:14.960
Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:18.420
Her boons are protective in nature, reducing damage taken.

00:25:18.940 --> 00:25:20.600
Poseidon, the god of the ocean.

00:25:21.140 --> 00:25:25.880
His boons cast tidal waves when you attack, knocking your enemies back and causing extra damage.

00:25:25.980 --> 00:25:26.960
That's fucking sick.

00:25:27.460 --> 00:25:29.320
Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

00:25:29.980 --> 00:25:36.460
She grants you the ability to make your enemies weaken the knees, causing them to take more and deal out less damage.

00:25:37.100 --> 00:25:38.880
Aries will make you punch harder.

00:25:38.900 --> 00:25:42.420
Fucking Aphrodite will make you flirt so hard.

00:25:43.920 --> 00:25:45.420
You got your motherfuckers in a twist.

00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:46.040
I love that.

00:25:46.560 --> 00:25:48.540
Dionysus, the god of wine.

00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:56.180
And my personal favorite of the gods in this game, because his voice actor clearly had more fun than anyone else playing his character.

00:25:56.200 --> 00:25:56.620
Really?

00:25:56.640 --> 00:25:57.840
Oh yeah, he's great.

00:25:57.880 --> 00:25:58.780
Good for him.

00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:01.140
He's like, I'm the god of wine, bitch, let's party.

00:26:01.580 --> 00:26:06.180
He makes your enemies hung over, causing them to move slowly and take damage just by moving.

00:26:06.580 --> 00:26:09.180
Stop, I've been there, I fucking get it.

00:26:09.800 --> 00:26:14.460
Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, who also has my favorite set of boons.

00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:17.460
She increases your ability to land critical hits.

00:26:17.540 --> 00:26:19.040
I bet she has a nice set of boons.

00:26:19.660 --> 00:26:21.360
Hermes, the god of speed.

00:26:22.020 --> 00:26:27.420
His boons can make your attacks, your dash, your run speed, your recovery rate, or any of your other feats faster.

00:26:28.100 --> 00:26:30.280
Demeter, the goddess of seasons.

00:26:30.900 --> 00:26:33.920
She is the only god who appears as an old lady.

00:26:34.880 --> 00:26:38.160
And she grants ice boons, like the ability to freeze your enemies.

00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:45.500
And of course, Zeus, the god of gods and king of Mount Olympus.

00:26:46.040 --> 00:26:50.080
His boons grant you the power of lightning, which you can use to strike down your foes from above.

00:26:50.860 --> 00:26:55.240
Now the powers I listed for each of these are just an example of a single boon they may grant you.

00:26:55.980 --> 00:26:58.720
They each have about 20 different boons they can offer.

00:26:59.320 --> 00:26:59.520
Oh.

00:26:59.900 --> 00:27:04.500
And each boon also has different power levels that can increase as you progress as well.

00:27:04.600 --> 00:27:10.500
And these generate just randomly, so it's a crapshoot every time you interact with one and what's available to you.

00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:11.460
Every single time.

00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:12.060
Wow.

00:27:13.040 --> 00:27:17.380
Later in the game, you'll also be able to combine their boons to make even stronger ones.

00:27:17.480 --> 00:27:18.360
That's cool.

00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:22.800
It gives you an insane amount of variety in gameplay and fighting styles.

00:27:24.280 --> 00:27:26.380
These are also just the gods of Mount Olympus.

00:27:26.380 --> 00:27:30.360
We still have the gods of the Underworld to introduce, but we'll do that in a bit.

00:27:31.260 --> 00:27:35.940
When you receive a new boon, some of the time you'll have a quick chat with the god first.

00:27:36.760 --> 00:27:40.180
Sometimes it's story relevant, sometimes it's just nonsense and chit chat.

00:27:41.320 --> 00:27:45.660
You can also make them like you more by giving them offerings of nectar and ambrosia.

00:27:46.500 --> 00:27:51.420
This increases your relationship with them, causing them to give you more powerful boons and trinkets in return.

00:27:51.740 --> 00:27:56.760
So you can kind of warm them up and be like, hey babe, I brought you some fruit salad.

00:27:56.780 --> 00:27:57.860
It's called ambrosia.

00:27:58.520 --> 00:28:00.460
Can you hook me up with a better lightning bolt?

00:28:00.860 --> 00:28:02.040
That's exactly how it works, yeah.

00:28:02.340 --> 00:28:03.860
I love everything about that.

00:28:04.420 --> 00:28:13.600
As you meet the Olympian gods, they refer to you as their cousin, and they keep promising to help you escape the underworld, which is why they offer you the boons in the first place.

00:28:14.260 --> 00:28:23.200
The randomly generated rooms you're going through here in Tartarus have different types of shades that can hurt you, and you'll fight waves of them in every room.

00:28:24.420 --> 00:28:30.500
Instead of being harmless green shades, the shades that can hurt you stand out as they are reddish orange color.

00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:32.340
Ooh, the evil colors.

00:28:32.740 --> 00:28:35.840
Right, because as everyone knows, red is bad and green is good.

00:28:35.900 --> 00:28:36.300
Right.

00:28:36.920 --> 00:28:45.600
Each variety of shade being what you'd expect from a beat-em-up, some with like brute strength, some with magic spells, some that move fast, all of them trying to kill you.

00:28:46.600 --> 00:28:50.240
And every once in a while, a door sphere will sport a little skull on it.

00:28:50.760 --> 00:28:53.480
This indicates that there is a boss fight in the next room.

00:28:54.460 --> 00:28:58.980
There's two different types of boss fights, mini bosses and zone bosses.

00:29:00.180 --> 00:29:04.340
The mini bosses being just more difficult versions of shades you've been fighting all along.

00:29:05.100 --> 00:29:10.060
And the zone bosses are different Chthonic gods, which are the gods of the underworld.

00:29:10.120 --> 00:29:11.360
Chthonic gods?

00:29:12.580 --> 00:29:18.220
In Tartarus, the first boss you encounter is one of the three fury sisters.

00:29:19.300 --> 00:29:24.180
The furies are triplets, and over the course of the game, they'll switch out which one you fight at random.

00:29:25.200 --> 00:29:31.060
So there's Magira the first, Electo the second, and Tessiphony the third.

00:29:31.700 --> 00:29:33.240
She's the Anne Peggy sister.

00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:36.120
There's always one, you know.

00:29:36.240 --> 00:29:43.520
Yeah, the other two sisters can talk, while Tessiphony can only say one word, and that word is murder, and she struggles to save in that.

00:29:43.720 --> 00:29:44.380
Oh, honey.

00:29:45.080 --> 00:29:51.660
There's very few opportunities to heal yourself in Hades, which you probably are not going to be aware of on your first playthrough.

00:29:52.460 --> 00:30:03.040
So by the time you reach the Fury Sisters, your health is likely drained, which will inevitably result in your first death, if you haven't already died before getting to the first stage boss.

00:30:04.040 --> 00:30:08.100
After you die, the screen goes mostly black, but you can still see yourself.

00:30:09.360 --> 00:30:14.240
You fall into a pool of blood with the words, there is no escape written above you.

00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:15.700
That's so fucking cool.

00:30:16.780 --> 00:30:21.020
Regardless of when and where you died, you awaken in a new location.

00:30:21.760 --> 00:30:26.160
You're in something I can only describe as being a wading pool full of blood.

00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:30.660
You come crawling up out of it saying, I'm home.

00:30:31.400 --> 00:30:36.180
And you're in a grand marble hallway with big pillars every few feet.

00:30:37.220 --> 00:30:40.140
Above us, the words House of Hades appears.

00:30:41.140 --> 00:30:48.340
You head down the hallway, which is full of the green shades just kind of milling about, and you see an androgynous looking person napping with a notepad in their hands.

00:30:48.800 --> 00:30:53.220
You startle them awake, and this is the Chthonic god, Hypnos, god of sleep.

00:30:53.500 --> 00:30:55.940
They welcome you to the underworld explaining that you died.

00:30:56.500 --> 00:30:59.820
But then Hypnos recognizes you and is like, oh, you died?

00:31:00.980 --> 00:31:01.660
That's okay.

00:31:01.760 --> 00:31:02.980
Everyone dies sometimes.

00:31:03.520 --> 00:31:04.880
That's so sweet of him.

00:31:04.900 --> 00:31:05.700
I love Hypno.

00:31:06.580 --> 00:31:10.760
Hypnos' job is to check in every person that dies and comes to the underworld.

00:31:11.020 --> 00:31:15.080
They put the person whose god power is sleep in charge of checking people in?

00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:16.720
Yeah, a lot of shades make it by.

00:31:19.140 --> 00:31:23.880
But their job is to make sure that the records match with the shades' actual cause of death, and it always does.

00:31:23.900 --> 00:31:26.080
Okay, he's getting it done.

00:31:26.340 --> 00:31:31.180
And as you come through this hallway throughout the game, he'll often make fun of the way you died in the previous escaped attempt.

00:31:31.460 --> 00:31:34.060
Hypno will rip you on like, oh, you dumbass.

00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:36.560
He's like, wow, you must be really bad if that killed you.

00:31:36.920 --> 00:31:37.500
Oh, shit.

00:31:37.980 --> 00:31:39.420
Wait, so the game heckles you?

00:31:39.500 --> 00:31:40.480
A little bit sometimes.

00:31:40.560 --> 00:31:41.340
I do like that.

00:31:41.360 --> 00:31:43.520
I like when a game's like, you're not good at this.

00:31:44.500 --> 00:31:56.040
And just past Hypno's is the throne room, where you find your father, Hades, the god king of the underworld and brother to Zeus, sitting at his throne, which has a gigantic stone desk in front of it.

00:31:56.680 --> 00:32:02.480
The desk is strewn with papers and scrolls, and it makes the throne room more akin to a CEO office than anything.

00:32:03.260 --> 00:32:05.160
I love that Hades has paperwork.

00:32:05.520 --> 00:32:06.280
It's all just paperwork.

00:32:06.660 --> 00:32:07.100
Wow.

00:32:07.100 --> 00:32:08.220
All jobs are paperwork.

00:32:08.300 --> 00:32:08.920
That sucks.

00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:14.380
Next to Hades' desk is a big, red, three-headed dog named Cerberus.

00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:15.120
Aww.

00:32:15.500 --> 00:32:19.560
Yeah, he's a very good boy, and you should give him lots of pets every chance you get.

00:32:19.580 --> 00:32:20.520
You can pet the dog?

00:32:20.540 --> 00:32:22.640
You can of course pet the dog, and you should.

00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:24.140
That is the marker of a good game.

00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:28.580
On the other side of his desk are three shades wearing construction helmets.

00:32:29.740 --> 00:32:31.900
Wait, are they OSHA approved shades?

00:32:32.020 --> 00:32:32.880
I would assume so.

00:32:33.100 --> 00:32:33.660
Good for them.

00:32:34.300 --> 00:32:39.240
These guys let you use one of the currencies in the game to decorate the House of Hades as you progress through the game.

00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:41.340
You know, the place you're trying to escape.

00:32:41.860 --> 00:32:43.580
You can like put posters up and shit.

00:32:43.740 --> 00:32:45.680
Yeah, and actually you can make the place look really nice.

00:32:45.800 --> 00:32:46.580
Oh, I like that.

00:32:46.980 --> 00:32:50.460
There's also a spot for the Underworld's musician, Orpheus.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:52.400
Orpheus isn't a god.

00:32:53.200 --> 00:32:54.540
He isn't a shade either, really.

00:32:55.560 --> 00:32:56.540
He's a mortal human.

00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:57.160
Oh.

00:32:57.760 --> 00:33:04.840
He came to the Underworld looking for his wife and muse, who had died unfairly, in his opinion, where he ran into Hades.

00:33:06.120 --> 00:33:08.180
He pleaded his case to the god of the Underworld.

00:33:09.020 --> 00:33:11.540
He even played Hades a song that his muse had inspired.

00:33:12.080 --> 00:33:16.540
Hades was impressed by the song and offered Orpheus a chance to take his wife back with him.

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:20.200
But Orpheus failed to complete the one task assigned to him.

00:33:20.420 --> 00:33:20.960
Oh, no.

00:33:21.540 --> 00:33:27.300
And the task was nothing more than to trust that Hades will keep his word and send her back.

00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:29.460
I get it.

00:33:29.620 --> 00:33:30.280
Trust no one.

00:33:30.460 --> 00:33:32.420
Yeah, Orpheus failed the test of trust.

00:33:32.940 --> 00:33:40.760
Hades then forced Orpheus to live forever as a musical slave for his punishment and has kept him from ever seeing his wife again.

00:33:40.780 --> 00:33:41.520
Oh, my God.

00:33:41.540 --> 00:33:45.260
So they're both in the ender roll, but he can't access his wife because he fucked up?

00:33:45.360 --> 00:33:45.820
Yeah.

00:33:45.940 --> 00:33:47.200
That sucks.

00:33:47.920 --> 00:33:54.820
Orpheus only plays music and refuses to sing for Hades because he has nothing left to sing about.

00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:58.640
Hades makes fun of you for trying to escape the underworld.

00:33:59.020 --> 00:34:02.660
He tells you that it's impossible to do so, as nobody in history ever has.

00:34:03.060 --> 00:34:04.540
He's just being a dad about it.

00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:06.640
But you're welcome to keep trying.

00:34:06.780 --> 00:34:08.900
He'll see you back here after your next failed attempt.

00:34:09.880 --> 00:34:11.580
It's very good luck, kiddo.

00:34:11.680 --> 00:34:12.080
Yeah.

00:34:12.720 --> 00:34:17.040
Down a side hall, there's a woman named Nyx, and she's the goddess of the night.

00:34:18.140 --> 00:34:20.540
You thank her for putting you in touch with the gods of Olympus.

00:34:21.420 --> 00:34:24.540
She tells you that it was inevitable they'd get involved eventually anyway.

00:34:25.660 --> 00:34:32.400
She warns you, though, not to tell them why you're trying to escape, which even we the gamer don't know yet.

00:34:32.700 --> 00:34:33.080
Ooh.

00:34:33.920 --> 00:34:41.260
Down a side hallway, there are two locked rooms we'll get to explore later, but there's also often a man named Achilles.

00:34:42.060 --> 00:34:45.280
Achilles achieved the status of demigod in life.

00:34:46.060 --> 00:34:52.120
Legend has it, his mother dipped him in the River Styx as a baby, making him immortal.

00:34:52.580 --> 00:34:52.780
Oh.

00:34:53.380 --> 00:35:02.900
But she couldn't let go of him or she'd lose him to the river, so she held on to him by the heel, leaving Achilles with a weak spot.

00:35:04.720 --> 00:35:12.820
Having died in the Trojan War when he took an arrow to the heel, Hades Volun told him to train you, Zagreus, as a mighty warrior.

00:35:13.660 --> 00:35:17.540
Achilles will often give you fighting tips and pointers, helping you escape in secret.

00:35:18.680 --> 00:35:21.400
Another character you can meet tends to appear in random spots.

00:35:22.420 --> 00:35:25.140
Her name is Dusa, as in Medusa.

00:35:26.360 --> 00:35:29.340
The Gorgon with snakes for hair and turns people to stone.

00:35:29.460 --> 00:35:30.300
The Gorgon?

00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:34.660
A Gorgon is literally what Medusa is, like Medusa is a Gorgon.

00:35:34.740 --> 00:35:36.960
Oh, genre Medusa.

00:35:36.980 --> 00:35:39.560
Yeah, is any being with snakes for hair that turns people to stone.

00:35:39.700 --> 00:35:40.240
Gotcha.

00:35:40.720 --> 00:35:43.020
She's not dangerous though, she's actually very sweet.

00:35:43.960 --> 00:35:47.600
She's a floating head and is the maid of the House of Hades.

00:35:47.720 --> 00:35:48.340
Oh, shit.

00:35:48.540 --> 00:35:49.980
Get it, maid, Medusa.

00:35:50.220 --> 00:35:50.900
Oh, my God.

00:35:51.680 --> 00:35:56.060
Her snakes do all the actual work anyway, because again, she's just a floating head otherwise.

00:35:57.060 --> 00:36:03.960
She loves that you're so kind to her all the time, and she often gets nervous around you and runs off to go clean something after seeing something mildly flirty.

00:36:04.140 --> 00:36:05.700
She has a crush on Zagreus?

00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:06.520
A little bit.

00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:07.420
Aw, babe.

00:36:07.680 --> 00:36:10.960
And you can flirt back if you want to by offering her gifts and shit.

00:36:11.060 --> 00:36:13.580
You absolutely should, she sounds lovely.

00:36:14.740 --> 00:36:16.240
You can next enter your bedroom.

00:36:16.540 --> 00:36:19.000
It's a big room fit for the Prince of the Underworld.

00:36:20.080 --> 00:36:23.820
On one end is a gigantic mirror that takes up the entire wall.

00:36:24.220 --> 00:36:31.220
Through it, you can use one of the several currencies in the game to upgrade your abilities that will stay persistent through your death.

00:36:32.200 --> 00:36:37.340
Because all those boons you collect during your last escape attempt, they're gone now and you start from zero.

00:36:37.680 --> 00:36:38.200
Ah, right.

00:36:38.760 --> 00:36:48.300
The powers granted through the mirror helps to kind of mitigate that loss, and as you progress, you'll gain much more staying power, allowing you to survive longer and longer as you make your way out of the underworld.

00:36:49.140 --> 00:36:55.360
And this mirror is the one thing keeping Hades from being a full rogue-like and instead making it a rogue-lite.

00:36:56.400 --> 00:36:59.640
Because you lose all your boons, yes, but you can still level up and progress.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:10.020
But it's also why this game resonates so well with all levels of ability, because highly skilled players won't need the leveling up as much, but people who need the help can grow over time and still get the same outcome.

00:37:10.780 --> 00:37:16.100
You pass through your bedroom to another chamber, and in this chamber is a little skeleton man in the center.

00:37:16.680 --> 00:37:17.680
His name is Skelly.

00:37:20.200 --> 00:37:21.260
And he's your punching bag.

00:37:22.020 --> 00:37:22.980
Literal punching bag?

00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:23.360
Literal.

00:37:23.380 --> 00:37:26.260
His only purpose is to let you practice your moves on him.

00:37:26.440 --> 00:37:26.980
Oh, honey.

00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:30.480
As there are also five other weapons in the room besides your sword.

00:37:31.380 --> 00:37:38.880
Now you have a spear, a shield, a bow and arrow, metal gloves, and a machine gun slash rocket launcher.

00:37:39.160 --> 00:37:41.040
Okay, so one of these things is not like the other.

00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:44.380
Yeah, honestly, I think the machine gun is the worst weapon anyway.

00:37:44.620 --> 00:37:45.160
Really?

00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:47.000
But others might disagree.

00:37:47.320 --> 00:37:47.880
Fair enough.

00:37:48.140 --> 00:37:49.220
Because that's the beauty here.

00:37:49.240 --> 00:37:51.200
You can choose which weapon works best for you.

00:37:51.340 --> 00:37:51.680
Yeah.

00:37:52.020 --> 00:37:55.520
With the randomly generated boons, you never know how the next round is gonna go anyway.

00:37:55.800 --> 00:37:59.020
A machine gun feels so out of place in this world.

00:37:59.140 --> 00:38:00.040
Fully out of place.

00:38:00.540 --> 00:38:03.320
Don't know why they included it, because it also has a rocket launcher attached.

00:38:03.620 --> 00:38:08.240
I mean, I love a rocket launcher in a game, but it doesn't feel great in this world.

00:38:08.760 --> 00:38:14.380
Well, it does pay to actually learn each weapon as you discover the hundreds of playstyle combinations available to you.

00:38:15.260 --> 00:38:17.080
From this room, there's an archway.

00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:25.640
And once you go through it, you land back at the start of Tartarus, in front of the door with your dad's face on it, ready to begin your escape attempt once again.

00:38:27.060 --> 00:38:32.680
So real quick, a lot of what I just said, you do not actually see on your first trip to the House of Hades.

00:38:33.240 --> 00:38:37.520
A lot of it appears after your first trip or after you unlock or buy certain things.

00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:41.020
For example, the additional weapons and Skelly the punching bag.

00:38:41.300 --> 00:38:44.200
You first need to unlock each weapon one at a time.

00:38:44.380 --> 00:38:47.140
Oh, and there's five different ones, so it takes a couple rounds.

00:38:47.180 --> 00:38:50.780
Yeah, and Skelly doesn't appear until after the first unlocked weapon anyway.

00:38:52.200 --> 00:38:59.220
But you're going to be coming through here a lot, so I just wanted to cover it all on the first round, because I have no idea how many times you're gonna die.

00:38:59.240 --> 00:39:00.560
Fair enough.

00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:06.280
I've seen 25-minute speed runs where the person doesn't die even once, so they miss out on all of this, technically.

00:39:06.300 --> 00:39:06.960
Holy shit.

00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:10.240
But I'm sure if they're good enough to speed run, they probably already know the story.

00:39:10.260 --> 00:39:12.840
Yeah, this isn't their first rodeo.

00:39:12.840 --> 00:39:13.180
Right.

00:39:14.140 --> 00:39:23.600
And that cycle we just did, trying to escape the Underworld, getting killed, talking to people in House of Hades, gearing up and heading back out, that's basically the whole game.

00:39:24.200 --> 00:39:29.420
And you're gonna do this over and over again, leveling up and making it a little further, hopefully, every try.

00:39:29.440 --> 00:39:32.860
Honestly, sometimes you won't make it a little further, and that's okay, too.

00:39:33.420 --> 00:39:38.760
Because death is just a part of the game, and you're gonna die a lot, so, like, don't sweat over it when you do.

00:39:39.160 --> 00:39:44.520
And that feels weird to say, because our natural instinct and this game's ultimate goal is to avoid death.

00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:50.320
But it's also inevitable, so just stop worrying about it and concentrate on the life you're currently in the middle of living.

00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:53.480
And you can take that as game or life advice, your choice.

00:39:53.500 --> 00:39:54.340
Fair enough.

00:39:54.580 --> 00:39:58.040
This cycle was actually the reason I almost didn't cover Hades for the show.

00:39:58.580 --> 00:40:02.440
Yeah, you know, when you started playing this, you were like, we could never do this for the show.

00:40:02.680 --> 00:40:03.780
And here we are now.

00:40:04.220 --> 00:40:08.280
Yeah, I thought this was all there was, and hopefully, yeah, I'll eventually escape.

00:40:09.140 --> 00:40:20.720
But knowing the player was going to be playing this over and over again, Supergiant trickled the story out in such small doses that I didn't realize just how invested I started to become in the characters.

00:40:20.960 --> 00:40:21.980
It snuck up on you?

00:40:22.020 --> 00:40:22.520
It did.

00:40:22.540 --> 00:40:26.220
It started, like, with me saying to Andrea, this funny thing happened in the game today.

00:40:26.380 --> 00:40:32.360
And then it progressed to, like, so this god is mad at this other god, and it's all because of some drama with a third god.

00:40:33.700 --> 00:40:35.380
Full gossip girl shit.

00:40:35.600 --> 00:40:42.020
Yeah, it started to become this soap opera playing out in front of me, like, between the rounds of me trying to escape the underworld.

00:40:42.420 --> 00:40:49.120
But because everyone is hot, muscular and half naked, it's probably closer to, like, professional wrestling's storytelling than days of our lives.

00:40:49.260 --> 00:40:50.520
Oh, I love that.

00:40:51.580 --> 00:40:58.220
And due to the fact that all of the levels and boons appear at random, some things come to you out of logical order.

00:40:59.320 --> 00:41:01.720
But you're in the underworld, outside of time and space.

00:41:01.740 --> 00:41:04.340
So those kinds of things just kind of happen sometimes.

00:41:04.540 --> 00:41:05.700
Jeremy, bury me, baby.

00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:13.300
So I'm gonna do my best to put the story in logical order from here out, because the game didn't even start at the inciting incident.

00:41:14.720 --> 00:41:17.100
Well, we bounce around, because time is meaningless.

00:41:18.700 --> 00:41:25.020
That happened before we started the game, which is why we're this far along and still have no fucking idea why we're trying to escape.

00:41:25.340 --> 00:41:29.040
So that's why I'm gonna go backwards to the inciting incident and then go forward from there.

00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:34.440
As you're running through the game, you also have to pass through your bedroom to restart the cycle.

00:41:35.260 --> 00:41:38.040
If you approach your bed, you're given the option to rest.

00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:42.320
And 99% of the time, you say that you don't need any rest right now.

00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:47.800
But one time, early in the game, you decide you actually do need to take a rest.

00:41:48.460 --> 00:41:49.780
And we get a flashback scene.

00:41:51.120 --> 00:41:53.880
The narrator breaks down the scene over the black and white flashback.

00:41:55.220 --> 00:41:57.300
It's the nighttime equivalent in House of Hades.

00:41:58.040 --> 00:41:59.100
And everyone is asleep.

00:42:00.060 --> 00:42:01.920
Except for Prince Zagreus.

00:42:02.940 --> 00:42:05.640
He's awake, and he has a hankering for some mischief.

00:42:06.160 --> 00:42:11.740
The house is silent, as you had Hypnos cast his magic over everyone in the house except for you, of course.

00:42:12.500 --> 00:42:16.600
After the narrator explains this, you break the fourth wall and tell him to lower his voice.

00:42:16.760 --> 00:42:18.020
You're trying to cause some mischief.

00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:18.860
Ooh.

00:42:20.060 --> 00:42:22.780
You head out of your room into the hall towards your father's throne.

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:27.320
The narrator says that you are not ready for what you're about to find inside his desk.

00:42:28.220 --> 00:42:31.360
So you go straight to the desk because you can obviously still hear the narrator.

00:42:32.080 --> 00:42:36.760
As you approach it, the narrator says that for a long time, you've questioned your true identity.

00:42:37.700 --> 00:42:43.080
You've always felt out of place in the Underworld, and asking Hades about it would be a very bad idea.

00:42:44.240 --> 00:42:51.240
So you have to go behind his back to find out for yourself if there's anything you don't know about your own backstory.

00:42:51.900 --> 00:42:56.020
As you dig through the desk, you say to the narrator, you're not listening to him anymore.

00:42:56.420 --> 00:42:57.620
You want to find it for yourself.

00:42:58.380 --> 00:43:00.280
You eventually find a note in one of the drawers.

00:43:01.480 --> 00:43:04.480
It's written in a woman's handwriting that you do not recognize.

00:43:05.200 --> 00:43:17.220
The note is addressed to Hades, and says that the writer is leaving the Underworld, no longer feeling like she belongs here, but she can't return to Mount Olympus, so she's going to go find somewhere else to live.

00:43:18.080 --> 00:43:21.300
That mysterious place in between the Underworld and Mount Olympus.

00:43:21.960 --> 00:43:22.720
We call it Greece.

00:43:23.620 --> 00:43:24.780
It's just Greece.

00:43:25.140 --> 00:43:25.840
Yeah, it's just Greece.

00:43:26.560 --> 00:43:34.180
She wants to just live in a cottage by the sea and tend to a small garden there, which my mom literally said the same thing to me just this last week.

00:43:34.420 --> 00:43:36.720
And have you questioned your parentage at all?

00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:37.700
No, I haven't.

00:43:38.620 --> 00:43:41.280
She says to look after Cerberus, she's going to miss him.

00:43:41.580 --> 00:43:43.120
Signed Persephone.

00:43:43.960 --> 00:43:45.100
Oh, interesting.

00:43:45.820 --> 00:43:52.500
You finish reading the note, and the narrator says that you took a minute to absorb the meaning of this letter written by your mother.

00:43:52.900 --> 00:43:54.360
And you go, I'm sorry, my what?

00:43:55.460 --> 00:43:57.600
You address the narrator of like, wait, mommy?

00:43:57.980 --> 00:43:58.780
Nyx is my mother.

00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:00.180
Who the fuck is Persephone?

00:44:00.200 --> 00:44:01.380
And why did you just call her my mother?

00:44:01.840 --> 00:44:05.720
And the narrator goes, so Zagreus discovered his true parentage through pure chance.

00:44:06.060 --> 00:44:06.940
Oh my God.

00:44:07.300 --> 00:44:09.760
Persephone was once the queen of the underworld.

00:44:10.500 --> 00:44:14.460
But somehow, despite what Hades said to you earlier, she escaped.

00:44:15.780 --> 00:44:18.600
You storm off to go question your father in his bedchambers.

00:44:19.400 --> 00:44:22.820
But you run into Nyx on the way, seeing as how she's the goddess of the night.

00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:26.200
And your adoptive mother, I suppose?

00:44:26.300 --> 00:44:27.920
Yeah, you just found out.

00:44:28.740 --> 00:44:30.260
And you tell her, you know everything.

00:44:30.660 --> 00:44:33.980
And she immediately is like, damn, so you found out, huh?

00:44:34.500 --> 00:44:37.500
She just accepts this and is like, cool, I don't have to keep this a secret anymore.

00:44:38.720 --> 00:44:42.200
I'm assuming she still has love for you and affection for you, though.

00:44:42.220 --> 00:44:43.060
Tons, yeah.

00:44:43.080 --> 00:44:46.800
There's a lot of chthonic gods that are her children, so she is a mother at heart.

00:44:48.160 --> 00:44:51.060
She admits to it all and says it's a bit more complicated than that.

00:44:51.780 --> 00:44:54.120
But you awaken and we don't get to hear the rest.

00:44:55.100 --> 00:45:00.240
The implication also being that you set out right after this conversation on your first escape attempt.

00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:09.220
As you work your way back to the Fury Sisters at the end of Tartarus, you can encounter one of the three gift givers on your journey.

00:45:10.560 --> 00:45:18.800
One of the rewards takes you to a big room with really nothing more than a giant boulder in it and a huge, muscle-bound man standing next to it.

00:45:19.920 --> 00:45:25.080
The man's name is Sisyphus, and the boulder's name is Boldy.

00:45:25.340 --> 00:45:27.580
This is my favorite character in all mythology.

00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:31.140
Not Sisyphus, Boldy.

00:45:32.540 --> 00:45:34.460
I fucking love Boldy.

00:45:34.880 --> 00:45:40.360
I've seen this over your shoulder in just watching you play and being like, is that Sisyphus in the boulder?

00:45:40.380 --> 00:45:41.840
And you're like, yeah, this is Boldy.

00:45:41.860 --> 00:45:43.620
And I was like, I fucking love Boldy.

00:45:43.660 --> 00:45:44.380
This is great.

00:45:44.560 --> 00:45:52.200
Well, the story of Sisyphus is that he was once a king on Earth, and he successfully cheated death twice in his lifetime.

00:45:52.880 --> 00:46:00.060
The first time, Thanatos, the god of death and Nyx's actual son, came for Sisyphus, for his time had come.

00:46:00.760 --> 00:46:05.500
Thanatos is like a super sexy version of death as we think of him today.

00:46:06.560 --> 00:46:14.760
He still has the big sickle blade and black cloak, but he's like a Tetsuya Nomura wet dream, attractive and sexy.

00:46:14.880 --> 00:46:15.720
I love that.

00:46:15.720 --> 00:46:17.680
I love how horny this game is.

00:46:17.820 --> 00:46:25.040
Fully, Sisyphus successfully trapped Thanatos and kept him hostage until Thanatos agreed to let him live.

00:46:25.380 --> 00:46:26.260
That's pretty funny.

00:46:27.280 --> 00:46:33.540
When Sisyphus died the second time, he tricked Hades himself into letting him go back to Earth.

00:46:33.880 --> 00:46:34.480
Wow.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:41.380
He told Hades that he was worried his wife hadn't performed all of the correct rituals for a proper royal burial.

00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:47.320
He appealed to Hades' sense of respect for royalty and convinced Hades to let him go back up and check.

00:46:47.620 --> 00:46:49.420
That's fucking hysterical.

00:46:49.860 --> 00:46:52.580
Hades allowed it, and Sisyphus didn't return.

00:46:53.220 --> 00:46:57.740
So when Sisyphus died the third time, Hades punished him immediately.

00:46:58.960 --> 00:47:02.640
His punishment being to push this boulder up to the top of a hill.

00:47:03.460 --> 00:47:09.300
But just before he reaches the top, that boulder will always roll back to the bottom.

00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:13.520
Because he's like, fool me twice, fuck you.

00:47:15.620 --> 00:47:18.940
And it's totally not a metaphor for how this game is going to go for you at all.

00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:22.320
No, I don't see any symbolism in this in any way, shape or form.

00:47:23.140 --> 00:47:29.880
Also, being in Tartarus, the Fury Sisters get to add extra torment to his life by harassing him constantly.

00:47:30.040 --> 00:47:32.240
So they're heckling him while he's pushing Boldy?

00:47:32.260 --> 00:47:34.460
That's fucking great.

00:47:34.780 --> 00:47:36.640
Honestly, it was a good swing.

00:47:36.660 --> 00:47:38.600
He had a good run.

00:47:39.660 --> 00:47:45.960
I know every day he pushes this boulder up a hill and it's never going to happen, but he's got to chuckle to himself and be like, honestly, worth it.

00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:46.860
A for effort, buddy.

00:47:47.640 --> 00:47:49.900
Sisyphus is super nice to you, though.

00:47:50.180 --> 00:47:54.860
He's been getting tortured for a really long time already, and he's just a big old softy now.

00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:57.000
He sounds like the coolest fucking person.

00:47:57.240 --> 00:48:02.720
Yeah, he's the kindest, sweetest person in the Underworld, and just kind of a, gosh golly, G.

00:48:02.740 --> 00:48:03.780
Willikers kind of guy.

00:48:03.800 --> 00:48:06.200
So he's soft on top of this?

00:48:06.320 --> 00:48:07.180
Super soft.

00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:08.320
This is the best character.

00:48:08.740 --> 00:48:15.020
And Boldy has a face carved into him as well, and you should always talk to Boldy, even though he never has anything to say.

00:48:15.040 --> 00:48:16.180
Well, he's a boulder.

00:48:16.200 --> 00:48:22.620
Sisyphus has three rewards for you, each one granting you a grip of currency of your choosing or some health.

00:48:23.640 --> 00:48:37.440
And I know I just keep saying currency, but there's a few different kinds, and they each unlock different things, and it just depends on what you're trying to unlock next that helps you decide which to choose, because what the currency itself is is fully arbitrary.

00:48:38.460 --> 00:48:45.960
Eventually, you'll make it back to the Fury Sisters, and we find out they were sent here specifically to stop you from moving on.

00:48:46.160 --> 00:48:46.840
Oh, shit.

00:48:47.300 --> 00:48:49.280
It's nothing personal, it's just orders.

00:48:50.080 --> 00:48:54.460
With enough experience and the right boons, you defeat whichever Fury Sister you encountered.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.960
This releases Magira, and you can see her in the House of Hades and the Employee Break Room from time to time, because they have one.

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:03.960
I was just going to say, there's a fucking Employee Break Room?

00:49:05.240 --> 00:49:09.680
Are they like microwaving fish in there and putting up posters like, don't forget to wash your hands in hell?

00:49:09.700 --> 00:49:10.720
Like, that's wild!

00:49:11.060 --> 00:49:12.780
Basically that, but it does have a chef.

00:49:13.560 --> 00:49:14.100
Honestly?

00:49:14.420 --> 00:49:14.860
Flex.

00:49:15.640 --> 00:49:18.220
And you can also flirt with Magira into liking you back.

00:49:18.800 --> 00:49:24.640
Because of course, this horny ass game is like, yeah, of course you can flirt with whoever you want to.

00:49:24.660 --> 00:49:26.480
Bisexual nightmare.

00:49:27.120 --> 00:49:31.160
But she's still going to fight you every time you make it to her lair and tartarus, because that's her job.

00:49:31.780 --> 00:49:37.460
And after you defeat one of the furies, the next sphere shows a set of stairs instead of a prize.

00:49:38.640 --> 00:49:41.820
The next room you enter is a staging area between zones.

00:49:42.940 --> 00:49:48.040
When you enter these rooms, Hades' voice will often ring out, and he's usually pretty pissed off at you for making it this far.

00:49:48.540 --> 00:49:49.600
Well, yeah.

00:49:50.640 --> 00:49:54.860
Tartarus was just the first zone, and we have a lot of dine to do before we get out of here.

00:49:55.380 --> 00:49:59.500
At least you can buy some boons from a big cauldron called Charon's Well.

00:49:59.880 --> 00:50:02.780
Now Charon is the Stygian Boatman.

00:50:03.380 --> 00:50:03.580
Oh.

00:50:03.720 --> 00:50:06.060
He steers the boat down the River Styx.

00:50:06.300 --> 00:50:07.840
He's the River Styx gondolier?

00:50:07.940 --> 00:50:10.720
Yeah, he's the one guiding the deceased to the underworld.

00:50:10.900 --> 00:50:15.520
Do you ever think, like, on Halloween in Hell, he'll put on the stripy shirt and the hat and, like, sing?

00:50:18.180 --> 00:50:21.520
He doesn't seem to have that level of whimsy to him, unfortunately.

00:50:22.320 --> 00:50:23.980
Everyone should have more whimsy.

00:50:24.240 --> 00:50:28.400
Yeah, because honestly, he's the worst possible god for this fucking job.

00:50:28.480 --> 00:50:28.920
Really?

00:50:29.260 --> 00:50:32.820
Yeah, he's more what we think of when we think of the character Death.

00:50:33.740 --> 00:50:39.120
He's basically a skeleton that's shrouded in darkness, and he only groans and growls.

00:50:39.140 --> 00:50:40.120
He never speaks.

00:50:40.200 --> 00:50:41.960
So it's a lot of doom and gloom for him.

00:50:42.360 --> 00:50:42.780
Yeah.

00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:50.200
So if you're newly dead and cruising down this river, he's just going to be terrifying and offer you nothing as far as answers go.

00:50:51.260 --> 00:50:53.260
That's kind of the experience you want, though.

00:50:53.520 --> 00:50:54.080
For Death?

00:50:54.100 --> 00:50:55.260
Yeah, I think so.

00:50:56.160 --> 00:50:56.640
You know?

00:50:56.980 --> 00:51:02.540
Well, for Zagreus, he's the shopkeeper, an actual demigod shopkeeper.

00:51:05.140 --> 00:51:06.460
Yeah, his life kind of sucks.

00:51:06.620 --> 00:51:12.180
He is the Death bus driver, basically, and then the fucking nepo baby of the underworld.

00:51:12.200 --> 00:51:15.860
His boss's kid is like, hey, can you hook me up with this shit?

00:51:16.400 --> 00:51:16.940
Poor guy.

00:51:17.280 --> 00:51:18.640
I get why he's grumpy.

00:51:19.060 --> 00:51:24.600
He has boons and power-ups for sale that are randomly chosen, and he's one of the reward options for finishing a room.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:33.200
But he also has those cauldrons spread throughout the levels, and they always contain three random rewards as well that you can buy using one of your many currencies.

00:51:33.680 --> 00:51:37.500
You finally move on from Tartarus onto the next zone, Asphodel.

00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:41.820
Asphodel looks like it's inside a volcano, as it's kind of the lava zone.

00:51:42.080 --> 00:51:42.920
Oh, that's cool.

00:51:43.540 --> 00:51:54.860
Asphodel used to be beautiful and green, but then the lava river of Phlegathon overflowed, killing everything here and filling every hole and ditch with ultra hot lava.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:56.940
Your pronunciation is killing it right now.

00:51:56.960 --> 00:51:59.100
I would have fucked up every single thing you said.

00:51:59.100 --> 00:52:00.160
I'm trying real hard.

00:52:00.180 --> 00:52:02.020
I've been looking at these words a long time.

00:52:02.040 --> 00:52:04.600
There's a name coming up here that I'm worried about.

00:52:05.620 --> 00:52:08.840
So everyone be patient with Tom because he's doing a better job than I ever could.

00:52:09.460 --> 00:52:16.460
Instead of doors at the end of levels, there's a raft of bones with the crystal ball on a plinth displaying the rewards instead.

00:52:16.540 --> 00:52:17.660
That's so punk rock.

00:52:18.320 --> 00:52:22.340
Here we fight more skeletons than shades and some fire-based creatures.

00:52:22.700 --> 00:52:29.220
As you progress through the game, two of the currencies you can obtain are nectar and ambrosia, which I briefly mentioned earlier.

00:52:29.240 --> 00:52:31.660
Yeah, you can give them to the gods as gifts, right?

00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:32.160
Right.

00:52:32.420 --> 00:52:33.900
Nectar is fairly common.

00:52:34.280 --> 00:52:38.300
Ambrosia is rare as fuck, and you have to win boss fights to get that.

00:52:38.620 --> 00:52:41.260
And they only give ambrosia the first time you beat them.

00:52:41.740 --> 00:52:45.100
Next round, if you make it back to them, you get a very common currency instead.

00:52:45.740 --> 00:52:49.160
Oh shit, so you can't really harvest that thoughtfully.

00:52:49.460 --> 00:52:53.420
No, you need to use that very specifically on what you want to use it for.

00:52:54.040 --> 00:52:57.720
But both nectar and ambrosia technically have the same use.

00:52:58.780 --> 00:53:05.280
Every talkative NPC you encounter, whether it's an Olympus god or even Dusa, you can offer them nectar.

00:53:05.860 --> 00:53:09.140
It's considered a great honor and is contraband in the underworld.

00:53:09.600 --> 00:53:09.800
Oh.

00:53:10.600 --> 00:53:15.960
Hades has outlawed it because it reminds him of the Olympic gods and thereby his stupid brother Zeus.

00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:18.740
That's some upstairs shit.

00:53:18.760 --> 00:53:19.980
You're in the basement, bitch.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:22.220
Yeah, you're not allowed to have that down here.

00:53:22.620 --> 00:53:27.860
The idea that the underworld has contraband is very funny to me as well.

00:53:27.880 --> 00:53:29.840
There are still things that are illegal down there, right?

00:53:29.860 --> 00:53:32.560
Yeah, like honestly, it should be a fucking party.

00:53:33.020 --> 00:53:36.540
But you offer these people nectar, and it increases your relationship with them.

00:53:37.220 --> 00:53:45.620
After the first offering, they'll give you a trinket that you can wear that will give you advantages like the ability to find health inside these clay pots you see in every room.

00:53:46.100 --> 00:53:51.940
Most of the Olympic gods, on the other hand, give you a trinket that guarantees a boon from them that will appear in the next room.

00:53:52.620 --> 00:53:55.680
Subsequent offerings of nectar keep increasing your friendship.

00:53:55.820 --> 00:53:59.380
Sometimes it develops into a loving relationship, like with Dusa.

00:54:01.520 --> 00:54:06.140
As you give her more and more nectar, the two of you get to chatting and flirting quite a bit.

00:54:06.440 --> 00:54:07.180
Yes.

00:54:07.580 --> 00:54:13.400
So I'm assuming Zagreus is kind of into whoever you as the player is trying to invest your time into, right?

00:54:13.420 --> 00:54:14.480
Most definitely, yeah.

00:54:14.680 --> 00:54:18.600
God, what I would give for the master cut of Zagreus flirting with everyone.

00:54:18.620 --> 00:54:19.720
I'm sure that exists.

00:54:19.920 --> 00:54:21.140
And I'm going to find it.

00:54:21.220 --> 00:54:22.180
I'm sure you could play it.

00:54:22.480 --> 00:54:26.360
And this is quite the scandal, because you're the prince, and she's a maid.

00:54:26.920 --> 00:54:30.640
Once you max out that relationship, you can start offering ambrosia.

00:54:31.460 --> 00:54:34.980
And if nectar was like weed, ambrosia is like ecstasy.

00:54:36.060 --> 00:54:37.400
Oh, we're partying!

00:54:37.420 --> 00:54:38.280
Hell yeah!

00:54:38.300 --> 00:54:41.560
Yeah, it's way more illegal, and way more fun.

00:54:41.880 --> 00:54:45.120
Yeah, the fun ones usually are, I'm not going to lie.

00:54:45.700 --> 00:54:47.120
I used to be fun, guys.

00:54:47.140 --> 00:54:48.740
That sounds like a great time.

00:54:50.620 --> 00:54:54.660
Well, not everyone, but some will give you a second trinket.

00:54:55.060 --> 00:54:57.900
These trinkets will give you a summon you can call in battle.

00:54:58.380 --> 00:55:01.960
Such as Dusa, she'll come to help you by turning your enemies into stone.

00:55:02.220 --> 00:55:03.760
She's like, don't hurt my mans.

00:55:04.780 --> 00:55:12.260
Or if you get to the point of offering Ambrosia to Sisyphus, Boldy will come falling from the sky when you summon him to crush your enemies.

00:55:12.680 --> 00:55:14.460
That is fucking hysterical.

00:55:14.460 --> 00:55:17.180
I almost want to look that up right now just to see Boldy.

00:55:17.680 --> 00:55:20.200
Big ass boulder with a little face carved into it.

00:55:20.220 --> 00:55:21.440
Is it a happy face, by the way?

00:55:21.460 --> 00:55:22.360
Yeah, it's a happy face.

00:55:22.380 --> 00:55:23.580
With a sweet little grin?

00:55:23.720 --> 00:55:24.160
Yeah.

00:55:24.180 --> 00:55:27.340
Yeah, a giant boulder with a sweet little grin crushing your enemies.

00:55:27.640 --> 00:55:29.340
I dream about that, Tom.

00:55:29.400 --> 00:55:30.820
I'll have to show it to you after we're done.

00:55:30.820 --> 00:55:32.620
That is genuinely a daydream of mine.

00:55:33.640 --> 00:55:39.780
Well, the downside to giving Ambrosia to Dusa is finding out she isn't actually attracted to you at all.

00:55:40.140 --> 00:55:41.680
Is she just being polite?

00:55:42.160 --> 00:55:44.140
Yeah, she wasn't flirting before.

00:55:44.200 --> 00:55:50.780
She was just really nervous because her boss, Nix, told her she shouldn't be speaking with the royals.

00:55:51.320 --> 00:55:53.100
And that she should just stick to cleaning.

00:55:54.960 --> 00:56:00.120
The fact that you were talking to her just made her nervous she would get in trouble with Nix for not working.

00:56:00.880 --> 00:56:03.920
Or in trouble with you for not talking.

00:56:04.580 --> 00:56:10.180
Okay, now I feel bad because 110%, this is the stripper being nice to you, she's just doing her job.

00:56:10.200 --> 00:56:11.280
She's not that into you.

00:56:11.460 --> 00:56:14.400
Yeah, she felt kind of trapped in these situations.

00:56:14.700 --> 00:56:17.980
Oh my god, okay, so life lesson, don't hit on people while they're at work.

00:56:18.200 --> 00:56:18.960
Definitely never.

00:56:19.180 --> 00:56:19.700
Straight up.

00:56:20.120 --> 00:56:21.680
Oh, okay, now I feel like a creep.

00:56:23.180 --> 00:56:27.520
Well, you're embarrassed, of course, because getting rejected is not easy on anyone.

00:56:27.920 --> 00:56:37.620
Especially for Zagreus, who's one Nepo baby, two fucking gorgeous, so he's like, oh shit, my bad, I misread that situation entirely.

00:56:37.640 --> 00:56:41.720
I would put Dusa as one of the least attractive people in the House of Hades too.

00:56:42.020 --> 00:56:43.840
She's got a cool personality though, right?

00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:45.960
Right, entirely, which is why you fall for her.

00:56:47.560 --> 00:56:52.560
But you take it in stride, and the two of you develop an amazing platonic friendship from there.

00:56:52.780 --> 00:56:56.700
Oh, I like that, okay, so she's like, yeah, I'm not trying to hit it, but we can hang out.

00:56:56.880 --> 00:56:59.720
Yeah, she's like, I'm down to be your friend, but that's really all I'm looking for.

00:57:00.300 --> 00:57:01.040
I understand that.

00:57:01.060 --> 00:57:03.180
I'm glad that Zagreus also respects that.

00:57:03.240 --> 00:57:04.520
That's the appropriate response.

00:57:04.900 --> 00:57:08.000
She even returns all the nectar and ambrosia you gave her.

00:57:08.720 --> 00:57:10.700
Oh, actually, that's really handy, right?

00:57:10.720 --> 00:57:12.480
Because then you can use it with other gods.

00:57:12.600 --> 00:57:19.480
Yeah, because she felt it would be inappropriate to keep knowing they were gifts from your heart, and she doesn't have one because she's just a floating head.

00:57:20.700 --> 00:57:21.580
Shut the fuck up.

00:57:23.300 --> 00:57:27.260
While fighting through Asphodel, you can encounter another of the gift givers.

00:57:28.400 --> 00:57:30.160
Her name is Eurydice.

00:57:30.700 --> 00:57:31.780
Eurydice.

00:57:31.780 --> 00:57:32.980
Wow, that's beautiful.

00:57:33.640 --> 00:57:39.660
Eurydice is a singer and is always singing a hauntingly beautiful song when you arrive in her area.

00:57:40.140 --> 00:57:43.220
She's a bit more mythical than the other residents of the Underworld.

00:57:44.120 --> 00:57:45.760
She's a deceased wood nymph.

00:57:46.380 --> 00:57:54.240
She was supposed to be immortal, but a venomous snake bite managed to kill her, and she became the first wood nymph to come to the Underworld.

00:57:55.600 --> 00:58:00.040
When you say wood nymph, is this one of those half-deer foot kind of people?

00:58:00.380 --> 00:58:03.920
No, she has a little tree growing out of her head instead of hair.

00:58:03.920 --> 00:58:06.800
Part of her is like she'd be able to hide in the woods.

00:58:07.100 --> 00:58:07.840
That's sick.

00:58:07.980 --> 00:58:09.120
I also want to take a beat.

00:58:09.520 --> 00:58:11.360
Every piece of art for this game is gorgeous.

00:58:11.460 --> 00:58:12.220
Insane.

00:58:12.600 --> 00:58:15.420
The way you're saying this, I'm like, I know that's fucking cool as shit.

00:58:15.500 --> 00:58:15.900
Yeah.

00:58:16.240 --> 00:58:22.000
Her husband was so struck with grief, he snuck into the Underworld and begged Hades to give her back.

00:58:22.420 --> 00:58:24.260
She's not supposed to be able to die.

00:58:24.440 --> 00:58:25.800
She's supposed to be an immortal.

00:58:26.780 --> 00:58:29.880
She was also his muse, and he needs her back.

00:58:30.420 --> 00:58:34.580
So Hades had him play one of the songs she inspired, and he loved it.

00:58:35.100 --> 00:58:37.860
Hades granted the husband his wish on one condition.

00:58:38.840 --> 00:58:43.420
He had to trust that Hades was keeping his word, and that she was following behind him.

00:58:44.140 --> 00:58:47.960
But his insecurities got the best of him, and he looked back.

00:58:48.960 --> 00:58:53.000
She was there, following behind him, and then she wasn't.

00:58:53.960 --> 00:58:58.420
Oh, so the core value here is, Hades is actually very trustworthy.

00:58:58.480 --> 00:58:58.820
Yeah.

00:58:58.880 --> 00:59:01.620
Y'all motherfuckers need to put your heart in there.

00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:04.360
And also, all these women are muses.

00:59:05.020 --> 00:59:11.560
These dudes should probably read a book or go outside, touch some grass, get some inspo up otherwise.

00:59:12.020 --> 00:59:20.720
Well, ever since, she's been imprisoned here in Asphodel, while her husband, Orpheus, is kept as a musical slave in the House of Hades.

00:59:21.920 --> 00:59:23.780
Yes, I was like, this has happened before.

00:59:23.960 --> 00:59:25.260
Got it, other side of the coin.

00:59:25.660 --> 00:59:26.200
I'm there.

00:59:26.980 --> 00:59:28.100
That is very sad.

00:59:28.800 --> 00:59:33.120
She didn't even know that he was there until you heard the two stories and put them together.

00:59:33.800 --> 00:59:34.060
Oh.

00:59:35.260 --> 00:59:40.180
The gifts she can offer you are one of three upgrades to your booms through the magic of her golden voice.

00:59:40.780 --> 00:59:46.080
She also might be my favorite NPC because of her amazing singing voice and her tragic story.

00:59:47.360 --> 00:59:50.420
You are a sucker for a beautiful voice and some sad shit.

00:59:50.960 --> 00:59:55.900
These gift givers don't appear on every attempt either, as room rewards are random.

00:59:56.680 --> 01:00:00.240
But if they're going to appear, they tend to appear around the halfway mark through a zone.

01:00:01.200 --> 01:00:05.860
Also, doors and boats with spheres are also not the only way to move forward in the game.

01:00:06.520 --> 01:00:11.820
On occasion, a hole will open up at the completion of a room with purple wispy smoke coming out of it.

01:00:12.180 --> 01:00:14.160
These are called Chaos Gates.

01:00:15.340 --> 01:00:19.980
They're optional, and in order to descend into the hole, you have to sacrifice some of your health.

01:00:20.760 --> 01:00:20.960
Oh.

01:00:22.060 --> 01:00:25.880
Once down there, you encounter the god Chaos.

01:00:26.760 --> 01:00:29.680
Chaos is the primordial originator.

01:00:30.340 --> 01:00:30.560
Mm.

01:00:31.220 --> 01:00:34.360
Nyx was birthed from the same void that Chaos controls.

01:00:35.200 --> 01:00:38.120
And not just controls, but also kind of is the void.

01:00:38.900 --> 01:00:39.520
Okay.

01:00:39.520 --> 01:00:42.840
Because if Chaos had another name, it would be Jeremy Baramy.

01:00:43.940 --> 01:00:44.440
Fair enough.

01:00:44.860 --> 01:00:47.460
He's everything, he's everywhere, he's all at once.

01:00:48.420 --> 01:00:50.480
He is going to help you basically out of boredom.

01:00:51.980 --> 01:00:55.520
It's just nice to watch someone doing something he's never seen done before.

01:00:55.620 --> 01:00:59.240
Yeah, because when you're around that long, at some point, you're like, fuck it, nothing matters.

01:00:59.340 --> 01:00:59.740
Yeah.

01:00:59.860 --> 01:01:00.880
Oh, wait, something new?

01:01:00.900 --> 01:01:02.980
I haven't seen that in a long time.

01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:04.340
Yeah, we'll be invested in this.

01:01:04.360 --> 01:01:04.940
That's cool.

01:01:05.100 --> 01:01:06.800
The everything bagel sees all.

01:01:06.980 --> 01:01:07.320
Right.

01:01:08.900 --> 01:01:09.940
His boons are weird, though.

01:01:10.500 --> 01:01:13.220
They're crazy powerful, but you have to earn it.

01:01:13.620 --> 01:01:20.400
He'll usually debuff you in some way, like make you take 400% more damage for the next five rooms.

01:01:20.440 --> 01:01:21.240
Oh, shit.

01:01:21.780 --> 01:01:28.880
But survive rooms with that debuff, and you'll deal out 400% more damage for the rest of your attempt.

01:01:29.940 --> 01:01:35.000
And honestly, I kept waiting for the reveal that Chaos was going to be Zagreus after a bazillion escape attempts.

01:01:36.820 --> 01:01:37.960
But the reveal never came.

01:01:38.220 --> 01:01:38.900
Oh, okay.

01:01:39.060 --> 01:01:48.360
Yeah, Chaos and Zag just happen to have really similar faces, and the cryptic shit Chaos says to you, like, I've known you for longer than you realize, all mean absolutely nothing.

01:01:49.120 --> 01:01:49.340
Oh.

01:01:49.760 --> 01:01:52.680
Well, there's a second Hades game coming up, so there's still time.

01:01:52.700 --> 01:01:53.560
There's still a chance.

01:01:55.060 --> 01:01:58.320
You can also fish in the River Styx every once in a while.

01:01:58.600 --> 01:02:03.320
That is the darkest shit you've said so far, and we've been in hell for an hour.

01:02:04.360 --> 01:02:09.220
You can go fishing in the River of Souls that brings people to the underworld.

01:02:10.160 --> 01:02:14.200
And the fishing in this game led to Andrea saying one of my favorite things I've ever heard her say.

01:02:17.980 --> 01:02:23.600
I was telling her about the fishing in this game, and then I said, honestly, every good game has fishing.

01:02:24.220 --> 01:02:28.220
And Andrea responded, Tom, every game has fishing.

01:02:30.200 --> 01:02:34.300
And you sat there and stared at me, like I stabbed you in the gut.

01:02:34.360 --> 01:02:36.300
Like, why would you do this to me?

01:02:36.580 --> 01:02:44.720
And then every game we played for the next few months, there would be some sort of fishing element, and you'd go, God damn it, every game has fishing.

01:02:45.940 --> 01:02:48.580
Three of my five games this season have fishing.

01:02:50.160 --> 01:02:51.240
Holy shit.

01:02:53.080 --> 01:02:53.300
Ugh.

01:02:54.960 --> 01:03:03.360
I just had flashbacks of trying to get a Legendary Fish in Red Dead and Fury quitting because it was so fucking dumb, and going, I don't want to do fishing ever again.

01:03:03.820 --> 01:03:04.980
Don't make me do this.

01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:15.400
And then being like, oh yeah, I also rage quit on the last Zelda game I played when they were trying to get you to fish in a mini game to get something, and all these other games came to mind, and I was like, Tom, shut the fuck up.

01:03:15.420 --> 01:03:16.300
There's always fishing.

01:03:16.980 --> 01:03:20.960
But you're like, it's this great game and it incorporates so many things, and I was like, shut up.

01:03:20.980 --> 01:03:22.120
Let me ruin your day.

01:03:23.460 --> 01:03:24.500
Sorry about that.

01:03:24.540 --> 01:03:26.160
Don't point to fishing as something special.

01:03:26.180 --> 01:03:26.860
It's in everything.

01:03:28.100 --> 01:03:31.860
And the fish can be given to the house chef, you know, the shade that works in the employee lounge.

01:03:31.860 --> 01:03:32.360
Hold up.

01:03:32.380 --> 01:03:32.860
I'm sorry.

01:03:32.880 --> 01:03:37.560
So in The River Sticks, a river filled with souls, there are just straight up fish.

01:03:38.400 --> 01:03:39.660
Biologically, how?

01:03:39.960 --> 01:03:43.140
I mean, they are hell fish, but they're still fish.

01:03:43.140 --> 01:03:44.560
Hell fish.

01:03:45.600 --> 01:03:46.740
Not a shellfish.

01:03:47.180 --> 01:03:47.780
Hell fish.

01:03:47.800 --> 01:03:48.680
A hell fish.

01:03:49.600 --> 01:03:50.460
That's fucking cool.

01:03:50.480 --> 01:03:51.360
I'm back around on it.

01:03:51.420 --> 01:03:51.800
Okay.

01:03:51.980 --> 01:03:54.820
When you give the fish to the chef in the employee break lounge.

01:03:55.480 --> 01:03:56.920
In the cafeteria, yes.

01:03:57.060 --> 01:03:59.980
He'll give you different currencies based on the type of fish that you bring him.

01:04:00.200 --> 01:04:01.880
Based on how well he slices it.

01:04:01.980 --> 01:04:02.300
Yeah.

01:04:03.220 --> 01:04:05.260
Plot twist, the chef is Diver Dave.

01:04:06.540 --> 01:04:07.260
Oh, no.

01:04:07.280 --> 01:04:11.380
Well, he used to own a sushi restaurant, and things went rough, and now he's in hell.

01:04:11.420 --> 01:04:12.320
I haven't played that yet.

01:04:12.340 --> 01:04:13.060
No spoilers.

01:04:14.240 --> 01:04:16.260
This joke is hopefully not a spoiler.

01:04:16.720 --> 01:04:23.300
As you go through House of Hades, then back through Tartarus and Asphodel, you'll hear conversations between other characters.

01:04:24.320 --> 01:04:27.640
Hades is usually yelling at different people for helping you try to escape.

01:04:28.460 --> 01:04:34.500
And through these conversations, you start to pick up that your mother Persephone originally came from Mount Olympus.

01:04:35.220 --> 01:04:38.600
So that implies that she has some sort of god affiliation.

01:04:38.660 --> 01:04:39.040
Right.

01:04:39.840 --> 01:04:41.680
And this is why the Olympians are helping you.

01:04:42.120 --> 01:04:43.740
They want to meet their cousin in person.

01:04:44.040 --> 01:04:48.660
Yeah, they're like, Zagreus has been in hell for his knowing existence, right?

01:04:48.680 --> 01:04:52.360
He's been down there, and he's been raised by Hades and Nyx as his parental figures.

01:04:52.520 --> 01:04:54.820
By the way, Hades, not a great parent right now.

01:04:55.540 --> 01:04:57.280
You could just talk to your son.

01:04:58.020 --> 01:04:58.880
Come on, dude.

01:04:59.260 --> 01:05:07.360
Anyway, so the Olympians, though, are aware of your parentage, and perhaps may or may not have known of Nyx stepping in as your mother.

01:05:07.920 --> 01:05:11.840
And we're like, we know that we have a connection to you, and we'd love to connect with you.

01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:18.200
So with the knowledge that they have this cousin that they're not connected with, they're like, absolutely, you know, we've been around forever.

01:05:18.540 --> 01:05:19.840
We're not going anywhere.

01:05:19.860 --> 01:05:23.580
Of course, we'd love to get to know you, and have you involved in our lives.

01:05:23.600 --> 01:05:24.220
That's beautiful.

01:05:24.880 --> 01:05:30.160
Because also from the Olympic gods' perspective, they think Persephone died a long time ago.

01:05:30.940 --> 01:05:32.300
Oh, goodness.

01:05:32.300 --> 01:05:36.240
So they're like, this is our last connection to Persephone, actually.

01:05:36.520 --> 01:05:36.880
Right.

01:05:36.900 --> 01:05:37.680
That's beautiful.

01:05:37.760 --> 01:05:40.640
And this is why Nyx told you not to tell them what's going on.

01:05:42.500 --> 01:05:49.420
In fact, her mother, the goddess of weather, Demeter, created the Ice Age when she thought Persephone had died.

01:05:50.560 --> 01:05:51.280
Wow.

01:05:52.260 --> 01:05:55.900
Finding out Persephone had a child before her death fully excites them.

01:05:57.000 --> 01:05:59.580
So it was a big hit to them when they lost Persephone.

01:05:59.840 --> 01:06:00.540
Fully, yeah.

01:06:00.560 --> 01:06:02.800
They really lost their shit when she left.

01:06:03.280 --> 01:06:04.140
That's really sad.

01:06:04.720 --> 01:06:11.780
And I almost brought the story up in the Bendy episode when Andrea was joking about Audrey signing up for 23andMe to find out her parentage.

01:06:13.880 --> 01:06:16.600
Plot twist, she's mostly ink, a little Scottish.

01:06:16.880 --> 01:06:26.260
But the concept of questionable parentage is coming up again, so I'm going to tell it now, because I recently had something very cool happen to me that goes with this theme.

01:06:27.500 --> 01:06:38.460
Andrea got me a DNA test for Christmas, and in doing so, I found a long-lost cousin that my aunt had given up for adoption in the fucking 1960s.

01:06:38.620 --> 01:06:40.960
Holy shit, yes.

01:06:41.440 --> 01:06:48.860
And I can tell you from very real personal experience, everyone in my family is clamoring to meet this person.

01:06:48.920 --> 01:06:51.520
Does that make your family the Olympians in this situation?

01:06:51.540 --> 01:06:52.920
Yes, we are Olympic gods now.

01:06:55.200 --> 01:06:58.740
But I got to meet him first because I was the one who found him.

01:06:58.860 --> 01:07:00.000
You got to meet Zagreus.

01:07:00.220 --> 01:07:02.700
Yeah, and he's a really cool fucking guy.

01:07:02.720 --> 01:07:04.100
I think he was so sweet.

01:07:04.120 --> 01:07:04.620
I love him.

01:07:04.680 --> 01:07:05.620
Yeah, he was wonderful.

01:07:05.640 --> 01:07:07.440
Andrea and I both got to meet him very recently.

01:07:08.080 --> 01:07:10.720
But yeah, this shit really happens in real life.

01:07:11.120 --> 01:07:13.520
Does this story feel heavier to you because of this?

01:07:13.740 --> 01:07:19.820
It was so heavy writing this out and like going through it and being like, jeez, I can't not tell this story now, right?

01:07:19.840 --> 01:07:23.620
Because this is so close to what happened to me recently, especially.

01:07:23.640 --> 01:07:25.420
Shit is wild.

01:07:26.700 --> 01:07:30.500
Anyway, so you ultimately, you make it to the next zone boss.

01:07:31.240 --> 01:07:35.160
And for Asphodel, the boss is the Lernaean Bone Hydra.

01:07:35.640 --> 01:07:36.860
Bone Hydra.

01:07:37.360 --> 01:07:39.000
Oh, that sounds like a monster truck.

01:07:39.380 --> 01:07:45.860
Yeah, in life, the Hydra was defeated by Hercules, and the Hydra was the many headed snake monster.

01:07:46.420 --> 01:07:50.180
So when you would cut one head off, three would grow in its place, right?

01:07:50.300 --> 01:07:53.140
Right, and it was a very big deal for Hercules to defeat.

01:07:54.440 --> 01:07:57.500
Now its job is to stop you from escaping the underworld.

01:07:58.620 --> 01:08:02.060
The Bone Hydra has one main head and then a few lesser heads.

01:08:03.400 --> 01:08:07.720
It fights in rounds, and because it's a Hydra, you have to kill all the lesser heads before you can kill the main head.

01:08:08.240 --> 01:08:14.180
And when you do, it explodes into fire, and you can continue on to the next stairs, up and out of Asphodel.

01:08:14.540 --> 01:08:24.240
The idea that the Bone Hydra was placed as a challenge to Hercules in Greece, essentially, like that middle world, and now he's just doing security in the underworld.

01:08:24.880 --> 01:08:29.620
Feels like a bit of a downgrade, but I appreciate the resource management that Hades allocated for him.

01:08:29.920 --> 01:08:33.560
Yeah, the titans all really got reduced to just fucking, like, guards.

01:08:35.520 --> 01:08:39.780
One thing I like about this boss is the next time you encounter it, there will be a different skull for the head.

01:08:40.280 --> 01:08:41.520
That's really clever.

01:08:41.640 --> 01:08:44.600
Yeah, it's just different variations on the skull, too.

01:08:44.680 --> 01:08:45.640
That's so cool.

01:08:46.120 --> 01:08:50.820
You go to the next staging area, Hades shit-talks to you, you power up, and you move on to the next zone.

01:08:50.880 --> 01:08:51.900
Terrible parenting.

01:08:52.280 --> 01:08:57.980
The name of this zone is a word we heard for the first time and then defined way back in our season 4 finale.

01:08:59.260 --> 01:09:03.500
We enter the cloudy, blue-and-white-hued zone of Elysium.

01:09:04.360 --> 01:09:04.560
Oh.

01:09:05.160 --> 01:09:11.480
As I defined in our Disco Elysium episode, Elysium is the place where the heroes go after they die.

01:09:12.400 --> 01:09:16.860
The Greek version of Valhalla, because not all of the Underworld is fire and brimstone.

01:09:17.400 --> 01:09:22.600
Mount Olympus and the Underworld can't really be compared to the Christian versions of Heaven and Hell.

01:09:23.060 --> 01:09:27.380
Back then, Heaven, or as they called it, Mount Olympus, was reserved for the gods only.

01:09:28.060 --> 01:09:29.600
Mortals were not welcome there.

01:09:30.580 --> 01:09:34.440
All mortals, good and bad, go to the Underworld instead.

01:09:35.240 --> 01:09:39.040
Which means it's unfair to see Hades as being akin to the Christian devil.

01:09:40.060 --> 01:09:43.720
He's really not, because he sees good and bad people alike.

01:09:43.800 --> 01:09:46.220
He just sends them to different zones of the Underworld.

01:09:46.720 --> 01:09:50.920
Oh, yeah, he's just the fucking sorting hat for souls, it's fine.

01:09:50.940 --> 01:09:53.620
The sorting hat for souls, yeah!

01:09:54.580 --> 01:09:57.580
It's just all paperwork at the end of the day, like we said.

01:09:57.600 --> 01:10:00.460
Yeah, his desk is full of shit he has to sign off on.

01:10:01.180 --> 01:10:08.800
And the better a person you were on Earth, the closer you get to be to Earth, as good people are too honest to try and sneak back to the land of the living.

01:10:10.160 --> 01:10:12.540
It's still a little bit of a trust situation with Hades.

01:10:12.840 --> 01:10:22.700
Right, and honestly the fact that only gods were allowed in heaven is probably why humans largely switched to monotheism over time, because then it gave them a chance at heaven too.

01:10:22.800 --> 01:10:23.180
Yeah.

01:10:23.700 --> 01:10:29.000
Being the place where heroes go, many of the bad guys we face in Elysium are former soldiers.

01:10:29.880 --> 01:10:30.080
Oh.

01:10:30.720 --> 01:10:37.600
So now we're fighting shades that have basically the same move sets that we do, and the difficulty level really kicks up a notch after this.

01:10:37.660 --> 01:10:38.220
Yeah.

01:10:38.940 --> 01:10:45.540
So these are people that were wonderful people on Earth, and often very skilled as well, because like you said, heroes.

01:10:45.560 --> 01:10:50.160
So these are going to be like war generals and like martyrs and shit like that, right?

01:10:50.160 --> 01:10:51.220
Yeah, some of them are.

01:10:51.720 --> 01:10:56.940
Also, the way to the next room is through a door again, and the sphere with the rewards are embedded in that door.

01:10:57.860 --> 01:10:59.040
I bet that looks beautiful.

01:10:59.080 --> 01:11:00.080
Yeah, it looks really cool.

01:11:00.340 --> 01:11:04.360
Elysium is also where we find the third and final gift giver as well.

01:11:04.700 --> 01:11:07.760
He's a former warrior, and he's very sad.

01:11:08.960 --> 01:11:15.440
He won't even tell you his name, and you can encounter him dozens of times and still not get much conversation out of him.

01:11:15.820 --> 01:11:17.060
Because he's too sad?

01:11:17.080 --> 01:11:22.020
Yeah, on the rare chance you do get conversation, it's mostly complaints.

01:11:22.600 --> 01:11:23.980
He doesn't like Elysium.

01:11:24.420 --> 01:11:36.360
It's full of pompous, arrogant dead warriors who only got in here because they died doing something quote unquote heroic in battle, which is a noble death and pretty much instant access to Elysium.

01:11:36.660 --> 01:11:41.240
To him, they're basically a giant group of serial killers being told they're perfect angels.

01:11:42.480 --> 01:11:44.420
So he sees them as the warlords.

01:11:45.300 --> 01:11:47.580
He's like, these people are fucking crazy.

01:11:47.600 --> 01:11:48.780
It's all narcissists.

01:11:49.140 --> 01:11:52.180
It's a lot of ego, and I'm kind of fucking over it.

01:11:52.300 --> 01:11:55.060
Yeah, they did one good thing, and that got them into Elysium.

01:11:56.300 --> 01:11:58.420
I appreciate the groundedness of that, though.

01:11:58.700 --> 01:12:06.320
He actually thinks life would be way more peaceful down in Asphodel, the closest thing the underworld has to Christian hell.

01:12:07.420 --> 01:12:12.220
But he always offers really great power ups that help you survive longer in battle, so there's that.

01:12:12.460 --> 01:12:17.400
So you deal with him whining for a little bit, being like, I want to hang out with the cool kids in hell.

01:12:17.700 --> 01:12:19.680
He actually has really good power ups, so you deal with it.

01:12:19.880 --> 01:12:24.980
He did go to Elysium because he did do something cool, so he is a helpful person.

01:12:26.480 --> 01:12:31.220
Back in the House of Hades, you mention this particular gift giver to your mentor, Achilles.

01:12:31.800 --> 01:12:39.500
After a while, Achilles realizes, he knows this person, as he was a soldier that fought alongside him in the Trojan War.

01:12:39.660 --> 01:12:40.300
Oh, shit.

01:12:40.900 --> 01:12:46.300
He actually fought alongside him in every battle, because they were more than fellow soldiers, more than friends even.

01:12:46.760 --> 01:12:47.740
They were former lovers.

01:12:48.680 --> 01:12:51.220
He's like, I am so sorry about my ex.

01:12:51.400 --> 01:12:54.480
I know he gets testy.

01:12:54.480 --> 01:12:59.380
I know he's whiny, but I swear he's a good dude, makes a great eggs Benedict.

01:12:59.600 --> 01:13:00.320
Give him a chance.

01:13:01.220 --> 01:13:05.160
Yeah, they died on the same battlefield and were supposed to be reunited in death.

01:13:06.200 --> 01:13:06.400
Oh.

01:13:06.700 --> 01:13:10.480
But Hades forced Achilles to train you, keeping the two separate.

01:13:10.820 --> 01:13:12.740
That's a dick move, Hades.

01:13:12.740 --> 01:13:14.180
Hades is a cock blocker.

01:13:14.240 --> 01:13:14.980
Fuck that.

01:13:15.440 --> 01:13:24.380
If you're friendly with Achilles and wear his trinket on one of your visits to the gift giver of Elysium, he'll finally tell you his name, and it's the one I'm worried about, Patroclus.

01:13:24.680 --> 01:13:25.380
Patroclus.

01:13:25.820 --> 01:13:26.260
I think.

01:13:26.680 --> 01:13:27.780
Okay, that's beautiful.

01:13:28.060 --> 01:13:31.060
Telling him about Achilles only makes him more depressed, though.

01:13:31.420 --> 01:13:32.980
Oh, because he still loves him.

01:13:33.680 --> 01:13:34.820
They died together.

01:13:34.840 --> 01:13:36.600
They lived together and they died together.

01:13:36.920 --> 01:13:40.040
And now you're wearing his boyfriend's watch now.

01:13:41.460 --> 01:13:42.160
Yeah, that's...

01:13:42.180 --> 01:13:43.740
I would be pissed too.

01:13:43.740 --> 01:13:44.380
I get it.

01:13:44.400 --> 01:13:48.320
Yeah, being sad is really all Patroclus is good for.

01:13:48.340 --> 01:13:51.440
He's kind of like Kate for the sad girl in Life is Strange.

01:13:52.460 --> 01:13:54.400
Just being defined by being a bummer.

01:13:54.460 --> 01:13:54.960
Yeah.

01:13:55.260 --> 01:13:57.120
Oh, that is very sad.

01:13:57.620 --> 01:14:03.380
And then other than the gift giver, there's also a specific mini boss here that's different from the others that you've fought.

01:14:03.880 --> 01:14:17.760
Earlier, I said most mini bosses are just stronger versions of normal shades, but the Elysia mini boss is named Asterius, and he is a minotaur, head and hooves of a bull and the body of a man.

01:14:18.980 --> 01:14:22.560
We encounter him in a small arena, and he talks to you, usually taunting.

01:14:23.280 --> 01:14:27.260
He carries a big axe and can charge you with his horns like your Grecian matador.

01:14:27.880 --> 01:14:30.780
Asterius was the stepson of a king in life.

01:14:31.840 --> 01:14:34.820
But being a minotaur, the king hated Asterius.

01:14:35.220 --> 01:14:37.080
Because it reminded him that he fucked a bull?

01:14:37.360 --> 01:14:38.260
Well, it's his stepdad.

01:14:38.480 --> 01:14:38.860
Oh, okay.

01:14:39.520 --> 01:14:47.140
It's like, yeah, that'd be really weird to just kind of raise this kid who's clearly indicative of like animal husbandry.

01:14:47.480 --> 01:14:50.800
He's mad that his wife dated somebody who was bigger than him.

01:14:51.480 --> 01:14:53.260
Oh, it's giving insecure.

01:14:53.280 --> 01:14:53.920
Get over it.

01:14:54.140 --> 01:15:01.880
Yeah, so he threw Asterius into a labyrinth where he attempted to escape, but couldn't, getting lost in the giant maze.

01:15:02.080 --> 01:15:05.000
And this is the first iteration of the Saw franchise.

01:15:07.220 --> 01:15:11.560
A different king named Theseus came through the labyrinth in an attempt to approve himself.

01:15:12.220 --> 01:15:17.020
In doing so, he killed Asterius, thinking he was one of the challenges of the labyrinth.

01:15:17.260 --> 01:15:19.440
That is a reasonable mistake, honestly.

01:15:19.460 --> 01:15:23.760
If you go into a labyrinth and you see a Minotaur, you're like, well, clearly I have to slay them.

01:15:24.840 --> 01:15:28.880
It's not just some dude being like, hey, help, my stepdad's a dick, you know?

01:15:28.900 --> 01:15:32.000
Yeah, and I think that was kind of the king's intention anyway.

01:15:32.240 --> 01:15:35.220
So this sent him to Elysium, where we are currently fighting him.

01:15:35.360 --> 01:15:39.680
Well, at least that is the hero's death of like, we know you didn't ask for this fight.

01:15:39.880 --> 01:15:42.720
You got jumped after a very hard life.

01:15:42.740 --> 01:15:44.800
Like, you get to be in Elysium.

01:15:45.400 --> 01:15:47.300
Yeah, he was a good person otherwise.

01:15:47.440 --> 01:15:50.120
Okay, poor, he got dealt a bad hand.

01:15:50.900 --> 01:15:53.580
The other thing that differs with this fight is that you can't kill him.

01:15:54.540 --> 01:15:59.740
He will go down to about 20% health, and then a bell will ring, like it's at the end of a round of boxing.

01:16:00.480 --> 01:16:02.360
And then he'll call a stop to the fight.

01:16:02.580 --> 01:16:03.180
Interesting.

01:16:03.420 --> 01:16:06.720
He'll bow and then exit the arena, leaving you there with your reward.

01:16:07.020 --> 01:16:07.920
He's a good guy.

01:16:07.940 --> 01:16:10.020
He's like, we don't have to do this all the way.

01:16:10.040 --> 01:16:10.900
Come on, I get it.

01:16:10.900 --> 01:16:13.260
You did well enough, Zagreus, go for it.

01:16:13.400 --> 01:16:21.260
Yeah, over time, the two of you develop a very playful rivalry, always showing each other respect and viewing these fights as more sparring than actual fighting.

01:16:21.480 --> 01:16:22.540
I appreciate that.

01:16:22.560 --> 01:16:25.900
Honestly, Zagreus is just so fucking nice to everyone.

01:16:25.920 --> 01:16:28.200
It's amazing when the character doesn't like him.

01:16:29.640 --> 01:16:35.960
And, you know, to take it back a little more meta, his vocal performance is so insanely charming.

01:16:36.100 --> 01:16:36.540
Yeah.

01:16:36.560 --> 01:16:41.460
He has almost what would be like a European continental accent.

01:16:41.480 --> 01:16:44.600
You know, it's kind of nondescript, but it's very charming.

01:16:44.620 --> 01:16:50.680
It's a little Tom Hiddleston is Loki, I almost say, like those are the tones I'm getting.

01:16:51.220 --> 01:16:53.220
It's so charming.

01:16:53.240 --> 01:16:53.860
I melt.

01:16:54.500 --> 01:16:55.060
It's true.

01:16:55.080 --> 01:17:01.920
And like I said, everybody likes him, and there's already a metric fuck ton of characters in this game, but there's only two more to meet.

01:17:02.580 --> 01:17:07.840
One character we did meet, and I kind of glanced past, was Skelly, the punching bag skeleton just outside your room.

01:17:07.860 --> 01:17:08.380
Oh, yeah.

01:17:09.100 --> 01:17:12.580
And if any character has mysterious lore, it's Skelly.

01:17:13.660 --> 01:17:14.640
Okay, so is it Sans?

01:17:19.180 --> 01:17:20.600
Oh, God, don't start that, please.

01:17:21.160 --> 01:17:21.840
Oh, my God.

01:17:21.860 --> 01:17:23.660
That would be terrible, yeah.

01:17:23.680 --> 01:17:25.740
The headcanon on that would make you explode.

01:17:25.740 --> 01:17:26.240
Got it.

01:17:26.260 --> 01:17:27.140
Okay, no worries.

01:17:27.160 --> 01:17:29.500
And he looks more like the brother, anyway, of Sans.

01:17:29.900 --> 01:17:30.840
Papyrus, yeah.

01:17:31.140 --> 01:17:32.520
Oh, Papyrus is the worst.

01:17:34.680 --> 01:17:35.180
I get it.

01:17:35.640 --> 01:17:42.960
Well, Skelly isn't like the others because everybody else has, like, literal IRL thousands of years of history.

01:17:43.760 --> 01:17:46.940
But Skelly is an original character, and he's the only original character in the game.

01:17:47.360 --> 01:17:51.900
So the best they could come up with name-wise was Skelly.

01:17:51.920 --> 01:17:53.940
For the one original character is Skelly.

01:17:53.960 --> 01:17:55.960
Everyone else is like, Zagreus.

01:17:56.540 --> 01:18:02.720
Honestly, Papyrus would have been better thematically, but I understand the licensing issues with that.

01:18:02.740 --> 01:18:03.220
Go on.

01:18:03.820 --> 01:18:10.520
Yeah, even though the voices are completely different and even played by different actors, I think he's supposed to be the narrator.

01:18:10.780 --> 01:18:11.640
Interesting.

01:18:11.660 --> 01:18:15.120
Because he also has a gold coin in his mouth and red eyes.

01:18:15.980 --> 01:18:17.580
Oh, there's something there.

01:18:17.600 --> 01:18:18.320
Yeah, I get you.

01:18:18.900 --> 01:18:23.760
Even so, Skelly has a New England accent and the narrator has a regular England accent.

01:18:24.160 --> 01:18:26.080
New England, like Skelly's from Maine?

01:18:26.360 --> 01:18:27.880
Yeah, he's got one of those accents.

01:18:28.780 --> 01:18:30.420
Maybe a little Boston in there or something.

01:18:30.440 --> 01:18:31.620
A little bit of a mass hole.

01:18:31.660 --> 01:18:32.080
Yeah.

01:18:33.060 --> 01:18:36.120
Skelly is also voiced by the same person as Zagreus, Darren Corb.

01:18:36.580 --> 01:18:38.060
So he's talking to himself a lot.

01:18:38.120 --> 01:18:40.140
Yeah, those scenes he's always talking to himself.

01:18:40.520 --> 01:18:42.900
Honestly, Darren Corb is just a talented motherfucker.

01:18:43.460 --> 01:18:47.140
One of the most charming vocals in all of gaming, just straight up.

01:18:47.160 --> 01:18:50.920
It's like him and Kratos and Roger Clark's Arthur Morgan.

01:18:50.940 --> 01:18:52.840
Like, those voices will make me melt.

01:18:53.560 --> 01:18:57.260
And Zagreus and Skelly couldn't have more different voices if they tried.

01:18:57.740 --> 01:18:58.780
That's just talent.

01:18:58.860 --> 01:19:01.420
That's just him being like, look at me go.

01:19:01.980 --> 01:19:06.020
The only characters that even know Skelly exists, though, are Zagreus and Achilles.

01:19:07.160 --> 01:19:09.340
Hades has never even heard or seen him before.

01:19:09.860 --> 01:19:11.680
Hades is a very hands-off parent.

01:19:12.260 --> 01:19:12.840
That's fair.

01:19:13.840 --> 01:19:20.340
Skelly does seem to know a shitload about fighting and especially war, but it's all shrouded in mystery.

01:19:20.360 --> 01:19:23.440
He tells you several origin stories throughout the game, too.

01:19:23.460 --> 01:19:25.440
Like he's the Joker talking about his scars.

01:19:25.540 --> 01:19:26.360
Oh, that's funny.

01:19:26.920 --> 01:19:31.780
At one point, he even gives you instructions on how to end his miserable existence of being your punching bag.

01:19:32.980 --> 01:19:38.680
As every time you kill him, he just reassembles like new without ever having to go through the river of sticks like you have to.

01:19:40.260 --> 01:19:46.520
But the instructions are just a joke, and he reassembles again, laughing about it as he does, because, of course, you fell for it.

01:19:46.760 --> 01:19:49.420
I feel like that would be a very Sans Papyrus joke.

01:19:49.800 --> 01:19:55.620
I promise I'll drop it after this, but that does still feel very in line with like skeleton humor as we know it in indie gaming.

01:19:55.640 --> 01:19:58.260
Yeah, it's just a little ode to that.

01:19:58.360 --> 01:20:01.100
It's a little genre I like to call skeleton humor.

01:20:02.740 --> 01:20:06.080
Finally, you should be able to make it to the zone bosses of Elysium.

01:20:06.900 --> 01:20:10.480
You go to engage them and see that you're in a Colosseum.

01:20:10.940 --> 01:20:14.040
There are shades lining the seats of the Colosseum, cheering.

01:20:14.580 --> 01:20:21.380
And around the walls, we can see a poster of a beautiful bronze skinned man with blonde hair, as well as Asterius, the Minotaur.

01:20:21.760 --> 01:20:24.760
In the center, we find the man, along with Asterius.

01:20:25.460 --> 01:20:29.380
The man is King Theseus, the one who killed Asterius in life.

01:20:30.660 --> 01:20:33.300
Oh, they have to spend eternity together in Elysium?

01:20:33.560 --> 01:20:42.880
Actually, when Asterius saw that Theseus had managed to make it into Elysium, despite having killed him, he forgave and befriended him instead.

01:20:43.120 --> 01:20:45.560
This is the coolest fucking Minotaur in history.

01:20:45.820 --> 01:20:48.940
Yeah, it wasn't Theseus' fault he was in the Labyrinth.

01:20:49.280 --> 01:20:50.620
He went, I get it, man.

01:20:50.800 --> 01:20:55.400
Yeah, and as far as Theseus knew, Asterius was just one of the many challenges of the Labyrinth.

01:20:55.540 --> 01:20:57.140
Wow, so they're friends now.

01:20:57.380 --> 01:20:57.900
Yeah.

01:20:57.940 --> 01:21:01.360
That really shows why they earned their way into Elysium.

01:21:01.460 --> 01:21:03.440
Right, it's the content of their character, really.

01:21:03.500 --> 01:21:04.300
Absolutely.

01:21:04.720 --> 01:21:10.740
Plus, Asterius had killed a bunch of people who also thought Asterius was one of the challenges before Theseus ever got there.

01:21:11.660 --> 01:21:14.040
So it required a lot of skill to kill him anyway.

01:21:14.460 --> 01:21:19.480
Problem being, Asterius seems to be the only one in the whole underworld who actually likes Theseus.

01:21:21.460 --> 01:21:23.500
He's the only one that can vouch for this dude.

01:21:23.920 --> 01:21:29.360
Yeah, Theseus had earned his place in Elysium due to his exploits as a hero in his teen years.

01:21:30.440 --> 01:21:35.900
In his 20s and 30s, he started to believe his own legend, and when he died, he was kind of a blowhard dickhead.

01:21:38.100 --> 01:21:43.200
Yeah, he's kind of the very embodiment of everything Patroclus hates about Elysium.

01:21:44.940 --> 01:21:49.040
Patroclus is like, this is why I'm bummed all the time.

01:21:49.880 --> 01:21:51.620
It's people like him keep winning.

01:21:51.820 --> 01:21:52.940
I miss my boyfriend.

01:21:52.960 --> 01:21:55.080
I'm surrounded by the worst dudes ever.

01:21:55.100 --> 01:21:56.320
This sucks.

01:21:56.680 --> 01:22:01.320
Basically, King Theseus went from zero to hero to serial killer over time.

01:22:02.520 --> 01:22:05.420
That pipeline is just a straight line.

01:22:05.500 --> 01:22:09.040
Yeah, taking enjoyment in his ability to murder others with ease.

01:22:09.200 --> 01:22:09.840
Big yikes.

01:22:10.100 --> 01:22:11.080
American psycho.

01:22:11.320 --> 01:22:14.460
Yeah, for this boss fight, you have to defeat both of them.

01:22:15.340 --> 01:22:17.020
Is this a tag team situation?

01:22:17.300 --> 01:22:19.260
No, they're both fighting you at the exact same time.

01:22:19.280 --> 01:22:19.840
Oh, that's great.

01:22:20.820 --> 01:22:23.500
Word of advice, go for Asterius first.

01:22:23.860 --> 01:22:29.160
If you encountered Asterius earlier as a mini boss in this round, he starts this encounter with less health.

01:22:29.640 --> 01:22:32.260
Theseus is a cocky asshole the whole time.

01:22:33.140 --> 01:22:37.120
He's clearly the Colosseum champion, and the shades are all cheering for him during the fight.

01:22:38.280 --> 01:22:44.840
But like Green Goblin once said to Spider-Man, there's nothing people love more than seeing their hero fall.

01:22:45.480 --> 01:22:50.260
The cheers become your name, and you can even do a victory lap around the stadium as you kill him.

01:22:50.400 --> 01:22:51.420
Oh, that's cool.

01:22:52.220 --> 01:22:56.540
When you pass by this one gigantic shade, you'll tell him that one was for him, buddy.

01:22:56.560 --> 01:22:58.900
I love that.

01:22:59.420 --> 01:23:01.340
You're like working the crowd.

01:23:01.360 --> 01:23:02.140
Fully, yeah.

01:23:02.280 --> 01:23:03.920
Zagreus is such a ham.

01:23:04.420 --> 01:23:08.600
I kept hoping over time that the posters would change to you, but they never did.

01:23:09.840 --> 01:23:10.800
You're the away team.

01:23:10.880 --> 01:23:12.280
Yeah, you're the underdog.

01:23:12.300 --> 01:23:12.700
Yeah.

01:23:13.120 --> 01:23:21.320
You head up the stairs to the next staging area and move on to the fourth and final zone on your ascent out of the underworld, the Temple of Sticks.

01:23:22.000 --> 01:23:26.280
We're in a big room on a raised platform with the River Styx flowing beneath us.

01:23:27.520 --> 01:23:32.100
Straight ahead is a giant door, but Cerberus is blocking it.

01:23:32.420 --> 01:23:33.060
Bad dog.

01:23:33.240 --> 01:23:35.260
Yeah, he's not going to let you through the story either.

01:23:35.500 --> 01:23:41.780
The narrator tells you that the tales of those who have tried to get past Cerberus are far too graphic to describe.

01:23:43.700 --> 01:23:49.420
To the right is a shop being run by Charon, with some very expensive but very powerful boons.

01:23:49.980 --> 01:23:52.380
To the left are five sewer tunnels.

01:23:53.440 --> 01:23:57.680
Above each tunnel, there is a prize sphere, with two of them having mini boss skulls.

01:23:58.600 --> 01:24:01.960
Beyond the door Cerberus is blocking is the gateway to Greece.

01:24:02.600 --> 01:24:07.140
You must find something called a Sader sack in order to feed Cerberus.

01:24:08.000 --> 01:24:10.280
And it's basically just a giant bag full of rats.

01:24:11.820 --> 01:24:14.140
The sewer system is different from the previous zones.

01:24:15.020 --> 01:24:17.840
The prize in the sphere will not be in the next room.

01:24:18.220 --> 01:24:21.860
The rooms in the sewer system are much smaller with only a few bad guys to fight.

01:24:22.860 --> 01:24:24.920
And there aren't shades in these areas either.

01:24:25.480 --> 01:24:28.740
They're mostly ghouls and gorgons and poisonous rats.

01:24:29.360 --> 01:24:33.540
These fights are sprints, but you're pushed to kill everything much quicker.

01:24:33.960 --> 01:24:38.160
Each path culminates in one giant room with a big long onslaught of enemies.

01:24:38.860 --> 01:24:44.860
If it's a mini-boss path, the giant room has the typical stronger version of one of the enemies you've been fighting in the sewers.

01:24:45.680 --> 01:24:54.520
And weirdly, I'd say the mini-boss paths are actually easier, as the ones that end in an onslaught can go on for a really long time and drain your very limited health.

01:24:55.640 --> 01:25:02.740
When you finish a path, you're sent back to Cerberus where you can shop, try a different path, or, if you found the Satyrsac, feed Cerberus.

01:25:02.940 --> 01:25:03.940
I bring you rats.

01:25:04.360 --> 01:25:18.860
The first path you take will always end in the big room, but after that first one, any one of the paths you take can lead to the Satyrsac, and it allows you to skip the final big room fight on that path, even if it was supposed to be a mini boss.

01:25:19.500 --> 01:25:23.320
There's also a fountain that will refill your health when you find the sac, fortunately, too.

01:25:23.520 --> 01:25:24.160
Oh, bless.

01:25:24.940 --> 01:25:32.660
After you find it, you can keep building your power down the other paths, if you so choose, or you can just feed the sac to Cerberus.

01:25:33.160 --> 01:25:36.900
But once you feed Cerberus, those sewer paths become closed off.

01:25:37.960 --> 01:25:39.720
Oh, so you have to get it while you can get it.

01:25:39.740 --> 01:25:40.220
Got it.

01:25:40.240 --> 01:25:40.600
Yeah.

01:25:41.640 --> 01:25:45.980
After you feed Cerberus, he leaves and the door is open to you.

01:25:46.260 --> 01:25:47.840
He got his rats, he's out.

01:25:47.940 --> 01:25:50.160
Yeah, I'm so glad they don't make you fight Cerberus.

01:25:50.560 --> 01:25:51.960
No, he's a good boy.

01:25:51.980 --> 01:25:53.980
You're like, yo, I don't want to fight Cerberus.

01:25:57.260 --> 01:26:03.220
You're given the prompt, go out, and the golden white door before you opens, as you say, I did it.

01:26:03.860 --> 01:26:04.100
Oh.

01:26:05.060 --> 01:26:08.980
Light shines through, and you take your first steps out of the underworld.

01:26:09.240 --> 01:26:11.060
Wow, literally into the light.

01:26:11.080 --> 01:26:11.800
That's so funny.

01:26:12.580 --> 01:26:19.800
You see a big snowy field before you, and having lived in lava land your whole life, it's fucking cold for you.

01:26:19.820 --> 01:26:22.640
Us moving from Los Angeles to Denver.

01:26:22.660 --> 01:26:23.040
Right.

01:26:24.100 --> 01:26:26.080
And you can see steam coming off your breath.

01:26:27.260 --> 01:26:32.500
There's a big lake just beyond the snow, and the full moon shines in its still water.

01:26:33.820 --> 01:26:37.140
You take in your surroundings like you're Jack Skellington in Christmas Town.

01:26:38.580 --> 01:26:43.200
And just like Jack, you see a big man dressed all in red and white.

01:26:43.520 --> 01:26:45.760
No, wait, shut the fuck up.

01:26:45.980 --> 01:26:52.660
Standing on the edge of the lake, you say, Oh, of course, as you recognize your father.

01:26:54.920 --> 01:26:56.380
It wasn't Santa Claus.

01:26:56.400 --> 01:27:00.720
I genuinely was holding out hope you'd get to fight Santa.

01:27:00.940 --> 01:27:03.440
No, but your dad does look a lot like him.

01:27:04.000 --> 01:27:05.380
God damn it.

01:27:06.000 --> 01:27:08.700
Hades says he never cared for the way the air up here moves.

01:27:09.560 --> 01:27:11.920
He prefers the stillness of the air in the underworld.

01:27:13.180 --> 01:27:16.960
Your dad caught you sneaking out, and he is pissed.

01:27:18.680 --> 01:27:20.260
Have your parents ever caught you sneaking out?

01:27:20.460 --> 01:27:21.420
Not once.

01:27:21.440 --> 01:27:22.120
Hell yeah.

01:27:22.220 --> 01:27:26.080
Yeah, they never did, and I admitted it to him like maybe the day after when I would do it.

01:27:26.140 --> 01:27:26.760
Oh, really?

01:27:28.040 --> 01:27:31.300
I waited until I moved out to tell them all the dumb shit I did.

01:27:32.140 --> 01:27:33.500
But yeah, they never caught me sneaking out.

01:27:34.300 --> 01:27:36.700
You tell him that you really like the way the Breeze feels.

01:27:37.320 --> 01:27:41.520
You're also impressed because he busted out the Helm of Darkness just for you.

01:27:41.600 --> 01:27:43.580
The Helm of Darkness?

01:27:44.700 --> 01:27:46.640
Hades says it should have never come to this.

01:27:47.460 --> 01:27:49.460
He was a good, kind parent.

01:27:49.620 --> 01:27:51.100
No, he wasn't.

01:27:51.160 --> 01:27:56.440
He had zero communication with you and instead sent all of his employees to parent you.

01:27:56.740 --> 01:27:58.800
Come on, dude, you're not a good parent.

01:27:59.780 --> 01:28:03.240
Well, your antics and attempts to escape have forced his hand.

01:28:04.100 --> 01:28:08.740
And since none of his servants could stop you, he has to do it himself.

01:28:09.040 --> 01:28:11.980
Oh no, now he's forced to parent his son.

01:28:12.300 --> 01:28:13.780
Jesus Christ, Hades.

01:28:14.480 --> 01:28:23.500
You rip into him because you've died so many times to get here, and you only died because his crybaby ass kept sending his servants to kill you instead.

01:28:24.040 --> 01:28:31.420
Imagine how many games would be solved with one emotional conversation of just like, hey, here are my goals.

01:28:31.900 --> 01:28:33.320
Here's what I'm trying to do.

01:28:33.600 --> 01:28:34.680
Can you respect that?

01:28:34.960 --> 01:28:35.360
Great.

01:28:35.520 --> 01:28:36.100
Move on.

01:28:36.360 --> 01:28:37.560
What the fuck, Hades?

01:28:37.860 --> 01:28:39.360
Yeah, this isn't good parenting.

01:28:39.480 --> 01:28:40.900
This is being an asshole.

01:28:40.980 --> 01:28:41.680
Entirely.

01:28:41.700 --> 01:28:45.440
Hades pulls up, but did you really die?

01:28:45.740 --> 01:28:47.180
You're here now, aren't you?

01:28:47.200 --> 01:28:48.460
That motherfucker.

01:28:49.480 --> 01:28:50.580
Gods kill each other.

01:28:50.720 --> 01:28:52.480
That's just what we do for fun.

01:28:52.940 --> 01:28:56.220
The worst thing that happens is you go for a swim in the River Styx.

01:28:58.820 --> 01:29:01.760
He's here to give you a swimming lesson and send you back home.

01:29:02.140 --> 01:29:03.320
That's the darkest shit.

01:29:04.420 --> 01:29:08.700
The fight with Hades is pure metaphor for a daddy issues relationship.

01:29:08.820 --> 01:29:09.540
Oh, I bet.

01:29:09.800 --> 01:29:11.140
You lash out at each other.

01:29:11.380 --> 01:29:14.680
He disappears only to show up suddenly and fuck your day up.

01:29:14.840 --> 01:29:15.520
Oh my god.

01:29:15.780 --> 01:29:17.320
You throw things at each other.

01:29:17.780 --> 01:29:21.620
He constantly mocks you, bringing in others and making them attack you as well.

01:29:22.660 --> 01:29:24.540
Oh, the narcissism.

01:29:24.940 --> 01:29:27.840
Hades is also extraordinarily strong.

01:29:28.100 --> 01:29:28.780
Oh, I bet.

01:29:28.960 --> 01:29:33.320
Yeah, hitting you twice as hard as the most difficult shade you've encountered.

01:29:33.620 --> 01:29:36.860
So the difficulty level getting up to this battle is wild.

01:29:36.920 --> 01:29:39.740
Oh, this is a fucking huge battle.

01:29:40.220 --> 01:29:42.720
He's also faster than anyone you've seen.

01:29:43.080 --> 01:29:48.760
But you keep at it, even if you have to die a dozen times and make it all the way back here, you do it.

01:29:49.360 --> 01:29:55.400
Again, this fight is pure daddy issues, and that includes finally getting one up on your father.

01:29:55.600 --> 01:29:56.460
Yeah.

01:29:56.760 --> 01:30:02.160
Taking his health to zero and watching him fall to one knee as you finally beat him.

01:30:02.740 --> 01:30:06.640
And if you've ever been here in real life, then you likely know what comes next.

01:30:07.860 --> 01:30:11.160
Because a father will only let you think you beat them.

01:30:11.320 --> 01:30:12.400
Oh, Jesus Christ.

01:30:12.580 --> 01:30:14.120
I have a great relationship with my dad.

01:30:14.140 --> 01:30:15.920
I genuinely don't know what's coming next.

01:30:16.940 --> 01:30:20.800
Hades' health refills, and we go into round two of the fight.

01:30:21.500 --> 01:30:22.760
Oh, shit.

01:30:22.940 --> 01:30:24.700
Yeah, that wasn't even his final form.

01:30:25.240 --> 01:30:25.720
Shut up.

01:30:26.660 --> 01:30:29.540
Turns out, dad was holding out on you the first round.

01:30:30.300 --> 01:30:36.520
Now he's even stronger and faster, and has attacks you haven't seen anyone in the game use before.

01:30:36.700 --> 01:30:38.140
What an ass kicker.

01:30:38.880 --> 01:30:46.120
Including losing his temper to the point, he shoots lasers in a way that is impossible to avoid unless you duck behind cover.

01:30:46.220 --> 01:30:50.120
This is some My Dad Can Kick Your Dad's Ass shit on a whole other level.

01:30:50.720 --> 01:31:02.740
Or, if you realize that rage issues can be solved in more ways than one, you can move towards Hades, and stand on top of him, effectively hugging him, and you won't get hurt when he uses these attacks.

01:31:04.380 --> 01:31:07.520
Unfortunately, a hug isn't going to cure this issue alone.

01:31:07.900 --> 01:31:08.720
Therapy will.

01:31:09.060 --> 01:31:10.980
And you still need to drop him to zero health.

01:31:11.780 --> 01:31:20.280
When you do, he falls to both knees, and asks you how, and then tells you to go, get out of here, out of his sight.

01:31:22.820 --> 01:31:24.580
You tell him, that's exactly what you're going to do.

01:31:25.080 --> 01:31:35.220
But before you do, Hades' anger vanishes, and he says, wait, before you go, if you do find her, will you tell her that Cerberus is doing very well for me?

01:31:36.440 --> 01:31:36.680
Oh.

01:31:37.280 --> 01:31:38.920
You tell him, you don't know him shit.

01:31:39.100 --> 01:31:40.160
Hell yeah.

01:31:40.320 --> 01:31:45.680
And that if he wants a favor out of you, he needs to answer, why did Persephone leave in the first place?

01:31:47.900 --> 01:31:51.460
Before he can answer, the screen turns black the way it does when you die.

01:31:51.800 --> 01:31:56.860
But instead of your body being all you can see, Hades is the only one we can see.

01:31:57.540 --> 01:32:02.440
He says the words, there is no escape, and he sinks into the blood beneath him.

01:32:03.160 --> 01:32:03.380
Ugh.

01:32:03.900 --> 01:32:07.360
We get a banner across the screen saying, Hades vanquished.

01:32:10.120 --> 01:32:14.320
As you say goodbye, father, you get a screen showing your stats for the escape.

01:32:15.120 --> 01:32:19.320
Telling you how long it took, the boons you acquired, what you used, all those fun stats.

01:32:21.060 --> 01:32:23.940
The screen goes away, and we're still in the snowy field.

01:32:25.220 --> 01:32:29.840
Ahead, there's an archway, light shining through it despite it being dark where we are.

01:32:31.200 --> 01:32:33.820
You pass through it and enter Greece.

01:32:35.400 --> 01:32:39.300
You're high atop a mountain looking down on the ocean and the Greek islands below.

01:32:40.460 --> 01:32:42.300
It's unlike anything you've seen.

01:32:43.220 --> 01:32:45.640
And you say a very Peter Pan style phrase.

01:32:47.020 --> 01:32:54.060
Beyond the frozen overlook, await the first glimpse of the sun to your left, then onward through the cold.

01:32:54.960 --> 01:32:59.960
As you walk through this mountain's path, you start to see grass peeking out through the snow.

01:33:00.940 --> 01:33:03.860
And the sun is shining ahead, melting more of the ice.

01:33:04.700 --> 01:33:08.540
You shiver and cough, not used to the cold air, but continue forward.

01:33:09.240 --> 01:33:13.020
You eventually stop and say, no way, it can't be.

01:33:13.500 --> 01:33:16.320
You run forward, and the snow is completely gone.

01:33:16.600 --> 01:33:23.820
It's lush and green, and you pass through an ivy-covered archway, where you enter a bustling and fruitful garden.

01:33:24.520 --> 01:33:27.400
There's fruits, vegetables and flowers everywhere.

01:33:27.780 --> 01:33:35.000
In the center of this garden of color and smells is a woman with light hair wearing muted beige linen clothing.

01:33:35.920 --> 01:33:37.100
She asks who you are.

01:33:37.840 --> 01:33:40.180
Nobody comes out this way, and this is private property.

01:33:41.680 --> 01:33:48.800
You show zero chill and open with, I think you're Persephone, and if you are, I think I might be your son.

01:33:49.000 --> 01:33:50.500
Oh my god, zero to sixty.

01:33:50.520 --> 01:33:50.840
Yeah.

01:33:53.360 --> 01:33:55.060
Zagreus, calm down.

01:33:55.760 --> 01:34:02.100
She snaps immediately and tells you to get the fuck out of here or she will make you get the fuck out of here.

01:34:02.400 --> 01:34:05.180
Oh shit, she said get off my property.

01:34:05.880 --> 01:34:09.000
You take this anger as a sign that she is at least Persephone.

01:34:10.000 --> 01:34:11.080
I assume I'm right.

01:34:11.660 --> 01:34:15.860
And tell her you'll leave if she just explains why she left in the first place.

01:34:17.020 --> 01:34:22.700
You never even knew she existed until recently, and you want to know why this was all hidden from you.

01:34:23.220 --> 01:34:26.500
She says that you died almost the moment you were born.

01:34:27.720 --> 01:34:28.980
Your ankles of flame?

01:34:29.340 --> 01:34:32.780
They went out, and everyone told her that meant you were dead.

01:34:33.500 --> 01:34:35.120
So she ran in her grief.

01:34:35.840 --> 01:34:40.420
But here you stand, alive, and your ankles of flame burning bright.

01:34:41.040 --> 01:34:45.160
You're shocked because nobody told you that you had a complicated birth even.

01:34:45.760 --> 01:34:49.680
And you realize that she didn't even know you were still alive when she left.

01:34:51.020 --> 01:34:55.420
She's blown away because Hades even kept the name Zagreus that she picked out for you.

01:34:56.140 --> 01:34:58.700
We get a screen that says, Sometime later.

01:34:59.240 --> 01:35:02.040
So Persephone is the goddess of the harvest.

01:35:02.960 --> 01:35:04.120
Oh, that's why she's gardening.

01:35:04.320 --> 01:35:04.700
Right.

01:35:05.100 --> 01:35:09.000
She was born of the goddess Demeter and a mortal, a human farmer.

01:35:09.400 --> 01:35:11.020
Does that make her a demigod?

01:35:11.760 --> 01:35:16.900
No, she still gets the status of full god because she was born on Mount Olympus.

01:35:17.060 --> 01:35:17.880
Only takes a drop.

01:35:18.260 --> 01:35:25.900
In her rebellious youth, she left Mount Olympus and secretly made her way to the Underworld, where she met a cute boy named Hades.

01:35:26.140 --> 01:35:27.360
Is this her emo phase?

01:35:27.520 --> 01:35:28.020
Yeah.

01:35:28.160 --> 01:35:29.260
Screw you, dad.

01:35:29.280 --> 01:35:30.160
I'm going dark.

01:35:30.920 --> 01:35:31.900
They fell in love.

01:35:32.380 --> 01:35:39.160
She got pregnant, and when she thought she lost her child shortly after his birth, she ran from the Underworld, destroyed by grief.

01:35:39.960 --> 01:35:40.140
Oh.

01:35:40.600 --> 01:35:49.240
The scene comes back to Zagreus, finishing off the tale of defeating his father, and that he wanted her to know that Cerberus is doing well, which she's very happy to hear.

01:35:50.940 --> 01:35:56.300
But she wants to know more about your journey and discovery of the truth, but then she gets concerned as she looks at you.

01:35:56.920 --> 01:35:59.340
You're coughing still, and now you're sweating.

01:36:00.820 --> 01:36:06.160
She realizes, you don't belong in the mortal world, and there's nothing you can do about it.

01:36:06.480 --> 01:36:07.920
You belong in the Underworld.

01:36:08.020 --> 01:36:09.400
Your body can't survive here.

01:36:09.860 --> 01:36:13.140
Your body's like rejecting this plane of mortal world.

01:36:13.340 --> 01:36:15.440
Yeah, and you're like, why are you kicking me out?

01:36:15.460 --> 01:36:16.960
And she says, I'm not.

01:36:17.200 --> 01:36:17.840
Nature is.

01:36:19.020 --> 01:36:20.840
This is a crime against nature, babe.

01:36:21.400 --> 01:36:24.260
You can't leave the Underworld any more than Hades can.

01:36:24.500 --> 01:36:27.980
The same would happen to him out here, which is why she came here in the first place.

01:36:28.580 --> 01:36:29.840
To get away from everyone?

01:36:29.860 --> 01:36:30.440
Yeah.

01:36:30.600 --> 01:36:31.380
Oh, honey.

01:36:31.980 --> 01:36:36.260
She thought that seeing him would bring back all the pain of having lost her son.

01:36:36.900 --> 01:36:40.780
She's thrilled to know you lived, but now she has to watch you die.

01:36:42.580 --> 01:36:46.880
You tell her that now that you know where she is, you can come back here.

01:36:47.680 --> 01:36:50.480
Maybe Hades will even just let you now that you've found her.

01:36:51.320 --> 01:36:54.000
She tells you to tell him that she demands it.

01:36:54.500 --> 01:36:59.080
She also wants to know why nobody bothered to come here to let her know that you were alive this whole time.

01:36:59.660 --> 01:37:05.720
Hades always knew she hated the way Olympians lied and cheated on one another all the fucking time.

01:37:06.320 --> 01:37:07.980
And that's why she left Mount Olympus.

01:37:08.400 --> 01:37:09.820
She's like, you're all disgusting.

01:37:10.560 --> 01:37:14.460
She's pissed that Hades would do that to her, knowing how she felt.

01:37:15.080 --> 01:37:17.860
You tell her that you'll be back, however long it takes.

01:37:18.920 --> 01:37:20.480
And the river Styx takes you under.

01:37:21.360 --> 01:37:24.380
And you awaken back in the waiting pool of blood in the house of Hades.

01:37:25.820 --> 01:37:28.720
Because beating Hades isn't the end of the game.

01:37:29.420 --> 01:37:31.580
If anything, it's only the beginning.

01:37:31.880 --> 01:37:34.420
Holy shit, death is only the beginning.

01:37:35.040 --> 01:37:37.740
Because now you have new questions that need answering.

01:37:38.320 --> 01:37:40.960
And you've met a bunch of gods and demigods on your journey.

01:37:42.160 --> 01:37:46.260
Even worse, Hades says he doesn't remember you beating him.

01:37:46.700 --> 01:37:47.720
What are you talking about?

01:37:48.480 --> 01:37:50.220
Hades is such a dick.

01:37:50.380 --> 01:37:51.780
He's a gaslighter, isn't he?

01:37:51.800 --> 01:37:56.100
Yeah, he's just the most toxic narcissist asshole.

01:37:56.460 --> 01:37:57.780
Yeah, you never saw your mother.

01:37:57.840 --> 01:37:59.700
Now shut the fuck up and get out of his sight.

01:37:59.880 --> 01:38:01.520
Oh my god, I have paperwork to do.

01:38:01.540 --> 01:38:02.180
Get out of here.

01:38:02.440 --> 01:38:03.320
You tell him fine.

01:38:03.920 --> 01:38:07.840
If we can't talk about this here, you'll have to meet him up top and talk about it there.

01:38:07.900 --> 01:38:08.600
Hell yeah.

01:38:08.940 --> 01:38:14.940
As you talk to your friends, you tell them about escaping and finding your mother, and they're all so excited and happy for you.

01:38:15.360 --> 01:38:23.160
But they're also happy for themselves, because it's giving them hope that things that they thought were impossible might be possible now.

01:38:23.700 --> 01:38:27.220
Because like our friend Henry, Zagreus is able to break his cycle.

01:38:27.660 --> 01:38:30.380
Which is why Hades was publicly denying you beat him.

01:38:30.420 --> 01:38:33.780
He doesn't want people to realize that it's possible to defy him and escape.

01:38:33.820 --> 01:38:37.200
He's doing like ground control, like, nope, nope, everything's fine.

01:38:37.400 --> 01:38:38.840
You cannot leave the underworld.

01:38:38.880 --> 01:38:39.880
Shut up, Zagreus.

01:38:40.420 --> 01:38:42.640
But there's some that aren't so happy, like Megira.

01:38:43.040 --> 01:38:50.420
She says that you escaping is going to make Hades pissed at all the people that helped you escape or fail to stop you from escaping.

01:38:50.540 --> 01:38:51.020
True.

01:38:51.440 --> 01:38:55.120
You find out how he's going to do that when you next enter the room with Skelly.

01:38:55.480 --> 01:38:59.940
There's now a skull above the gateway that sends you back to Tartarus to begin your escape.

01:39:00.640 --> 01:39:02.720
Once you try to walk through it, you get a message.

01:39:03.380 --> 01:39:07.180
Hades has added something called a Pact of Punishment to the Underworld.

01:39:07.280 --> 01:39:09.000
Pact of Punishment?

01:39:09.580 --> 01:39:16.040
If you want more rewards and better power-ups, you need to add punishments to make the escape more difficult.

01:39:17.120 --> 01:39:23.740
So there's things like take 25% more damage, have less health, zone bosses are stronger.

01:39:24.460 --> 01:39:26.880
There are actually 14 different possible punishments.

01:39:28.040 --> 01:39:30.840
Each one also has higher levels of difficulty.

01:39:31.320 --> 01:39:33.920
But the rewards are better, so there's a trade-off.

01:39:34.460 --> 01:39:39.420
It's really just there to keep the difficulty rating increasing while you play through the game, trying to get you back to your mom.

01:39:40.080 --> 01:39:45.360
On these attempts, we get the ability to unlock some more story with the people we've met along the way.

01:39:45.900 --> 01:39:51.020
We inform Orpheus and Eurydice that you know both of them and pass notes between the two.

01:39:51.440 --> 01:40:00.300
Eurydice is still a little bitter at Orpheus for getting her stuck here, but once she finds out Orpheus is a slave, she feels bad for him and starts to miss him.

01:40:01.960 --> 01:40:04.980
We also start to pass notes between Patroclus and Achilles.

01:40:06.520 --> 01:40:11.820
But Patroclus is worried that Achilles has turned into the rest of the people that he hates in Elysium anyway.

01:40:12.300 --> 01:40:14.800
He's so pessimistic, this poor baby.

01:40:15.000 --> 01:40:18.600
Yeah, he thinks Achilles is just going to be another big dumb jock warrior.

01:40:19.300 --> 01:40:27.280
Because while they died on the same battlefield, Patroclus died really early in the battle, like weeks earlier than Achilles.

01:40:27.480 --> 01:40:28.100
Oh, shit.

01:40:28.920 --> 01:40:39.820
So he knows Achilles killed a bunch of people in that battle, killing so many that someone had to research how to kill Achilles in order to stop his bloodlust.

01:40:40.200 --> 01:40:43.060
And like, how do you hit someone with an arrow in the heel?

01:40:43.080 --> 01:40:44.380
That takes a lot of tries.

01:40:44.560 --> 01:40:45.520
Yeah, exactly.

01:40:45.540 --> 01:40:48.240
And then there's poor old Sisyphus and Boldy.

01:40:49.400 --> 01:40:51.660
He doesn't have a love other than Boldy.

01:40:52.300 --> 01:40:54.840
He just doesn't like being tortured by the furies.

01:40:56.060 --> 01:41:01.680
He sees that you and Magira seem to get along and asks if you could maybe talk to her into easing up on him.

01:41:02.120 --> 01:41:06.840
And this is when Meg reveals to you that there's a contract on each of these gift givers.

01:41:08.040 --> 01:41:14.740
She's under orders to torture and annoy Sisyphus, just like there's a contract keeping Orpheus and Eurydice apart.

01:41:15.520 --> 01:41:17.100
Same with Achilles and Patroclus.

01:41:18.000 --> 01:41:23.340
All of their misery is because Hades made contracts requiring all of it to take place.

01:41:23.700 --> 01:41:25.940
Hades is a licensing lawyer.

01:41:25.960 --> 01:41:29.120
And he's an asshole one at that.

01:41:29.260 --> 01:41:34.820
I love that they really packed in every bad aspect of a person into Hades.

01:41:34.840 --> 01:41:35.780
Into Hades, right?

01:41:35.800 --> 01:41:36.200
You know?

01:41:36.720 --> 01:41:38.900
It's giving corporate trauma.

01:41:39.380 --> 01:41:43.940
Of course, all of these conversations are happening during and in between escape attempts.

01:41:44.660 --> 01:41:48.740
And eventually, you'll make it to Hades again, and you can have that chat he owes you.

01:41:49.240 --> 01:41:55.640
He says that you know what happens when you go to Greece, and yet you still persist on escaping.

01:41:56.280 --> 01:42:00.220
You tell him that if he would just answer all your questions, you would have no reason to leave.

01:42:00.720 --> 01:42:03.120
You tell him that Persephone wants to know some things too.

01:42:03.760 --> 01:42:06.880
But he says he's going to have to save his breath for the fight that you're about to have.

01:42:08.160 --> 01:42:12.180
And even after killing him, he still won't say shit, so you go on.

01:42:12.200 --> 01:42:13.400
Oh my god, he's such a prick.

01:42:13.980 --> 01:42:21.800
If you manage to get to Persephone, she tells you more about her current life and the events that led to her both arriving in and escaping from the underworld.

01:42:22.420 --> 01:42:26.280
You ask if Hades was abusive at all, and she says not in the slightest.

01:42:26.940 --> 01:42:30.940
He was stubborn sometimes, but he was nothing but kind and loving towards her.

01:42:31.380 --> 01:42:31.580
Ugh.

01:42:32.500 --> 01:42:42.260
Her pregnancy was difficult, and Hades and Nyx told her that a child born of a half-human won't ever survive in the underworld, even if the other half is God.

01:42:43.460 --> 01:42:45.100
He's only a quarter-human.

01:42:45.300 --> 01:42:45.780
Yeah.

01:42:46.940 --> 01:42:49.740
So when you were born dead, she ran.

01:42:50.720 --> 01:42:53.420
You die again, and you have new questions to ask Hades.

01:42:54.020 --> 01:42:57.800
Like, why did you lie to both of you about any of this?

01:42:57.820 --> 01:42:59.860
What was the purpose in doing that?

01:43:00.380 --> 01:43:05.460
You return to House of Hades, and on the returns where you killed Hades, he's not in his throne when you get back.

01:43:07.220 --> 01:43:09.320
When he beats you, he's not usually there either.

01:43:10.200 --> 01:43:17.720
Nyx often is, but she has a whole these lips are sealed kind of contract she can't break in regards to your origin story, so she's not much help.

01:43:17.840 --> 01:43:18.900
She's under NDA.

01:43:18.980 --> 01:43:19.400
Yeah.

01:43:19.940 --> 01:43:26.340
What's funny, though, is Hypnos also has no record of how you died when you either get killed by or get past Hades.

01:43:26.460 --> 01:43:28.700
That's like his whole deal is logging it.

01:43:28.820 --> 01:43:33.980
Yeah, and he asks you, but you don't tell him anything, and he starts marking it off as natural causes.

01:43:35.260 --> 01:43:46.500
Another fun thing that happens after you first defeat of Hades is the next time you encounter the Lernaean Bone Hydra, you realize you just keep calling it Bone Hydra, and that maybe if he had a proper name, he wouldn't be so grumpy.

01:43:47.660 --> 01:43:49.280
You have no sense of identity, man.

01:43:49.300 --> 01:43:50.620
You can be your own Hydra.

01:43:51.060 --> 01:43:54.300
So you tell the Hydra that you're just going to call him Lerny from now on.

01:43:55.600 --> 01:43:57.380
This is not calm Lerny at all.

01:43:57.500 --> 01:44:01.340
No, Lerny is just like, now Lerny is angry, fuck you.

01:44:01.440 --> 01:44:08.060
Yeah, and when you defeat it, instead of getting a banner saying, Hydra vanquished, you get one saying Lerny vanquished.

01:44:08.320 --> 01:44:10.280
That's very cute, I like that a lot.

01:44:10.300 --> 01:44:12.480
Yeah, and the Hydra is Lerny for the rest of the game.

01:44:13.340 --> 01:44:17.480
Hades eventually starts to realize, you won't stop until you get some answers.

01:44:17.960 --> 01:44:20.740
So he starts to provide some in the hopes he can get you to stop.

01:44:21.240 --> 01:44:23.200
He tells you that he didn't lie.

01:44:24.020 --> 01:44:26.600
He genuinely believed that you would die at birth.

01:44:27.280 --> 01:44:30.680
And when your ankle fire went out, he figured it meant you were dead.

01:44:31.220 --> 01:44:33.920
Plus, it was prophesied that his heir would die.

01:44:34.480 --> 01:44:36.020
And there he was with a dead son.

01:44:36.140 --> 01:44:36.720
Yeah.

01:44:37.420 --> 01:44:40.920
Nyx was the one who actually saved your life and got you to wake up.

01:44:41.360 --> 01:44:46.840
Since your mother had run off and Nyx had given you life, they referred to her as your mother.

01:44:48.560 --> 01:44:49.900
Oh, I get that.

01:44:50.280 --> 01:44:56.320
When you tell this to Persephone, she's shocked because it was Nyx that facilitated her escape from the underworld.

01:44:57.000 --> 01:44:59.000
Nyx is up to some shit.

01:44:59.380 --> 01:45:03.400
She kept Persephone hidden on her journey, allowing her to escape undetected.

01:45:03.880 --> 01:45:06.300
But it was well after that that she revived you.

01:45:06.600 --> 01:45:09.760
Okay, so she didn't know that she's not doing too much shady shit.

01:45:09.780 --> 01:45:10.940
She's like, I'm so sorry.

01:45:11.260 --> 01:45:12.220
Let's get you out of here.

01:45:12.240 --> 01:45:14.080
This isn't gonna be fun for you.

01:45:14.100 --> 01:45:16.680
You just popped out, a stillborn, no fun.

01:45:16.760 --> 01:45:19.760
Let's get you not old home, but a new home.

01:45:20.000 --> 01:45:21.980
Gets you out, comes back home.

01:45:22.460 --> 01:45:23.840
Oh, I think I can save the baby.

01:45:24.200 --> 01:45:24.520
Shit.

01:45:25.060 --> 01:45:25.360
Right.

01:45:26.200 --> 01:45:28.120
And then Hades put her under contract.

01:45:28.720 --> 01:45:30.660
Then he's like, I need you to sign an NDA.

01:45:32.380 --> 01:45:37.080
He comes in while she's holding the baby with paperwork and a pen and is like, can you put the baby down?

01:45:37.100 --> 01:45:38.020
I have something for you.

01:45:40.100 --> 01:45:42.860
You ask Persephone if she would have come back as she had known.

01:45:43.140 --> 01:45:47.500
She says she would have gladly waited through hell to see her only son.

01:45:47.980 --> 01:45:48.720
Oh, honey.

01:45:49.500 --> 01:45:52.680
You ask what if Hades wouldn't want her waiting through hell?

01:45:53.620 --> 01:45:55.140
What if he wanted something else for her?

01:45:55.860 --> 01:45:57.780
But you die again before you can elaborate.

01:45:58.500 --> 01:46:05.460
When you next speak to Hades, you ask about the contracts on everyone throughout the underworld, wondering why he has so many on them.

01:46:06.400 --> 01:46:09.880
He says that he's pushed so many, he doesn't know what you're talking about.

01:46:11.440 --> 01:46:12.800
Be more specific.

01:46:12.880 --> 01:46:15.040
I have a lot of people under NDA.

01:46:15.520 --> 01:46:19.260
But if you're so concerned, then why don't you just end their contracts?

01:46:19.280 --> 01:46:20.760
You're the prince of the underworld.

01:46:20.780 --> 01:46:21.880
You have that power.

01:46:22.720 --> 01:46:23.620
You just need to find them.

01:46:25.460 --> 01:46:30.100
This opens up one of the two locked rooms we discovered on our first trip out of House of Hades.

01:46:31.540 --> 01:46:33.620
It's the room where everyone's contracts are kept.

01:46:34.360 --> 01:46:39.300
And there's millions of them, written on scrolls stacked as high as the eye can see.

01:46:40.040 --> 01:46:42.760
So it's not as simple as just grabbing it and ending it.

01:46:43.700 --> 01:46:49.520
You have to ask a bunch of people questions until you find out where each one is kept before you can terminate it.

01:46:50.040 --> 01:46:55.220
This will take place over several escape attempts too, requiring Nectar and Ambrosia to loosen their lips.

01:46:55.680 --> 01:47:00.120
And you find out that Hades actually has reason for keeping Persephone in the dark about you.

01:47:00.520 --> 01:47:04.480
It has to do with the Olympian gods and the fact that they think she's dead.

01:47:05.400 --> 01:47:12.080
Hades says if they were to find her, it would be disastrous, as they would be pissed to find out she's been hiding from them all these years.

01:47:13.220 --> 01:47:18.580
Oh, so they would be like, they would not treat her well if they find out that she's just out there in the world.

01:47:19.060 --> 01:47:27.360
Yeah, any disruption, any rumbling of something going on in the underworld would draw eyes, and that could reveal her existence to them.

01:47:27.900 --> 01:47:34.040
In hearing this, you start to realize Hades still cares about and is protecting Persephone.

01:47:35.540 --> 01:47:39.580
He's still a bad parent, but he was trying to keep it all under wraps to keep her safe.

01:47:39.580 --> 01:47:46.360
And he's like, if we ruffle up feathers, they're going to start looking, and we can't let them bring the fury of the gods, literally, on my girl.

01:47:46.540 --> 01:47:47.020
Right.

01:47:48.960 --> 01:47:53.120
On your next visit, you tell her this, and she just simply doesn't believe it.

01:47:53.940 --> 01:47:55.280
He's a powerful god.

01:47:55.300 --> 01:47:58.360
He could easily come find her and tell her what was going on.

01:47:58.820 --> 01:48:05.500
She says there's no possible way he gives one flying fuck about her, because when she left, she never heard from him.

01:48:06.760 --> 01:48:12.160
No scouting party, nothing until you showed up, telling her that her whole life is a lie.

01:48:13.680 --> 01:48:19.420
On the next visit, you tell her that the Olympians have been helping you, but that they think it's so you can come visit them.

01:48:19.860 --> 01:48:24.120
And yeah, and I was like an olive branch of like, hey, long lost cousin, what's up?

01:48:24.380 --> 01:48:25.520
Borrow some water.

01:48:25.540 --> 01:48:26.980
I am Poseidon, your uncle.

01:48:27.580 --> 01:48:31.040
So she freaks out, worried that you've led them to her.

01:48:31.120 --> 01:48:35.980
She's like, well, shit, now they're going to watch you, and you've been here like, what, five, six times?

01:48:36.000 --> 01:48:36.600
Come on, buddy.

01:48:37.000 --> 01:48:50.000
Yeah, you assure her that they seem to have no clue she's still alive, and you die and return, and she tells you about how she grew up looking at paintings of the gorgeous Hades, and she saw him as kind of a celebrity crush.

01:48:50.860 --> 01:48:52.280
Like the bad boy?

01:48:53.040 --> 01:48:53.260
Oh.

01:48:53.860 --> 01:49:03.060
Yeah, she heard his siblings tell all sorts of terrible stories about him, and while they thought it made him sound bad, to her, he sounded so fucking cool.

01:49:05.600 --> 01:49:09.500
I love the idea of a star fucker with the gods, you know?

01:49:10.080 --> 01:49:19.300
But based on how they felt about him, they'd be convinced that Hades seduced her and took her to the Underworld, when in fact, she went after him.

01:49:19.320 --> 01:49:21.320
The drama.

01:49:22.240 --> 01:49:31.000
If they were to find out, she thinks there would be war between the Underworld and Mount Olympus, which is why they can't find out she's alive.

01:49:31.940 --> 01:49:33.720
That's the only reason for the secrecy.

01:49:34.360 --> 01:49:35.940
He's just trying to prevent a war.

01:49:36.080 --> 01:49:37.800
He never cared about Persephone.

01:49:38.300 --> 01:49:39.840
He was just trying to protect his kingdom.

01:49:41.360 --> 01:49:49.540
You die once again, with a mission to find proof that Hades loves her and wants her to be safe and isn't just trying to prevent a war.

01:49:50.500 --> 01:49:55.340
With love on your mind, you also set about absolving the contracts of your friends.

01:49:56.080 --> 01:50:00.580
You find the contract keeping Orpheus enslaved, and you absolve it.

01:50:01.280 --> 01:50:04.580
This gives Orpheus the freedom to go anywhere in the Underworld he wants.

01:50:05.460 --> 01:50:10.680
And the next time we make it to Eurydice's place, in Asphodel, we can see them reunited.

01:50:11.840 --> 01:50:12.040
Oh!

01:50:12.800 --> 01:50:16.160
Singing together in perfect, beautiful harmony.

01:50:16.420 --> 01:50:19.620
Wait, I didn't think this would be so romantic.

01:50:21.280 --> 01:50:22.660
It's all about love in the end.

01:50:22.660 --> 01:50:23.540
It really is.

01:50:24.480 --> 01:50:30.040
They're so grateful for you reuniting them, and Orpheus even teaches you to play the harp over time as well.

01:50:30.220 --> 01:50:32.800
Oh, that's cool, because he's inspired again.

01:50:32.820 --> 01:50:34.840
He's like, I have the fire in me.

01:50:34.900 --> 01:50:42.000
I'm here, and the fact that he hasn't sung for so long, and he sees he gets his girl back, and they're just harmonizing.

01:50:42.200 --> 01:50:43.320
Oh, it's beautiful.

01:50:43.860 --> 01:50:51.740
When you return to the house, Orpheus is still there on occasion, but the reason being Eurydice just really enjoys her home that she's built for herself.

01:50:53.240 --> 01:50:56.020
And there's no returning to Earth again anyway for either of them.

01:50:56.120 --> 01:50:56.600
Yeah.

01:50:56.780 --> 01:51:04.120
And now Orpheus sees this as a job, and you can hear him sing when you enter the House of Hades, since he once again has a reason to sing.

01:51:04.500 --> 01:51:05.940
This is so beautiful.

01:51:05.960 --> 01:51:06.940
What the fuck?

01:51:07.660 --> 01:51:11.340
You can also absolve the contract that keeps Sisyphus bound and tormented.

01:51:11.720 --> 01:51:16.680
The Fury Sisters are no longer required to harass him, and they leave him alone.

01:51:17.180 --> 01:51:22.940
He also no longer has to push Boldy up the hill, but Sisyphus has grown quite attached to Boldy.

01:51:23.640 --> 01:51:25.480
Well, you spend so much time with someone.

01:51:25.560 --> 01:51:27.540
Yeah, he couldn't imagine leaving Boldy.

01:51:27.600 --> 01:51:28.640
It's like, look at that face.

01:51:28.660 --> 01:51:29.680
I'm not walking away.

01:51:29.720 --> 01:51:34.200
Yeah, so he stays with Boldy, because at least now, he's not getting harassed any longer.

01:51:34.720 --> 01:51:36.740
Finally, there's Achilles and Patroclus.

01:51:37.880 --> 01:51:39.180
It's mostly the same for them.

01:51:39.320 --> 01:51:41.400
The contract is destroyed, and they can reunite.

01:51:41.820 --> 01:51:46.040
Achilles goes to visit Patroclus, but he's still a cranky fuck.

01:51:47.140 --> 01:51:50.160
It's kind of Bill and Frank from The Last of Us, the TV show version.

01:51:50.240 --> 01:51:51.780
Oh, I love that!

01:51:54.080 --> 01:51:59.940
But Achilles still feels a need to help you, because now you're finding out so much about your past and your life.

01:52:00.720 --> 01:52:02.900
One god I've really left out is Nyx.

01:52:03.980 --> 01:52:07.920
Being the woman who you thought was your mother your whole life, you're still really close with her.

01:52:08.260 --> 01:52:09.280
Yeah, and you know what?

01:52:09.440 --> 01:52:12.640
Her heart was always in the right place, from what it sounds like, you know?

01:52:12.920 --> 01:52:16.300
She was like, I didn't push this baby out, but I'm fucking here from day one.

01:52:16.320 --> 01:52:17.480
I will be there for you.

01:52:17.500 --> 01:52:19.320
Like, her girl for Stephanie had to get out.

01:52:19.340 --> 01:52:20.460
She's like, I'll sneak you out.

01:52:20.480 --> 01:52:22.280
Like, that is a ride or die ass bitch.

01:52:22.780 --> 01:52:26.740
Bully, and she just had a contract that was preventing her from revealing too much.

01:52:26.780 --> 01:52:29.500
Yeah, she's like, I'm under NDA with your dad, man.

01:52:29.520 --> 01:52:31.320
Like, I can't do this.

01:52:31.940 --> 01:52:36.920
And even still, she often trickles you as much information as she can get away with.

01:52:37.240 --> 01:52:40.060
She's trying her best for the loopholes and shit.

01:52:40.120 --> 01:52:44.480
Yeah, and these lead you to question Hades or Persephone and get you, like, the real answers.

01:52:45.280 --> 01:52:52.700
So the things Nyx has been telling you kind of get reiterated and then developed in your conversations with Hades and Persephone, so it can get a little redundant.

01:52:53.100 --> 01:53:01.300
However, one thing you find out is that she has not seen her technical parent chaos in centuries, so you manage to help her reunite with him as well.

01:53:03.240 --> 01:53:09.400
You still need to get proof that Hades loves Persephone and that all of this isn't just an attempt to prevent war.

01:53:10.580 --> 01:53:17.140
But it's kind of hard to find proof of something like that, and on your next visit, Persephone tells you that it's just too dangerous.

01:53:17.600 --> 01:53:19.180
She no longer wants you to visit her.

01:53:20.640 --> 01:53:24.040
This potential war is far more dangerous than you realize.

01:53:24.840 --> 01:53:28.280
So she's like, I love you, but it's not worth it anymore.

01:53:28.340 --> 01:53:30.280
Like, you're putting all of us in danger.

01:53:30.300 --> 01:53:39.420
Yeah, the Olympians killed their own parents and sprinkled the pieces of their body parts across the lava rivers of Asphodel.

01:53:39.460 --> 01:53:40.300
Holy shit.

01:53:40.620 --> 01:53:43.960
Imagine what they can do to Hades and to her.

01:53:44.480 --> 01:53:50.020
She knows Hades is smart, and that if he thinks she needs to stay hidden, then he's probably right.

01:53:50.480 --> 01:54:00.660
You lose it on her, because after all you've been through, after all the deaths and dealings you've had to go through, she wants you to just give up and never return.

01:54:02.040 --> 01:54:05.200
All because she's worried something might happen.

01:54:05.520 --> 01:54:08.680
So you tell her, stop being stubborn and stupid.

01:54:09.120 --> 01:54:11.000
Come back to the underworld with you.

01:54:11.460 --> 01:54:12.900
The ink is calling you both.

01:54:13.180 --> 01:54:13.880
Sorry, wrong game.

01:54:15.180 --> 01:54:17.260
The River Styx is calling you both.

01:54:17.700 --> 01:54:20.720
Hades can keep you safer there than he can here.

01:54:21.280 --> 01:54:21.740
Right?

01:54:21.760 --> 01:54:28.160
Like, it feels like the Olympians would have more visibility into Greece than they would in the underworld.

01:54:28.440 --> 01:54:29.180
Come on, Mom.

01:54:29.360 --> 01:54:31.140
Yeah, they just don't know to look at Greece.

01:54:31.160 --> 01:54:33.180
That's the only reason she's safe there.

01:54:33.220 --> 01:54:35.420
Yeah, they fully think she's dead so they haven't gone looking.

01:54:35.600 --> 01:54:36.320
Oh my God.

01:54:36.740 --> 01:54:46.640
But she still doesn't believe that Hades gives a shit about her and that the only thing he cares about is preventing this war, which she agrees is the only thing any of you should be worrying about.

01:54:47.180 --> 01:54:50.120
She said, my ex is a politician, not a romantic.

01:54:50.140 --> 01:54:51.320
Let's be practical here.

01:54:51.820 --> 01:54:58.140
As you die, she tells you that she does truly love you and that she never wants to see you again.

01:54:58.160 --> 01:55:00.340
Oh, fuck!

01:55:00.840 --> 01:55:01.820
Goodbye, Zagreus.

01:55:03.100 --> 01:55:05.800
And you once again get taken by the river sticks.

01:55:06.580 --> 01:55:12.320
You tell Nyx what she said about not ever returning, and she says that her reasoning is honestly pretty legit.

01:55:12.920 --> 01:55:14.820
She then asks, what do you plan on doing?

01:55:15.060 --> 01:55:17.040
And you tell her, you're going back anyway.

01:55:17.840 --> 01:55:19.520
Nyx says, good.

01:55:20.600 --> 01:55:22.220
Oh, Nyx is a romantic.

01:55:23.020 --> 01:55:24.940
So you fight your way to Hades once more.

01:55:25.440 --> 01:55:29.240
Ever since the first time you beat him, he just taunts you when you engage him.

01:55:29.520 --> 01:55:31.400
No real development, just taunts.

01:55:32.960 --> 01:55:35.040
But on this attempt, he has something to say.

01:55:35.520 --> 01:55:40.180
He calls Persephone his queen, commanding reverence, awe and fear.

01:55:41.320 --> 01:55:43.100
She wasn't just a prize to be won.

01:55:43.940 --> 01:55:46.520
She was truly the queen of the underworld.

01:55:46.940 --> 01:55:49.860
She wasn't just a groupie, she was my ride or die.

01:55:50.040 --> 01:55:51.340
And he loved her for it.

01:55:52.920 --> 01:55:57.200
He has never treated you well because he resents you for making her leave.

01:55:58.160 --> 01:55:59.140
Oh, fuck.

01:55:59.820 --> 01:56:04.220
The fact you suffered is the proof he offers as his love for Persephone.

01:56:04.900 --> 01:56:06.440
That's a cop-out, but okay.

01:56:06.580 --> 01:56:07.380
Oh my god.

01:56:07.600 --> 01:56:10.160
And then you once again fight to the death.

01:56:11.020 --> 01:56:14.420
When you return to Persephone, she's like, what the fuck, dude?

01:56:14.420 --> 01:56:15.960
I told you to stay away.

01:56:16.600 --> 01:56:17.240
Listen to me.

01:56:17.700 --> 01:56:18.540
I like it here.

01:56:19.020 --> 01:56:21.160
I have a life here, and I'm happy.

01:56:21.740 --> 01:56:23.500
Your father and I aren't together anymore.

01:56:23.680 --> 01:56:24.700
You need to accept that.

01:56:25.520 --> 01:56:31.580
But you insist that Hades still loves her and that the three of you can actually be together, happy and in the underworld.

01:56:32.100 --> 01:56:37.600
Because neither you nor Hades can survive here in Greece the way she can, thanks to her human form.

01:56:37.980 --> 01:56:40.440
She tells you to stop telling her that Hades loves her.

01:56:40.740 --> 01:56:44.900
You have no way of actually knowing that, and it's just mean to imply otherwise.

01:56:46.440 --> 01:56:50.580
Why are you trying so hard to put something so broken back together?

01:56:51.200 --> 01:56:53.080
You promise her that you'll find the proof.

01:56:53.580 --> 01:56:57.760
You'll show her Hades still loves her and that you can have your family together.

01:56:58.540 --> 01:57:02.680
And she says, oh, my poor dear boy, as you die once more.

01:57:03.780 --> 01:57:05.360
It's got to be so hard for her, too.

01:57:05.380 --> 01:57:15.040
She's put this whole life behind her, and now every three days, her son comes back and then hangs out for 45 minutes and then dies in her garden.

01:57:15.220 --> 01:57:21.120
Her garden probably looks amazing with the fertilizer, but the trauma is not worth it.

01:57:21.520 --> 01:57:24.460
You return to the house of Hades, and you have an idea.

01:57:25.640 --> 01:57:30.040
The final locked door that we haven't entered yet is your father's bedchambers.

01:57:30.940 --> 01:57:35.540
Having helped Achilles reunite with Patroclus, he helps you break into your father's room.

01:57:36.820 --> 01:57:39.200
You get in there, and you search his belongings.

01:57:40.040 --> 01:57:42.400
Finally, you find the proof you were looking for.

01:57:42.840 --> 01:57:49.680
You find the royal portrait of Persephone, dressed all in red, black and white, the colors of the house of Hades.

01:57:50.280 --> 01:57:58.900
All these years, centuries really, Hades still keeps her picture next to his bed, so she's the last thing he sees before sleeping every night.

01:58:00.780 --> 01:58:07.460
You fight your father, telling him you finally know the truth, that he loves Persephone, and that you're gonna tell her.

01:58:07.880 --> 01:58:09.060
I'm gonna tell.

01:58:09.280 --> 01:58:13.700
So he fights you again, and he dies as you return to Greece to see your mother.

01:58:14.100 --> 01:58:15.900
You tell her about the portrait by his bedside.

01:58:16.440 --> 01:58:17.280
She's confused.

01:58:18.160 --> 01:58:19.740
Why would he have it out after all these years?

01:58:20.320 --> 01:58:22.320
And you tell her that she's being obtuse.

01:58:22.840 --> 01:58:24.580
It never left his bedside.

01:58:25.860 --> 01:58:27.280
She finally realizes the truth.

01:58:27.720 --> 01:58:29.360
Hades really does still love her.

01:58:30.160 --> 01:58:34.020
So you ask her for the first time if she ever loved him in return.

01:58:34.480 --> 01:58:35.940
That is an important thing.

01:58:35.960 --> 01:58:38.160
You may have wanted to ask that earlier.

01:58:38.180 --> 01:58:39.340
I agree, right?

01:58:40.200 --> 01:58:43.820
That feels like a pretty baseline thing to ask, mom.

01:58:44.160 --> 01:58:44.960
It was ancient Greek.

01:58:44.980 --> 01:58:47.160
It was still pretty man dominated.

01:58:47.280 --> 01:58:52.280
Yeah, but he's trying to like parent trap them back together in his own like death way.

01:58:52.300 --> 01:58:53.180
Like, come on, buddy.

01:58:53.400 --> 01:58:55.140
Well, fortunately, she says yes.

01:58:55.500 --> 01:58:56.520
She really did love him.

01:58:56.940 --> 01:58:58.820
He gave her the freedom she always wanted.

01:58:59.320 --> 01:59:02.160
Let her pursue her own hobbies, have her own friends.

01:59:03.240 --> 01:59:04.340
He let me garden.

01:59:04.360 --> 01:59:05.140
It was great.

01:59:05.660 --> 01:59:10.080
He was respectful and kind to her, and honestly, a perfect partner.

01:59:10.900 --> 01:59:13.560
Terrible dad, but great boyfriend.

01:59:13.900 --> 01:59:14.800
You tell her it's time.

01:59:15.280 --> 01:59:18.200
She needs to come visit, at least to see how Cerberus is doing.

01:59:18.480 --> 01:59:20.880
Yeah, don't forget about the dog.

01:59:21.760 --> 01:59:23.340
She needs to put all these issues aside.

01:59:23.360 --> 01:59:25.600
Besides, the Olympians have been helping you.

01:59:26.240 --> 01:59:31.320
They like you, and you're sure you can convince them to be cool about all this, even if they do find out.

01:59:32.400 --> 01:59:33.800
He's like, it's family.

01:59:34.340 --> 01:59:38.540
We'll deal with the in-laws, like Hades will put on a tie, it'll be fine.

01:59:39.060 --> 01:59:41.280
But she says there's no way she'd be welcome there.

01:59:41.780 --> 01:59:44.140
She's a queen who abandoned her kingdom after all.

01:59:44.560 --> 01:59:46.940
You die once again, begging her to reconsider.

01:59:47.540 --> 01:59:48.960
You confront Hades at his desk.

01:59:49.520 --> 01:59:52.680
You lay out what you know, which is mostly everything by this point.

01:59:53.140 --> 01:59:57.000
He's pissed at you for uncovering the truth to the questions he kept telling you to stop chasing.

01:59:57.660 --> 01:59:59.140
And you're rifled through his shit.

01:59:59.620 --> 02:00:02.720
You have no idea the danger you're putting the underworld into.

02:00:03.180 --> 02:00:06.560
You ask Nyx about what she saw when Hades and Persephone were together.

02:00:07.020 --> 02:00:10.200
She says that Hades was so different when she was around.

02:00:11.440 --> 02:00:15.620
He was kinder, softer, and Nyx saw the best in him during that time.

02:00:16.360 --> 02:00:17.000
We're still.

02:00:17.560 --> 02:00:19.900
Hades knew he was better when she was around.

02:00:21.040 --> 02:00:25.720
You set off again to confront and kill your dad, and seek out your mother for more answers.

02:00:26.580 --> 02:00:29.440
By now, you've defeated Hades nine times.

02:00:30.000 --> 02:00:32.660
When you approach him, he's feeling quite defeated.

02:00:33.520 --> 02:00:36.960
You ask why he never did anything to save his family.

02:00:37.920 --> 02:00:38.880
Why did he let her go?

02:00:39.260 --> 02:00:46.480
He says that yes, he loved her, still does, and that he's only ever wanted to keep her safe by keeping her hidden.

02:00:47.000 --> 02:00:51.260
But you're so fucking persistent, and honestly, quite good at beating him now.

02:00:52.620 --> 02:00:54.420
So go, just fucking go to her.

02:00:54.560 --> 02:00:55.720
He doesn't even try to fight you?

02:00:55.740 --> 02:00:56.860
He doesn't even fight you.

02:00:57.380 --> 02:01:09.100
But understand, if the Olympians find out and bring their wrath down upon her, nothing will stop Hades from killing you the way he killed his parents, permanently.

02:01:09.780 --> 02:01:11.340
And Hades lets you pass without fighting.

02:01:12.040 --> 02:01:18.080
You arrive at Persephone's cottage, and when you get there, she's standing with a big suitcase at her feet.

02:01:19.460 --> 02:01:22.680
She's thrilled to see you, and you ask, what's up with the bag?

02:01:23.260 --> 02:01:26.400
She just tells you that she was hoping she could surprise you, but oh well.

02:01:27.440 --> 02:01:28.780
She's coming back to the Underworld.

02:01:30.500 --> 02:01:32.420
And she's intending on setting out quite shortly.

02:01:32.860 --> 02:01:39.120
But now that you're here, maybe you can just come back with her instead of her having to watch you die for the tenth time in front of her.

02:01:39.140 --> 02:01:40.020
Also, what was her plan?

02:01:40.040 --> 02:01:45.320
Was she just going to run in front of a bowl or something and like unalive herself to get back down to man's?

02:01:45.780 --> 02:01:48.740
Well, you also agree, but wonder what she means.

02:01:48.760 --> 02:01:50.900
How are you going to return if not by dying?

02:01:51.880 --> 02:01:53.840
She says she happens to know a guy.

02:01:53.860 --> 02:01:54.900
Oh?

02:01:55.660 --> 02:02:00.040
You look over to the side of Persephone's cottage, and you can see a river that runs alongside it.

02:02:00.620 --> 02:02:04.000
Standing at its side is Karen, the Stygian boatman.

02:02:04.780 --> 02:02:05.000
Oh.

02:02:05.520 --> 02:02:10.420
The two of you hop on the boat, and you start to feel good, like you're not about to die.

02:02:10.820 --> 02:02:11.020
Oh.

02:02:11.920 --> 02:02:20.280
Persephone explains that while this river is water, it leads straight into the river Styx, so you're no longer in the mortal realm, technically.

02:02:20.900 --> 02:02:23.820
Karen begins to paddle the boat like a Venetian gondolier.

02:02:24.920 --> 02:02:32.420
Persephone says, it's best if the two of you just sit back and enjoy the ride, like a couple of souls off to their final resting place.

02:02:33.420 --> 02:02:38.300
Music begins to play, and you go, wait, isn't this an Orpheus song?

02:02:40.880 --> 02:02:46.800
Orpheus and Eurydice begin to sing, as the words, Supergiant Games, fills the left side of the screen.

02:02:48.320 --> 02:02:49.220
And the credits roll.

02:02:51.840 --> 02:02:57.700
The credits keep rolling, and the music keeps playing, as Karen roads you through the different zones of the underworld.

02:02:58.900 --> 02:03:05.100
Down through Elysium, back into Asphodel, and finally, arriving in Tartarus.

02:03:06.180 --> 02:03:10.120
At the door with your father's face, where you began every escape attempt.

02:03:10.860 --> 02:03:17.360
The credits and music end, and you tell Persephone that it's pretty embarrassing, but you don't know how to get back in through this door.

02:03:18.040 --> 02:03:19.680
I've never had to go this way.

02:03:19.700 --> 02:03:20.840
I'm so sorry, mom.

02:03:20.880 --> 02:03:21.980
I know I grew up here.

02:03:22.400 --> 02:03:23.300
No idea what to do.

02:03:23.820 --> 02:03:26.000
And she's like, you know I'm the queen, right?

02:03:29.700 --> 02:03:31.360
She checks him immediately.

02:03:32.040 --> 02:03:34.620
So she just tells the door to open, and it does.

02:03:35.140 --> 02:03:38.980
You walk into the garden of House of Hades, an area that was not accessible before.

02:03:39.720 --> 02:03:41.340
Oh, because it was for a garden.

02:03:42.140 --> 02:03:46.920
You hear the bark of a dog, and Persephone runs over to see her favorite good boy Cerberus.

02:03:48.380 --> 02:03:50.900
Standing next to Cerberus is Hades.

02:03:51.480 --> 02:03:54.340
He says hi, but she only has eyes for Cerberus.

02:03:55.540 --> 02:04:02.280
Well, when you get an excited dog, like you can't look at anything else when they're like jumping on you and excited and wagging.

02:04:02.300 --> 02:04:02.760
I get it.

02:04:03.420 --> 02:04:07.020
Finally, he apologizes for everything.

02:04:07.760 --> 02:04:11.860
Persephone says, that's great, but she's not the only one he owes an apology to.

02:04:12.380 --> 02:04:12.880
Girl.

02:04:13.840 --> 02:04:18.180
Hades doesn't offer any more apologies, but wonders why she agreed to return.

02:04:19.340 --> 02:04:25.480
If her mother Demeter finds out she's here, well, have you ever heard the phrase, when hell freezes over?

02:04:28.460 --> 02:04:36.360
Persephone says, of course she knows what will happen, but she has some ideas, and she'll need some help and cooperation from both Hades and you.

02:04:37.020 --> 02:04:39.160
Or she can just go back to Greece and go back into hiding.

02:04:39.480 --> 02:04:42.020
Of course Hades wants her to stay, so he hears her out.

02:04:42.700 --> 02:04:46.680
But first, he still owes an apology, which he finally gives to you.

02:04:47.340 --> 02:04:49.140
Okay, that's growth, dad.

02:04:49.500 --> 02:04:55.520
A true, honest apology from the heart, with no excuses and without asking for forgiveness on your part.

02:04:56.280 --> 02:05:01.080
You're still pissed at how he handled everything, saying he didn't have to be a dick on top of lying to you.

02:05:01.240 --> 02:05:01.740
Right?

02:05:02.100 --> 02:05:06.800
But whatever, he's fucking Hades, so it just kind of comes with the territory that he's not a nice guy.

02:05:07.360 --> 02:05:08.180
That's fair.

02:05:09.200 --> 02:05:11.140
At least now you understand why he did it.

02:05:12.400 --> 02:05:13.000
But now what?

02:05:13.740 --> 02:05:17.520
You've tried escaping so many times, you kind of like it and don't really want to stop.

02:05:17.600 --> 02:05:18.640
This is just fun now.

02:05:19.100 --> 02:05:23.620
Hades says that your many attempts have actually revealed a bunch of flaws in the security system here.

02:05:24.500 --> 02:05:31.820
He asks if you wouldn't mind continuing to test it using the Packs of Punishment to increase the security measures and difficulty and then try and escape again.

02:05:32.880 --> 02:05:37.740
Persephone says that if you're going up anyway, would you mind tending to a garden in Greece before heading back?

02:05:39.360 --> 02:05:43.280
Plus, if you keep trying to escape, the Olympians won't get suspicious because you stop trying.

02:05:44.700 --> 02:05:47.840
You ask if Hades will still be there, trying to stop you too.

02:05:48.680 --> 02:05:53.420
And he says of course, we have to keep up appearances, so expect him to come at you hard.

02:05:53.620 --> 02:05:54.640
That's funny.

02:05:55.960 --> 02:05:59.420
The screen fades away, and we come back to a watercolor painting.

02:06:00.080 --> 02:06:06.760
It depicts Cerberus, Hades, Persephone and Zagreus standing together as a loving family.

02:06:08.360 --> 02:06:17.660
The narrator chimes in, saying that the family would go on to rule for eternity in relative harmony, with Mount Olympus never discovering what truly happened.

02:06:19.160 --> 02:06:23.240
And the screen fades to black, officially ending the main storyline of the game.

02:06:23.580 --> 02:06:24.980
That's fucking great.

02:06:25.800 --> 02:06:27.040
Except it's not actually over.

02:06:28.480 --> 02:06:31.320
Because now you have a job to do as head of security for the underworld.

02:06:33.820 --> 02:06:40.860
So my dad's the head of the underworld, my mom's the goddess of gardening, slash the queen of the underworld, and I run security.

02:06:41.300 --> 02:06:46.420
And also now that you did the impossible and got your divorced parents back together, you think you can do anything.

02:06:47.200 --> 02:06:49.560
So you want to get Mount Olympus back on your side too.

02:06:49.580 --> 02:06:51.040
What's that parent trap ego?

02:06:51.360 --> 02:06:57.100
This part takes a lot longer than even the main portion of the story, so I'm just going to break it down really fast.

02:06:58.580 --> 02:07:03.940
You have to max out your friendship with every Olympian god, offering nectar and ambrosia to get them to like you.

02:07:04.880 --> 02:07:14.200
Once you're BFFs with all of them, you throw a party, and everyone from Mount Olympus comes down and has a great time and are all so excited to see Persephone alive and well.

02:07:14.980 --> 02:07:20.580
They love meeting you, and after the party they continue helping you escape, knowing that it's just your job now.

02:07:21.540 --> 02:07:26.240
And everyone, genuinely, lives happily forever after.

02:07:27.480 --> 02:07:29.480
Until humans switch to monotheism anyway.

02:07:29.740 --> 02:07:34.320
That was fucking amazing.

02:07:34.860 --> 02:07:37.200
And that was Hades.

02:07:38.040 --> 02:07:39.700
Holy shit.

02:07:40.220 --> 02:07:41.720
It's a love story.

02:07:41.940 --> 02:07:43.860
It's a fucking love story, right?

02:07:43.860 --> 02:07:45.980
How the fuck was that a love story?

02:07:46.000 --> 02:07:50.740
It's a love story and a soap opera and a drama and an action and a comedy.

02:07:50.740 --> 02:07:52.960
It is all the things wrapped up in one.

02:07:52.980 --> 02:07:53.940
It's everything.

02:07:54.480 --> 02:07:58.140
I mean, this is why they call those mythology stories epics, right?

02:07:58.160 --> 02:07:59.700
Like this was fucking epic.

02:08:00.040 --> 02:08:01.600
Oh, I loved that.

02:08:01.620 --> 02:08:04.580
This game is not just a great story.

02:08:04.580 --> 02:08:06.440
It's so much fucking fun to play.

02:08:06.580 --> 02:08:12.100
Yeah, I love the music and I love the art and all the vocal performances are so perfectly horny.

02:08:12.300 --> 02:08:12.620
Right?

02:08:15.740 --> 02:08:16.440
Oh, so true.

02:08:16.460 --> 02:08:18.640
This is the horniest game I think we've played in a long time.

02:08:19.400 --> 02:08:20.760
We play a lot of horny games.

02:08:22.060 --> 02:08:27.820
You know, these video game creators, they like to see some love come together.

02:08:28.100 --> 02:08:29.640
It's true, right?

02:08:29.660 --> 02:08:33.620
I love, you know, you found your way, you went the distance, you went from zero to hero.

02:08:33.700 --> 02:08:34.600
So beautiful.

02:08:34.620 --> 02:08:37.180
Oh, stop bringing Hercules into this.

02:08:37.740 --> 02:08:40.100
I've held off for so fucking long.

02:08:40.120 --> 02:08:41.040
Don't come for me.

02:08:41.680 --> 02:08:43.540
I showed restraint, motherfucker.

02:08:43.840 --> 02:08:44.520
That's fair.

02:08:44.540 --> 02:08:45.320
You really did.

02:08:47.640 --> 02:08:52.740
Well, if you enjoyed that Goombas, please make sure you've liked and subscribed to our show.

02:08:52.760 --> 02:08:54.720
We are still going strong for season seven.

02:08:54.740 --> 02:08:55.940
We got so much more coming.

02:08:56.560 --> 02:09:03.200
Yeah, and if you do like and subscribe, it does help us reach other people, and we'd love to grow the show because this is so much fun, and we really enjoy doing it.

02:09:03.560 --> 02:09:08.380
If you want to see other episodes that we've done, you can check out our website.

02:09:08.400 --> 02:09:09.860
That's theothercastlepodcast.com.

02:09:10.240 --> 02:09:12.040
That's theothercastlepodcast.com.

02:09:12.340 --> 02:09:17.140
And that also has links to our Patreon, where we have some more hidden episodes.

02:09:17.320 --> 02:09:19.180
Like we mentioned, Donkey Kong is up there.

02:09:19.200 --> 02:09:24.400
I have a very kind of like spooky one coming up for this season that I'm really excited for.

02:09:24.420 --> 02:09:24.900
You do.

02:09:24.920 --> 02:09:26.440
You've done Pokemon Go on there.

02:09:26.460 --> 02:09:27.340
We've done Tetris.

02:09:27.360 --> 02:09:30.660
We have all sorts of really fun, very different versions of this show.

02:09:30.900 --> 02:09:38.700
Yeah, they're kind of games that maybe don't fit the mold for what the traditional format is, but they're all really, really fun.

02:09:39.100 --> 02:09:39.560
Totally.

02:09:40.020 --> 02:09:46.260
And as a thank you for all the people that sign up for our Patreon, we just want to give a quick little shout out to everybody a part of our Goomba gang.

02:09:46.560 --> 02:09:54.060
So we have Trevor, Molly, Brian, Krisha, Molly Mock, Jackie, Ellen, and Tijen.

02:09:54.120 --> 02:09:55.780
Thank you so much for your support.

02:09:56.140 --> 02:09:59.120
It helps us make this show, and we are very grateful.

02:09:59.320 --> 02:10:00.540
Yes, thank you so much.

02:10:01.200 --> 02:10:04.720
And until next time Goombas, this is Tom and Andrea reminding you...

02:10:05.080 --> 02:10:05.740
Go to hell.

02:10:05.940 --> 02:10:07.360
Don't skip the cutscenes.

02:10:08.700 --> 02:10:10.060
And believe in love.