Dude, I don't know why I discovered you too late, but you're the best

If anything about "isometric hack-'n-slash roguelite" appeals to you, you should play this game.

- The controls are simple and responsive with only four different buttons you need in combat other than movement. Despite their simplicity, they make comboing and animation-canceling satisfying. The gameplay is fast-paced and provides a lot of room for skill expression.

- There's a wide variety of weapons which all bring something unique to the table; no two of them feel the same. Most of them feel good to use, too, with clean attack animations and clear hitboxes. The exception for me is , which I think feels kind of clunky because of how long you're locked into the attack animation, and it lacks stagger on hit. It's still fun, though, and I can just avoid using it because you're never required to pick a certain weapon.

- There are plenty of different enemies, which all have their own strengths while feeling fair to fight. It's easy to tell most of the enemy types apart, other than a few that are palette-swaps.

- The powerup choices given to players during escape attempts are meaningful and diverse. The boon system is intuitive and pairs well with the weapons, and Daedalus hammers provide interesting playstyle changes. Some boons are clearly stronger than others (looking at you, deflect dash), but there's usually some situation or synergy that can make a boon worth taking.

- The metagame progression feels nice, too. Mirror upgrades and keepsakes are powerful and diverse (if you haven't noticed yet, the theme of this review is "options, options, options"), but you don't need to grind for all of them to escape the Underworld. I also like .

- The sound design is excellent. The sound effects are distinct and make it easy to track what's happening, and the music pulls together the whole "Greek mythology with a touch of modern aesthetic" theme.

- The cast of characters is memorable, if a bit cliche, but that's par for the course with mythology. Yahtzee said in his Zero Punctuation review that the voice acting "sounds like it's all coming from very sexy people," which I think is dead-on--at first I found the soft and occasionally oddly sultry way that some of the characters speak to be a little weird, but it's definitely unique and contributes to the somewhat-moody, fire-lit atmosphere and charm. I'm still playing the game long after the credits have rolled to see what happens in the characters' subplots (even though I already learned in school how most of them go).

- decorating the house is fun and Cerberus needs all the toys I can buy don't @ me

Overall, this game is great and I only have a few gripes with it. Co-op is the only thing I feel is really missing, but with how tight the gameplay is, I can understand not wanting to compromise that with netcode. There's so much content in this game and all of it fits together into a cohesive and entertaining experience. I recommend this game.

Another banger from Supergiant Games and the best rogue-like I've ever played. There's a reason why Hades 2 is the top wishlisted game on Steam.