Why Dead Cells has Better Difficulty Design than Hades
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- Today, I have something a little different for you guys. A lot of you have been requesting me to cover other games, and I thought I might do a little experimenting by doing a "video essay" esque type of content. Namely, comparing the difficulty of Dead Cells with Hades, which are both very influential games in the roguelike genre. I know what the title says, but this video is mainly a closer look on the game design of difficulty of these two titles, rather than to bash on Hades, which I actually enjoyed a lot.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
3:14 - Rewards in Difficulty
6:28 - Difficulty Variety
8:14 - Difficulty Meta
15:18 - Conclusion
Music used:
pastebin.com/E42QYGQs
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#deadcells #pseychie #hades
v1.0 - เกม
having played both, i feel that dead cells is the better rogue-lite, and Hades is the better overall/more accessible and appealing game
100%
i agree with you
facts
when i judge a roguelite I judge it purely based on gameplay. Hades may be a great game and I do really love the story aspect but Dead Cells is just more fun. So to call Hades the better game just seems wrong imo.
@@Scroolewse that's fair. maybe a better descriptor would be to say that hades has more "universal appeal" than dead cells
i have 500+ hours, and 32 heat can be done nearly every run if you're good. I agree damage control serves as a lame way to gate certain slow aspects. Max I ever did was 45, and I lucked out hard. High heat is just so much luck and doesn't feel very fun thanks to the things that limit your choices. I also agree that sack rng sucks, both for speedruns and high heat. 5bc doesn't restrict your choices at all, in fact you get *new* options for higher boss cells like new unlocks and doors. I feel like Hades was designed to be a story game with gameplay trailing behind at a close second, and that's fine. Not saying the gameplay is bad at all, but I feel like the story takes priority. Dead Cells is almost the polar opposite, with very little focus on story and putting all the resources into gameplay.
Those are just my thoughts, and I really love both of these games but I recognize the issues in Hades and what Dead Cells does better
Great Analysis, after playing 100+hrs on Hades and 200+hrs on Dead Cells, I completely agree.
Same here, played both games a lot (5bc multiple times done / 15 heat or so in hades). I totally agree with your comment. Hades was a nice, unique story-driven experience which (at least for me) falls off in terms of post-Game content. Except for cosmetic stuff in the house etc.
Dead cells on the other side stays interesting because of its gameplay and difficulty-curve
I definitely agree with that! I saw an interview with Hades and the reason they made a rogue lite was because they wanted to explore a branching narrative with lots of story.
Dead cells doesn’t focus highly on story but if you look deep into the lore its very deep and really interesting you can see explanations of it on YT
I also kind of feel like Hades was designed to be beaten by everyone, then with a challenge added on for people who want so, while Dead Cells was designed to be challenging from the start, with the full knowledge that a lot of people won't see it due to the difficulty gating.
I've played dead cells twice more than this guy and I'm ten time worst than him
Prob depends how you play it. A streamer wants to achieve something each time. I just play at 0 BC with 45h game time and be happy when I crush the boss on secs
@@christianelmers8600 yea. destroying those hp bar is just something satisfying even if you consider the fact that its 0 BC
Time != Mastery
Doing something for 10 years doesn't magically make you better - you have to actually LEARN something new :-)
@@igorthelight it's probably easier to understand if you use ≠ or =\= instead of !=
@@tuluppampam Agree
I've had this exact same thought for a while now. Hades' difficulty curve reaches a point where you're maxed out on every possible advantage at around 15-20 Heat. After that, the only way to make the game harder is to start taking away those advantages. The only thing Dead Cells takes away is how frequently you can heal. Other than that, increasing the difficulty actually gives you _more_ advantages, like stronger item drops and more scrolls. Adding a Boss Cell drastically increases the challenge, but it also gives you access to more tools to meet that challenge. Hades adds challenge by removing your tools, which in my opinion is more frustrating than fun.
But there's definitely one thing Hades does better than Dead Cells by a longshot, and that's story. The constant narrative progression regardless of whether you win or lose keeps you motivated to continue playing. In Dead Cells, the story is randomly drip-fed to you through lore rooms and requires you to piece it together yourself. While there's something to be said for that approach, especially within the game's universe, it's definitely not a motivating factor to keep you playing. I had stopped playing Dead Cells a couple years ago and only recently picked it back up, after watching videos on TH-cam that explained the story. Knowing exactly what was going on and why didn't "spoil" the game for me at all. It actually made me _more_ excited to play again, because now I actually understood the narrative flow of the game's world.
Yeah, the story is definitely what partly kept me to play hades. Losing isn’t as punishing since you always have some new story to look forward to
Lll
Some people (I'm some people) hate heavy story/lore though. I'm playing a game to play a game, and I have no attention span and really prefer only a barebones, though interesting and cool, story. Even though it's executed excellently in Hades, I really prefer Dead Cells approach to story, or lack thereof, because I'm there for the game. Hell, I even skip a lot of text in Dead Cells now because I know I'll forget it. I couldn't tell you anything about Hades story if you ask me, even though I paid attention to it, I just forget story elements so much that they're a nusiance to me unless they're very basic. It's definitely just preference, and this is why I rarely watch story driven TV or movies anymore and appreciate a good gameplay driven video game.
Dead Cells has a great story, it's just atmospheric instead of direct.
@@xenos_n. What kinda games are you a fan of? I can’t think of many barebones game storylines that came out in recent times
I haven't played Hades yet, I have it now on my stream library, but with Dead Cells? I'm a 5BC struggler 💪😎
Play Hades xD
@@leorenegade2103 Yes I F*cking will *Angry Driver Vocie* 🤣
Just beat the collector the other day. Keep going at it. You’ll get it soon
5 bc is where its at. I feel like a pro at the game
Imo dead cells is leagues better. The sound design of hades and story are the only things i like more about it
At the level you're playing at, Dead Cells and Hades are entirely different games than they are for most players. I can start to graze high-level Hades, and I will agree that it is not rewarding to try to keep going; but Dead Cells just wipes the floor with me and doesn't look back, so it doesn't matter if high-end challenge is designed to be more rewarding, because I'll never get there.
Git gud
That's the problem, it's a push and pull between more casual players (like us that are looking for a simple good time) and the more hard-core players that want a true challenge. Both games are excellent but don't really address the same group even if both group can enjoy them. Depending who you are there is going to be a definite favourite
In my opinion Dead Cells is a more open ended game in terms of gameplay with most weapons being unique and there being a lot of them that there is just a much higher skill cap while Hades is a more linear experience with its gameplay. And i think comparing the gameplay isnt exactly fair Hades being a top down and Dead Cells a sidescroller, their core gameplay is so wildly different just from that.
This is the general problem with rougelikes, as most they are entirely dependent on a player's skill, and not like more linear games with permanent upgrades, so more casual players will find progressing and beating through the game very difficult. And not accounting that different people has had different experiences with games, so there's already a base level which players are playing with different skillsets. Most rougelikes are extremely hard to get through for beginners whether you have a lot of experience with gaming or not, even if the difficulty curve is designed extremely well, its hard to get to a point where you can see yourself improving. Sadly, almost all rougelikes suffer from this issue.
The problem with that is that it's your fault if you can't play 5 bc, i can't i can't even 3 bc and that's *my* fault
The difference between Hades and Dead Cells, is the frustration factor.
Which one is more frustrating?
@@absolutelyshmooie7086 Dead Cells is 100 times more frustrating for me. It also doesn't help that I have to literally look up guides to figure out which way I have to go each time to get to specific bosses. When I die in Dead Cells I'm done for the day or a couple days, I somehow feel no urge to immediately try again. When I die in Hades I always feel like it was my fault and that I could have done better. Meanwhile Dead Cells sometimes just combos me to death every once in a while and I have no clue how I could have prevented it.
TLDR: I feel Hades is just generally easier than Dead Cells and more linear so it's easier to get the hang of it thus I have more fun with Hades in general.
@@Jakokokoroko Actually in hades every time we die we can have some conversations with npc and pet cerberus my boy. I mean we somehow feel home when we go back to that place. Meanwhile in Dead Cells, just have to do all of it again and again in tears :((
@@TaiTran-fo9fm just dont be sad you have to do it all again, because thats the main gimmick of the game
@@Zeforas I can agree, but I still like dead cells, and still play it, but it’s just frustrating
Dead cells gives you really good items on high difficulty, Hades gives you less boon choice and makes you remove boons as you go, and gives you a timer restricting your choices as a player, with the randomized nature of the boons this feels really bad. In general people do not like restrictions. I view it as Dead cells lets you be your best you vs a tougher field, wheras Hades makes it harder to be your best against a harder field. Hades restricts your options and artificially buffs the same enemies more hard, not more fun. Buffing enemies and Nerfing the player feels bad as the player. Buffing enemies and giving the player incentive to play at that level feels like much better game design. I feel like there are options Hades could use to emulate the difficult++ fun++ feel dead cells gets, perhaps by buffing the mirror of night at different levels of heat, like +1 dash +1 cast that sort of thing, so the game can still feel fresh at that level and it can feel more like a spoonful of sugar with your medicine.
Yeah I love LOVE Hades but while some of its pacts are great some really are badly thought out. Extreme measures is the best in the game and changes the bosses and gives you new dialogue, middle management and benefit package can be decent. 400% extra lava damage for only 1 pact? And taking away your abilities isn’t fun and means you have less access to strategy
i had like a 5% win rate in dead cells lol. in hades it was around 90%. they’re both fun games though
I've only made it past HOTC in 5bc once, but I generally beat Hades without much trouble.
Which makes hades a better game imo :v
@@moonlight2870 Clearly not, Hades has too much defaults
@@setretika5673 well that's his opinion tho
@@Ulvorskets that is the guy's opinion as well, just a contraction to the other guy's 🤣
I personally view both the Dead Cells vs Hades difficulty design being fundamentally, having different intent on what it tries to achieve, and what the game wants you to play on.
For Dead Cells, the inclusion of the True Ending only being available on 5BC, viability of the different gameplay on the "highest" difficulty, and game being balanced around getting the player to beat the game at 5BC leads me to believe that designers "Intended" the players to beat, and by extension play the game at 5BC, which is the highest available option.
In Hades however, the maximum heat is nowhere near the intended difficulty for the players. It exists as a zone where players intentionally give themselves even more challenge to well, challenge themselves. I would reckon that 10-15 heat is the intended difficulty, as most of the additional content, dialogue, and interactions are available within that heat area.
In short, Dead Cells WANTS you to beat the game at 5BC, the game is balanced, and made around it. Hades WANTS you to just enjoy the game, story, and the content. Challenge of beating the game at higher heat only exists as an avenue for players to extend their gameplay, not exist as a core gameplay intent
as a result of that i feel that Hades’ high heat gameplay isn’t all that interesting. it feels more luck based than skill base
@@ScrodumHat Don't play it.
@@SaturninePlaces thanks for the advice genius
Too bad Dead Cells isn't worth beating at 5BC. There is 0 incentive due to a worthless story. It's one of those L O R E games. A game that forgets lore isn't a story usually ends up having no story at all. It's lazy. It's why no one gives a fuck about Dark Souls lore, and if they do it's likely they care more about video interpretations of said lore.
@@JavaSchoolBlues but it's fun tho
This feels like a good opportunity to voice some thoughts about how Hades handles balance and scaling. Before getting into it, I want to point out that a lot of this is my preference. I like variability and variety, enough to be fine with some worse balance or risking scaling going too far either way. I like the way Risk of Rain and Noita embrace the absurdity of their scaling and design.
Hades, on the other hand, is one of the most polished roguelikes/roguelites I've played. Even a near-perfect build with multiple duos and legendaries on the right weapon is just 'pretty good,' while some of the worst runs are just 'I feel weak.'
This means the effect of RNG and the chances of over/under-scaling is way less than your typical roguelike, which is good for many people. There's many reasons Hades blew up and this is one of them, it's much more accessible and reduces a lot of the struggles of the genre. On the flipside, this makes it limited. Emergent content is much less common, a lot of synergies are clearly crafted to be that way and some potential ones (like mega cluster bombs for the gun, or a lot of daedalus hammer upgrades, really) are hard-coded to be locked out. For the amount of content it has, I felt I had seen most of what Hades had to offer in terms of gameplay rather quickly.
Roguelikes are one of the few genres where being too heavy-handed with balance and scaling can become a detriment. I don't think Hades is over this line, but because of my preferences, my own line is in a different position to most and is that little bit closer.
The ideal run is Hades is "hey, that's pretty good."
The ideal run in Dead Cells is "1000° knife vs paper."
The ideal run in Risk of Rain or Noita is "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."
Other games have the ridiculous scaling, the potential to wipe anything from existence by looking at it, but in only a few do they embrace it. In only a few is crashing the game almost a rite of passage.
I don't need that; I think Hades is an excellent roguelike. That said, I do think that its increased focus on maintaining a stable balance is not a universally beneficial choice, not one without its downsides. It's not the gold standard, it's only one of many ways to design a roguelike.
Is that an exterminator city quote?
Lets be honest in 0 BC you CAN become death destroyer of worlds but yes in noita its definetely more noticable with the drilling a huge cavern through the map destroying all life on its way aspect of it
Yeahhh, this is simply not true. Hades has a bunch of OP builds. I've seen people take down Extreme Measures Theseus in like 10 secs. Just a matter of getting familiar with boon synergies and mechanics.
@@evrimenustun9548there are many more OP builds in the games mentioned though
I recently found your youtube and got really into it!, i have just recently gotten my first bc and can't wait for more!
keep up the fresh vibe!, i have never seen Dead Cells videos presented as yours, truly catching content!
I feel like this is less a difference in terms of the quality of difficulty increases and more of a difference in philosophy. To some people, the point of challenge modes are exclusively overcoming the challenge and not additional content.
In a way, I look at dead cells' system as expert mode in terraria while hades' system is closer to master mode. Terraria's expert mode adds more content to the game, but also provides you with more and often better tools to deal with that increase of difficulty while master mode is a raw difficulty increase without new tools to make the increase of difficulty easier to adjust to. Because of this, a large part of the terraria community looks at expert mode as an expansion of the base game and at master mode as a challenge to overcome for the sake of nothing else but the challenge.
That’s why I personally found master mode to be so poor. There was a nothing to chew on. On a higher difficulty, if I get an AI buff or new boss moves, I’ll take that as content, that’s why I loved extreme measures. But master mode is just a boring and stiff raw number increase with nothing else.
I completely agree with what you said even if I am way back in the difficulty reached.
While probably quite out of your field another game I think did great for the difficulty scaling is "The Void Rains Upon Her Heart", a roguelike bullet hell with a touching story. It's a solo dev project with 100% positive reviews. Its difficulty is mainly managed overall with two mechanics: increasingly complex patterns and depending on how well the player is doing in the run.
To address your point about Hades not having more content gated behind the higher heat runs, you kind of mentioned the response to that: collecting Ambrosia, Diamonds, and Titan Blood. If a player does not raise the heat of their runs, they are only able to collect 6 Ambrosia, 6 Diamonds, and 12 Titan Bloods. Anyone who wants to get finish all of the NPC storylines, get all the good renovations, or power up their weapons will need to be continuously raising the heat if they don't want to just rely on the trader (which would be insane).
Solid video.
I enjoyed so much at your explanation as I played both game also.
I haven't reached those Heat/BC like you did but I 100% can understand what you're saying.
Bro, keep punching, these are great contents!!
I enjoyed Hades but it got rather repetitive for me. There isn't a different path you can take.
The variety of paths you can take with dead cells adds so much to the complexity especially in 4-5 BC
True that it might get repetitive, but I do think all the levels are very polished with tons of interactions, you can forge more friendships in each biome, so there’s actually incentive to keep playing
Wow there isn’t another path to take the game is trash like what that doesn’t change shit the levels and combat is what matters who give a fuck if there isn’t a different path to take
@@ijustbevibin0425 I didn't say the game is trash. No need to be so toxic. I literally said I enjoyed it.
@@ijustbevibin0425 When did he say it was trash? Are you sure you read his comment?
As someone with hundreds of hours in both I don't think either handles difficulty better. Both have strong points and weak points.
And you definitely over stated how hard 30+ heat is and Hades. It's hard but I can use basically every weapon aspect in the game to beat it. I think a lot of the takeaways that you had were due to you having so little time in Hades.
@@gravy4708
1. Something you don't mention is that dead cells has a set limit for how hard the game can be hades on the other hand has a heat system that get so hard that the max heat setting has never even been beaten. I've pushed the heat to 38 and it was incredibly rewarding to beat it.
2. Also you get more bosses as you turn up the difficulty in Hades in dead cells you get 1 extra boss at the very end of 5bc.
3. I can beat 32 heat with nearly any weapon or build so that argument doesn't really hold water.
4. You are a moron for arguing with someone who has hundreds of hours in both games when you literally have not even played the game you are bashing. Foh fanboy.
@@gravy4708
1. You said yourself that you haven't played Hades. What are you talking about?
2. I've beaten 5bc multiple times
3. You're obviously a rabid fanboy if you say with certainty that a game you've never played is inferior in nearly every way to dead cells. Do you not see how intellectually dishonest and idiotic that is?
@@gravy4708
32 is not where the heat stops it goes up to like 60 my pb is 38 and that was leagues harder than 32.
Please just stop arguing about a game you haven't even played it's a really bad look.
@Trey Love I’d argue that the way hades handles the actual fun aspect of its difficulty is inferior after a certain point. Your rewards for beating heat levels are exceptionally grindy to actually get all of. Instead of a finite ending point that leaves the player with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment like in dead cells, there’s the heat system which does not have a good stopping point and instead continues to climb upwards and upwards into the levels of unfairness and impossibility, likely leaving the player with the only option being to quit at an arbitrary and unsatisfactory point in the difficulty where it simply got too difficult to be possible without some insane luck.
@@gravy4708 cope
Stellar video! These nuances can be hard to spot for those who aren't really in tune with both games so I am glad you made this.
Really enjoyed this video! I was wondering if you could do other comparisons, like the gameplay or something, and also look at other games like skul, curse of the dead gods or space gladiators
13:46 slammers are available at all difficulties, they are at least in caverns in 0BC. 2BC introduces oven knights. I also think that all weapons in dead cells are viable at all difficulties, but some really need builds. Other than that, I agree with everything
The Cavern is inaccessible on 0BC, you obtain the key after the first defeat of HOTK.
@@magmadragon3469 ever thought about like… grabbing the key after killing hotk? You don’t need to go immediately to 1BC, it is accessible at all difficulties
Didn't think about that. My mistake!
I don't know if this was added after this comment, but they can always spawn at the Corrupted Prison
Hades is one of my favorite games ever, at least more recent releases. I'm certainly swayed more by good music and story. Gameplay and game design is certainly important to me as well, but is definitely a secondary consideration for me. I'll typically take decent gameplay and incredible story over the reverse. Really digging Dead Cells playing it now for the first time though, sometimes story taking a backseat is nice too.
Love your vids man, thanks for getting me back into dead cells
Great content and great choice of music ;)
Shocked to see how with similar hours in dead cells you have everything unlocked and here I am struggling to get to to first level boss most of the time at 4bc.
Kudos to your skill level!
Currently on 3BC and I seem to have most of the weapons and powers/traps unlocked but what really keeps me going is wanting to see and fight the (usually more challenging) new enemies.
I agree in my opinion using the weapons with a good build is just fun even in the higher difficulties
it is good to see you are gaining more subscribers. you definitely deserve it, great content bro
Really well made analysis and editing! 👍
When loading up Hades for the first time, I decided that I would put my game on hell mode (which unlocks the pact of punishment right away and gives you 5 mandatory heat).
I'm now at about 10 hours in, can consistently beat Meg, and have reached the bone hydra 3 times with no success yet because I always enter the fight pretty crippled from the difficult attrition in Asphodel.
I'm actually kind of glad that I did this, I still feel like I'm improving, but the game has a nice 'kick' to it.
Did same as you, have only gotten to final boss once in 30 hours, first phase so not even close to beating it. Haven't gotten around to finishing it in months
Don’t worry bro it took me 14 hours to even complete one run in normal mode. The timer heat is one of the easier ones. Low heat is basically winnable every run just takes time to learn.
hell mode removes i-frames iirc. but yeah it is really fun to play with. compared to dead cells, which just isn't rewarding at all. Like, i got boss cell 1. why should i keep playing? it just feels like a generic difficulty increase where enemies get stronger. atleast with Hades's pact of punishment i get to choose what will change in the next run. things like purging a boon to enter the next region is really creative rather than ooga booga strong enemy. dead cells has a really boring difficulty system imo.
I don't have enough dead cells experience to compare them, but I feel like Hades was undersold a bit here. Above five to ten heat seems to be where these issues arise, but by that time the majority of the game has been experienced. I spent many hours in the game before I reached that point, experiencing ramping difficulty and incredible story side by side. There's a finite number of enemies that can be encountered, but they all have their own tricks and patterns to learn. Again, I haven't played a ton of dead cells, but I feel like it's important to address the difficulty curve leading up to beating the game for the first time, which I would say is well performed in Hades.
Can’t believe ur at 10k. I remember like 6 months ago finding you at around 200 subscribers
Amazing video. You're the first youtuber I've seen who understands this topic.
I think you missed the point of Hades and games made by Super Giant Games in general.
They make their games for the purpose of telling a story with strong focus on characters and world building.
ah i agree on that, both bastion and transistor offered story as the part of the reward which i really like. They also nailed the soundtracks on all of their games.
agree
That's cool but I don't think he missed the point cause his point was dead cells is more difficult and can be more rewarding if you're willing to put the time into it. From what I've seen in the video hades is for the person who just wants a fun little game to play and get a good story while dead cells is for the people who wants a fun difficult game that is rewarding and has a story that you need to dig for instead of it being giving to you at face value.
@TH-cam Psychologist Books are a huge investment man. There are all kinds of ways you can tell a story and having the player actively take part within a character's arc can be much more engaging than simply reading about said character's arc for some people. Granted, Books do much more than just SPELL out a character's arc and some things can only really be told and conveyed in video game format. It all just depends on the kind of person you are. Everyone likes stories. Not everyone likes Books. It's as simple as that.
The video only talks about the difficulty topic tho lmao
I think that what you're saying in this video is exactly right, however I want to point out something that may be perceived as annoying in Dead Cells and that is the fact that in Dead Cells, you can (and will) die rather quickly. Even at 100% HP, a bad stunlock can end your run prematurely and all of your progress is lost. Obviously that depends on your build and the mutations you take, but I feel like Hades doesn't have this kind of issue (not until the most hardcore heat levels, but that's kind of the point -- you won't even try those extreme heat levels, because there's no content to see at that point, but in Dead Cells -- there is).
In Hades you die because you've run out of your resources: you've made too many mistakes and that's led you to your death. In Dead Cells, you could have full potion, a food shop, a great build, and lose all of that in seconds, because you panicked due to the fact that a shielded grenadier started targetting you while you were taking care of the golem. Not to mention that the game constantly tempts you to make risky decisions that, unlike most rogue-likes (where it would just potentially shorten a 60 minute run to a 50 minute run), can end your run right there. The curse mechanic is the prime example of that, though there's also the thought that occurs to you at some point that you are better off avoiding using your potions, because you'll need them later in the run, and playing at low health until you find a piece of food to heal or wait for your mutations to do the job instead.
While most rogue-likes make sure that you use all of your available resources before ending the run, Dead Cells makes you ignore the fact that you have any resources in the first place and risk losing your run earlier in the game in order to have an easier time in the endgame. Which is honestly kind of an annoying design choice. Like, I know that I can just play safe for the first parts of the run. But if I don't get enough scrolls from cursed chests, I'll make the boss fights much longer and then lose my potions on them due to more mistakes I'll have made. If I use my potions right away, I'll waste the _potential_ food I'll find later in the stages and then have a harder time near the end of the run. This makes the most of the run in Dead Cells a constant struggle to avoid ending the run instead of simply avoiding getting hit.
Again, I very much agree with everything you've said in the video and consider Dead Cells to be the better game gameplay-wise. This is more of an issue that I have with Dead Cells compared to other rogue-likes -- but regardless of it, Dead Cells still remains one of my favourites in the genre, just for the build and route variety.
(also, I really like how you used OSFE ost in here, that game is probably the most underrated rogue-like of 2020)
The thing is that DC promotes a high risk, high reward gameplay while punishing mistakes greatly. The game is telling you to be aware of what's happening and to be very mindful of the moves you choose to make
If you made a mistake that gets you stunlocked and killed, well that's totally your fault. The game shouldn't be criticized for how it wants you to learn from mistakes just because you're severely punished for something you brought upon yourself. And it's not even that you need to save everything you have to your advantage. By playing your cards right, you can avoid using potions or even relying on rng for foodstuff to keep yourself healthy
I've played thousands of hours in the game, and personally I've never blamed the game for being unfair or too hard on me because all of my deaths are 100% my mistake. And most of the runs I've had the most fun in is from the riskiest builds I end up making. Reworked Vampirism + Frantic Sword has been my best and funnest run in the entirety of my time playing this game, solely because it's a playstyle that heavily depends on which battles I choose to fight or delay. Most of my other fun runs include the Nerves of Steel or any Survivability weapon like Flawless, Sym Lance and Broadsword
The weapons I've come to love from the game are the ones that are very much punished for bad moves, as most of them can't have their attack commands cancelled by anything. I like to play it safe too from time to time, but nothing really beats rushing head on with just intuition and skill and rushing through enemies
At the end of the day, DC is a game that makes you mind your decisions. It gives you freedom to play how you want, as long as you remember to take caution and act accordingly to the situation or be punished for a wrong move. It's frustrating to be one shot or to be stunlocked to death, that's true, but whether that happens to you or not depends on how you act and that's what matters most in the game if you ask me
You seem to have vastly overestimated the prevalence of cursed chests. And while you might get punished for using your flasks early, it isn’t horrible if you use 1, 2 or even 3 in the early game. With one flask remaining in prisoner’s quarters, you can get back up to a full flask by the end of the game. Sometimes you lose quickly, but having high hp and flasks does keep you from dying instantly unless you take a curse (which only lasts for ten enemies) or play in a way that is profoundly stupid (in which case you deserve to lose).
@@SolaIvyCeleste Yes, getting stunlocked is totally the player's fault, however it should make you lose your run _eventually_ instead of ending it _immediately_ . If you get into a messy situation in other rogue-likes, you'll get out of it if you have maximum resources, but also have a larger possibility of losing the run in another messy situation. In Dead Cells, you might as well die in this first messy situation, and that's something that, while totally my fault, is fairly annoying, because I can't recover from my mistakes and I have to start all over again. And as I and even you said already, the game tempts you to play risky and preserve your resources, which makes it even more annoying, because it feels like the game wants you to play risky and then punishes you for it more severely than in other rogue-likes.
@@atijohn8135 because that's exactly what Dead Cells promotes? Like I said: The game's main point is being a high risk, high reward kind of game where the risks are extreme but often for a great exchange and mistakes are always punished severely
The game literally has 300% damage taken and received stats on weapons, the game's literal motto is "Kill. Die. Learn. Repeat" and the game totally lives up to it.
I get your frustrations, losing good starts because of a slip up is annoying. But the game wants you to learn from that mistakes, and from learning from said mistakes you will getting stunlocked into oblivion. The more runs you do, the more you understand what to do and the less you'll fall prey to the mistakes that get you killed a handful of times. It's kinda like a Bloodborne thing where if you make a wrong move, you eat up a chain of hits and are left dying or dead
It's still possible to clear the game without getting the risky choices like curse chests though, but with you losing a bunch of opportunities to buffer up your damage you'll tend to rely on synergy moreso for proper damage output. Which is okay, the game doesn't gate you from winning for playing it safe. It kinda just gives a harder time, which is somewhat a tradeoff for passing the risk of curse and whatnot basically making the harder fights even harder at the cost of skipping a temporary challenge with a much bigger reward when cleared
@@SolaIvyCeleste I don't think the vast majority of my deaths came from the fact that I didn't know the enemy, didn't know what to do, but rather from the fact that I made a little miscalculation, a small mistake, my character slipped off the ledge a bit, I missed the flying enemy by a hair and _that_ led to my death. I knew exactly what I should've done, I only hesitated a little and that costed me the entire run. The entire run, most of which is just killing groups of enemies in seconds, because that's how Dead Cells rolls. The enemy patterns are simple, the only difficulty in the levels comes from the fact that there are many enemies with patterns that work very much against you and that's why you should be killing them as fast as possible. That's what Dead Cells really is about -- your build, because your only way of dealing with groups of enemies without a properly-damaging build is running around the area and chipping away at their health, because actually playing aggressively that way is just impossible.
Bloodborne is a _very_ different case from Dead Cells, because you don't lose your entire progress after you die. Instead, you respawn at the last lamp, and they are distributed around the game fairly generously. This is why the fast stunlock that kills you works in Bloodobrne -- because you can get back into practicing the part that killed you right away, meanwhile Dead Cells not only places you at the beginning of the entire game, but also has randomized encounters, meaning that you can't ever practice anything in particular and are always forced to make decisions on the fly (again, talking about the levels, not the bosses, which are a whole different thing).
This sums up why I think instant deaths and stunlocks don't quite work in rogue-likes. The fact that Dead Cells promotes this "high risk, high reward" style of gameplay is what I find more frustrating than actually difficult, because of the mechanics I'd already explained.
I have completed main story of hades and is new to dead cells. The main difference between 2 is in hades combat is chaotic most of the time and you also don't get any way to control the pace. While in dead cells you can pretty much run away from enemy chamber and take a breath and strategise.
2 words: divine dash. i know that other dashes are way more fun but if you are struggling to control the pace, divine dash is really useful.
4BC is gonna break you if you like running away:)
What I like about hades is that it has an easy mode without being an easy mode. You get a damage reduction that doesn't limit absolutely anything and can be deactivated at anytime and it slowly progresses with every death. It makes the game a lot more accessible and less frustrating.
It's accessible, but it has so much less replayability than dead cells. As soon as i had won a couple of times, many runs I had were boring; and I wish there was more endgame content
@@brainsmusic6119 Hard agree. I played it with the soft easy mode on thinking I'd turn it off once I had unlocked the endgame content only to find that there really wasn't any.
@@brainsmusic6119 having sunk hundreds of hours on both, I completely disagree. It really just comes down to your willingness to test out new things in hades. It isn’t as hard as dead cells, but it’s not trying to be, and as long as you approach the game understanding that it’s a much more repayable and fun experience imo
While I'm ashamed to say that I was stuck on king's hand for a week, I felt absolutely amazing when I actually finally defeated him.
ive somehow beat hand of the king but with electric whp (0 BSC) cuz i was always getting hit here and there when going for Flint and Punishment build.
I honestly have a hard time enjoying dead cells, I love rogue lites and what not but dead cells genuinely has a hard time gripping me.. Is their anything that can make it more enjoyable? for the record I have played one step from eden, atomicrops, risk of rain 1&2, Enter the Gungeon, and a few more and have had a blast with them! it is literally only dead cells I don't vibe with.
I don't think there is much you can do, is probably a taste thing, but if you are still like 1-5 hours into the game I think you should give some time, in my experience the first 5 hours where not really "bad" but didn't caught my eye, just after getting some new powers and weapons I started to feel good playing it, the same for Enter the Gungeon, and I would go far to say dead cells do a better job than Gungeon on the longer run, some times on the gungeon I would just restart the run, because of a shitty weapon or got hit on the boss ETC
on dead cells I never felt like a weapon was there just to be useless, it was more like the style didn't match the way i played(ex= shields),and never got that feeling that is probably more easy to start a new run.
@@williamminerva9171 I have put 56 hrs and got a lot of stuff in the game, it just doesn't really click for me.. I agree maybe it isn't for me and I think it is a great game just not really fulfilling me rogue lite itch I guess.
Same I had the same problem. Dead Cells just felt too boring. I love the genre but dead cells wasn't much fun. Like I felt nothing playing it and ended up quiting after a few hours cause I found myself incredibly bored. Guess it's just not my taste or something.
@@robotmaster4515 Glad to know I wasn't the only one! I thought I was crazy haha it looked so amazing too so it was a shame I didn't fall in love with it but binding of isaac is next on my list so wish me luck!
@@Knitmur if youve played 56 hours I guess it isnt your thing bud. I much preferred hades out of the two
These are some very good points about Hades' difficulty that I hadn't considered before. I think I've kind of been suffering from frog-in-boiling-water syndrome with Hades, because the gameplay started out fun, and because I've been increasing the heat gradually I haven't noticed that it's been been getting less and less fun. I'm up to around 15 heat now on both the shield and the fists. I also agree that the random satyr sack is an uninteresting element of luck near the end of the game, and I would like to see it changed.
A really great analysis! A great watch. Also you didn’t really have to show a picture of the spoiler boss when you mentioned but oh well lol, not gonna be a huge spoiler I guess since it’s just one static image, but still, kinda ruined the mystery…
Either way, awesome to see a Dead Cells channel! Love the game, you deserve this sub! :)
One thing I would have preferred would be for Cell progression to have different changes, instead of just increases and decreases. By this, I mean having each cell making a specific aspect of combat far more difficult. Making the cells just decrease healing and increasing enemy stats leads to the game being more obnoxious than challenging. Instead, make different cell runs focus on improving different skills, so that by the very end, the player has come close to mastering every bit of It. For example:
1C: base game changes, focus on becoming more mobile and avoiding hits.
2C: incentivise learning synergy, have specific boss enemies be immune to X and vulnerable to Y, thus teaching the player to become familiar with different weapons and tactics
3C: focus learning attack patterns, teach the player how engage different enemies depending on what threat they pose to the player
4C: teaching players to adapt to the environment, not completely changing their loadout, but applying it differently
5C: combination of every aspect introduced in earlier cells, on overdrive. Everything the player has learned to this point culminates to prepare them for the brutal qauntlet that is the final difficulty
When I first played dead cells, it took me a while to beat HotK. I really enjoyed finding new biomes, then when I finally finished the game and realized it still had a buttload of content to offer, I was suprised at how well the devs implemented theBC system.
I'm still struggling against syringe man though :(
Have you beaten him yet? If so, huge congrats! If not, I bet you'll beat him someday, don't give up!
Yeah I did! I just used a survival build and tanked through all the hits because I can't dodge. @@thedoc3727
That was a very good analysis. Good points!
One of the most big things that made me fall into dead cells is YOU ALMOST NEVER make it past a new zone or boss first try and its ever changing meta updates and it actually has very good lore if you look deep into it
The story and tone are very weak and obviously only exist to move the gameplay along. I think the tone of the game does a lot to lessen whatever cool ideas are in the lore. It just doesn’t fit the dark aesthetic they are going for.
@@johnharder9925
Dead cells most assuredly takes a very French approach to dark fantasy, completely riddled top to bottom with all sorts of gallows humour.
I disagree with your argument. For you, in high difficulties (5BC/32+heat), dead cell is better for offering new content and motivators while in hades these factors are absent, and hades can become unfair and RNG dependent.
But for me, the absence of these factors exists to not motivate 33+ heat runs. Hades isn't made for 33+. But then why not limit the maximum heat? for me, this limitation would be contrary to the very essence of the punishment pact, that of giving the player agency over difficulty. So Hades: instead of leaving new content behind high heat levels; or limiting the heat level; the game takes a midway a part: there is no heat limit but there is no motivation to play at higher levels, you can, but you shouldn't
Hades didnt try and fail, is not a mistake of Hades but a dev choice, and we have to respect their vision. If u want 33+ heat, do it for the glory not for the goods
This is a good point, Hades tries to be more accessible than most roguelikes and locking content behind higher difficulties is far from highly accessible. However, most of the points still stand. High heat is still simply _less_ than low heat, people who want a higher difficulty within can only go so high before they have to start playing a less interesting version of the game, which is never a good thing (outside of perhaps some very specific cases). Most people won't be going to such high heat and that's fine, as you said, the agency to increase the difficulty is still there. It still presents the challenge for those who want it without making others feel forced to do it.
Hades isn't about being a difficult game (beyond the extent that it serves the story) and treating it as a major issue would be missing the point, but as a case study into ways of handling difficulty scaling, I'd agree with the points within this video. If good increase of difficulty is what you want, Dead Cells does it better than Hades.
EDIT: A bit extra I want to say:
I think Hades going for this handling of difficulty scaling is not _ideal_ but certainly good enough when you consider the broader scope of things. The worst case for Hades would have been if they designed it in a way that had the incentive to do higher heat (new story, for example) but without the reward that Dead Cells presents. While I can't speak to what Supergiant Games thought about when designing the pact of punishment, I do think this was an intentional choice.
As said, going halfway would be bad, so the options are now between all or nothing (as an exaggeration). Considering the people Hades is most trying to appeal to, what with its focus on story and accessibility, there is a risk that putting too much into the pact would make people feel forced to try it when they don't want to. This makes having only the lower heat options have anything worthwhile beyond the sake of difficulty a safer choice that will 'detriment' a smaller portion of the playerbase than most roguelikes.
I still don't think that this was the ideal choice, I think that there is some mystery design out there for the pact of punishment that is closer to the design choices of Dead Cells with minimal risk of making players feel forced, or like they're missing out. But, and I mean real big butt here: Getting such a design right for the kind of game Hades is would be difficult enough and such a risk that I think it would be wrong to blame them, to think of it as a bad move.
While its fine to hope for near-perfection, expecting it isn't.
yep, it is retarded to lock content behind a huge difficulty spike. why do i have to beat 5BC just for the true ending? the road to beating 5BC is not fun too. the enemies get repetitive and sometimes you just get a shit weapon. It just gets boring after a point. If I got something good for beating 1,2,3,4 BC s i wouldhave been motivated to try and reach the true ending at the very least.
First Playthrough: Hades > Dead Cells
Hades (32 Heat) < Dead Cells (5BC)
For Hades the more I increased the difficulty the less I liked the game, it felt like the game isn't just made for this, way too overloaded and the Boss fights took too long.
In Dead Cells though the more I increased the difficulty the more I noticed how awesome this game actually is, form at first glance a just mediocre game it became one of my all time favorite. So I totally agree.
When I first played Dead Cells, I cleared 0BC easily and went to 1BC. Then I hit a brick wall with it, got frustrated and stopped playing for a long time. I recently decided to revisit the game. While that brick wall was still there and I seriously struggled to get over the hump, I eventually broke through into 2BC. Then just today, at the time of writing, to my surprise and astonishment I made it to 3BC! Now I have to re-learn the game with all the new enemies added and with extremely scarce healing available.
I definitely feel more confident playing the game and have accepted that I will eat dirt very frequently. Before I rarely took curses because I was afraid of losing the run, but now I feel like I play better when I stack the curses and it's a whole lot of fun. I still screw up a lot and end up cursing the game for the controls occasionally tripping me up or for messing my no-hit run of a level because of something cheap hitting me... but, eh! It doesn't bother me that much anyway. Just start a new run and try out new stuff!
Great explanation and comparison
Is that One Step From Eden music in the background?? Hell yeah Pseychie!BRING THAT ONE ON TOO!!!!!(Plz?)
I actually prefer Hades since you can ramp up the difficulty yourself by using the Pact of Punishment, rather than never finishing a run just because how suck you are
Skill issue
@@SkyMarshalEmir fr
@@SkyMarshalEmir If a skill cap inhibits the enjoyment of a game, is it a skill issue or a gameplay issue?
@@skillswiper It's a skill issue. I advise you obtain two (2) hands before trying to play the game.
Edit: Also, the word you want to use is "skill floor", not "skill cap".
Regardless, get good and you can enjoy the game.
Skill issue.
@@SkyMarshalEmir You may as well replace "skill issue" with "git gud you're just bad" because you're literally just insulting people's ability to play the game. You have to remember that we play games for fun, not to be reminded of how we aren't literally perfect at it. Imagine if you had to play through the entirety of Elden Ring with only 1 HP. Does that sound fun to you? That's exactly what Dead Cells feels like for a lot of people.
The issue that I and many others have with Dead Cells is just how ridiculously punishing the game can be. It feels like if you get hit once you're already being punished more than most games, with there being recovery/stagger frames every time you attack/get hit that prevent you from doing literally anything (leaving you vulnerable to taking damge) and usually lead to you being wombo-combo'd and dying (usually) instantly, with the methods to recover health being quite limited if you survive anyways. It leads to the difficulty feeling cheap as someone who just wants to play a game to have fun. Why should I be forced to die sooooo many times just to finally learn everything in the game and its limits just to be able to even have fun?
At that point that's not fun, it's just borderline torture.
I haven’t touched bases yet but the thing I love about dead cells is the fact I have to WORK to win. So when I finally do it feels extremely rewarding
Once i actually decided i wanted to get good at dead cells i was pretty astonished at how fair the gameplay actually is
You said that the incentives for completing runs with higher heat in Hades gives you items which are mostly cosmetic in nature, but you didn't mention that titan blood, which you can only farm with higher heat once you've cleared the game with all weapons, can unlock and improve your weapon aspects permanently. I think that's a very good incentive to play the game with higher heat/difficulty, which you didn't really point out.
That's not the only way to get titan blood tho
@@duncanedgin9433 Unless you want to restart runs over and over again to reset the shop and try to find titan blood sales, yes it is.
@@mmelo7832 no its not, you can use the broker to trade up from gems, all the way to titan blood. Noob
@@duncanedgin9433 Did you read what I wrote? I literally mentioned you could buy it, but it is insanely inefficient and would take hundreds of runs to max every aspect
@@mmelo7832 you are talking about a shop? So I assume the one in the end of Styx. I'm talking about the broker, and there's no need to reset for sales either lmao. You sound like someone who doesn't actually enjoy playing the game past 40 escape attempts, and can't complete bounties from pact.
I have 252 hours in dead cells... And 10 of those have been on 5bc..which I still can't beat. I FEEL 5bc has robbed me of more runs than 4bc ever did. With enemies sometimes doing odd things or attacking on the exclamation and not just after. Or enemies spawning in in really awkward places.
I think that 5bc just expects me to do something subtlety different that I haven't worked out yet
Very interesting video! Me being someone who did almost all content in Hades, including 32 heat runs and is just now trying to pick up Dead Cells for the third time after trying and abandoning for a couple of months, I kinda doubted how any game could make difficulty better than Hades, but since I'm barely 40 runs in into Dead Cells with no successful run yet, I can't compare both games. After watching your video I can see your point, I always thought the best way to make difficulty options was by changing the content instead of increasing/decreasing damage and hit points and I'm happy to learn that this is what Dead Cells focuses on. But to me, there was something else that I discovered as well: how disheartening it can be to lose. My biggest gripe with the roguelite genre overall is that it's very disheartening to have to go back to the start. I played a lot of NetHack and Angband years ago when I was kid, but I never fell in love with the resurgence of the genre. I played Enter the Gungeon, Rogue Legacy, The Binding of Isaac, Dead Cells and maybe some other I forgot, and I can see that they are of very high quality, but not so much to my tastes. I don't mind practicing and getting good, but on roguelites each time you'll be fighting a different boss with a completely different build, whenever I lucked out and got good drops and died to some unforeseen bullshit from a level I never reached it felt horrible because I don't know when I will reach that level again, and that I will probably never get lucky with the RNG again. Having to start all over again to me was by far the biggest obstacle for me to finish those games. When Hades came out, I expected to feel the same way about it but I gave it a chance because it was so well received, only to be impressed by how they fixed this problem. To me, both Dead Cells and Hades start out absurdly difficult. They both get easier as you unlock the upgrades, but not by much, it's all mostly you that gets better. The thing is, dying in Hades is fun because it advances the game. You look forward to dying in Hades, and that keeps you hooked. I could also say that the RNG in Hades is much smaller, you chose your weapon, the amount of rooms is fixed so the amount of rewards you get is also fixed and later on, with mirror and keepsakes, you even get to control what you find. In the end, practicing with a certain build or style was never a problem, while everywhere else it was. While in Dead Cells sometimes you can be showered in scrolls and other times you're not, sometimes you get a high quality weapon and sometimes you don't, what really keeps it difficult for me is the lack of everything else besides the gameplay loop. While Hades is a roguelike with top quality action gameplay, I still think it is mostly a narrative driven game, and hooking people through narrative is much more easier than through a gameplay loop.
Fun fact: The amount of scrolls and the quality of the weapons on dead cells are not RNG, they are pre determinated for each biome, harder the biome, better the rewards, only two things related to RNG and scrolls are, when you find a challenge rift and the rare scenarios where a scroll fragment spawns in prison quarters
I agree for the most part, the only thing I'll say is that Hades gives you a bit less options which I feel is part of the difficulty while dead cells you can collect things a bit more often but thats the only thing
After scrolling the comments, no one here gets that high level Hades is specifically geared toward speed-running, while Dead Cells pays no mind to speed-running whatsoever.
So these two games are going for entirely different objectives with their difficulty curve. You're comparing a sprinter to a marathoner.
Hard disagree with Arthur aspect's usefulness on higher heat. Go with a crit build. The thing about Arthur is you can anim cancel the charge into a dash, slashing as you move with the big swing. This increases the effective hitbox to a ridiculous degree.
I haven't played Hades yet but I'd like to share my experience on Dead Cells.
I'm currently on 3BC at Dead Cells on mobile. I've been stuck on it for about 5 days and I just get bodied each time I do a run. Normally I'd just DPS a boss with support items and just do dodge rolls whenever I'm attacked since I'm more comfortable that way but then Slumbering Sanctuary came along and just dodge rolling isn't enough to prevent taking damage anymore. I trained shield parrying for hours and hours and took my time to understand mob and boss parrying timings until I got more comfortable on it and became less dependent on dodge rolling. The game really *forces* you to get good and not just dilly dally and DPS bosses everytime. Overall it's a great experience and looking forward to try Hades and other rougelikes next :)
I would like you to compare Curse of the Gods as well! great vid!
You've said it all, I finished Dead Cells on 5BC (and felt extremely well by doing this) but I don't feel motivated to even reach 10 Heat in Hades...and that's a pitty, the game really got my attention in the first 30 runs...😓
*Xbox player
Heat level in Hades isn't analogous to boss cells in Dead cells. In Dead cells BCs are the game, they are main focus of it and completing the game is winning with 5 of them several times. In Hades main focus is plot and lore. Heat level is just optional thing and different options in it aren't fair together exactly because it is very optional content for niche 2.1% hardcore audience.
They are very different games but for me Dead cells isn't fair in it's difficulty or deaths. After winning with 1 BC I saw that game isn't changed nearly enough to keep me interesting. This is why only 2.1% completed it.
Only 2.% completed it bc it’s an actual challenge, and it changes way more tryna hades on diff BC. They are absolutely analogous, you j don’t want them to be so you can defend ur more liked game
I love the gameplay variety and difficulty curve of dead cells, even if I am just stuck at 2bc. I prefer the curve being designed for the player over me deciding the curve because I feel that I just have to much control and also I really easily get dissuaded from upping the heat because why should I? I don't like the exclusive blueprints to the higher boss cells. I get the 5bc ones that you get for beating the final boss but I feel as if the boss cell doors are already enough of a reward. I feel like the best would perhaps be a mix of the two. You get some of the pacts modifications just represented as a difficulty level instead of a customisable thing and then it goes up until its maximum, excluding the ones that make the game borderline unfair. Like the exclusions of boons and such that make you it so you mostly rely on luck. Then as a reward for beating the hardest 'difficulty level' you gain access to the pact of punishment and can make the game as unfair as you want. I'm not sure if the should be rewards for this pact, but if there were to be I would suggest something like cheats or something akin to infinite ammo from the resident evil series. Maybe as a reward from beating it on max heat you gain a positive pact that just let's you go crazy and modify boons' affect or your characters damage or something. Idk I'm just spit balling.
Really liked how you can choose the difficulty modifiers in Hades. Some make it not as fun such as removing boom choices. The satyr sack is also not a good mechanic and you need a 2-sack in order to win. Overall Hades was way more fun for me and I played it more than any other game except for ccg, with almost 300 hours. There is weapon variety as you have different aspects to choose from. High heat runs are different in that you need to take the different death defiance mirror style.
I played Hades a lot, for most of it I was hellbent on killing Theseus when I first beat him the victorious emotions were overwhelming. Since then, we have kept our fierce rivalry. Still haven’t beaten dad though. I do respect the Minotaur a lot
yea, Asterius is awesome! the bull is a lot wiser than his counterpart.
You were never meant to play 63-64 heat. I think you just need to chill
6:40~ It's kinda funny because for me the main thing I look for in a game is something I struggle at immensely as it gives me more excitement to get better at the game and eventually find it easy
I remember Hades also saying something about the high heat as well when I did my 32 heat run. Saying how the heat isn't a toy or something. I then died, but reset the game so I could keep the Shield darkness bonus. Though it seemed to keep the beginning of the run very similar, I'm a bit guilty about that.
99.9% of the times I take damage on dead cells is because I click roll and he just doesn't
You can't cancel animations and dodge.
@@iliasa.5298 I mean, its even in moments where Im not doing nothing, I click and it doesn't work for some reason and it isn't my keyboard. Im the type of player who go fast with the reflexes so its even more stressfull when this happens
@@rapazlegal1358 you might want to disable vsync if you have a good monitor. Enabling vsync gives you less tearing and syncs your screen as a whole but adds a couple frames of input lag.
Great video. I would recommend Hades to more people due to its accessibility, but you’re right in that Dead Cells is much more rewarding and feels actually designed and balanced for the higher difficulties
this is why a fixed difficulty is better than a customizable one
What controller do you use for these games? I don't really like the feel of mine and am in the market for a new one.
To be honest, I feel like the progression and difficulty mechanics were done so much better in Hades. DC has too many brick-wall moments after reaching each next boss cell, presenting a huge new learning curve that’s much smoother in Hades with Heat.
My problem with hades is that the metagame is you have to spam dash constantly to no get hit and i cant keep this pace cuz i have RSI and thus i'm instantly at an advantage. This and all the chaos on screen make it difficult to time your dodges (also because the invincibility frames are kinda lame)..
Can you remap the controls to your liking?
Ahh the Danganronpa music though ❤️❤️❤️
EDIT: OMG the Flash Isaac music too!!! Two are f my favourite games’ OSTs in a video about 2 MORE of my favourite games?!
Insta-subbed, sir.
I plan on picking both of these up when I can get a steam deck and I don't normally play rouge like games I'm itching to play on PC again after so many years and the steam deck being a budget opinion is appealing to me
i think a large point between the two is that hades has less replayability, weapons wise. there’s just not enough weapons for me to enjoy it many times. i cleared hades 10 times for the true ending, and then it just bored me too much for me to want to play more
Played both and love dead cells more! I haven't realize the reason until watching this video. Thanks for being objective and love both games :).
I don't generally enjoy roguelike or roguelite games since I personally love power progression, skill trees and stories (JRPGS are my usual go-to games) but I'll be damned if I don't absolutely love Dead Cells. It's definitely interesting playing around on the various difficulties. After so long messing around on 5BC I actually did a couple of runs on 1BC just to more easily collect some missing blueprints and I'll be honest...I made so many stupid mistakes that had me kicking myself just because it was so easy compared to 5BC. 100% agree though that the 5BC game is completely different from the base game.
Just starting Dead Cells.
Not sure how the DLCs work.
Should I play base game, beat it then get DLCs or get the DLCs from the start?
I was originally going to get Hades as my first roguelite as it was recommended by my friend and it was the most popular. However, I switched to Dead Cells last second and now Dead Cells is my second favourite game of all time so it's nice to see I chose the game with better difficulty
Hades is a blast to play aswell, the story and characters are very nice aswell, which is uncommon for a Roguelike
I’d definitely play Hades too. It’s still avery versatile game with different approaches, and it’s dialogue system and storytelling are a marvel to behold. Honestly it’s one of the most faithful snd best modern exploration of the Greek myths I encountered, and there’s so many Easter eggs for mythology nerds
Hades is also a very fun experience too. I personally say Dead Cells nails the gameplay better and Hades the story more, but it's not so much a critique from me as it is an observation: since Dead Cells was never too concerned about its story and hard focused on the gameplay, whereas Hades from the very beginning was based off greek mythology and told a story, so that was its focus instead.
Hades has a much better story and dialogue, and gates far less content behind the Pact of Punishment. What this means is you can experience the whole story without the "bad" difficulty, they are there for layer choice only.
Loved the video, love both games but hades doesnt give me an urge to come back like dead cells do
This comparison reminds me of Kingdom Hearts.
In most games in the series (namely the more recent ones) all Modes have simple linear progression.
With KH2 however, it's enhanced edition added a 4th difficulty called Critical Mode and it changed the game drastically:
- Max HP cut in half (and little less MP, but negligible)
- enemies still hit just as hard
- start with several important abilities (other good abilities are gained slightly sooner)
- start with more than enough Ability Points to allocate them
- AP gains increased
- deal more damage to normal enemies/bosses (except for special enemies who give you combat challenges instead of straight up fighting you)
The above effectively forced players out of complacency and rewarded more aggressive playstyles (even aggressive defense was more viable than being passive), to the point many people can't even play vanilla KH2 anymore for not having Critical Mode. (myself included)
I just unlocked 5BC after eight months of grinding 4BC (in the same run, I went to the Shipwreck for the very first time and beat the three sisters and the Queen on my first try). Right now I'm working through 16 Heat in Hades, and I've been so close so many times, but I'll get it soon. 300h in Dead Cells and about 200h in Hades btw
Loved this style of content. Also, it's probably not quite your style in games, but I highly recommend Noita. It's such a unique rogue-like
Will do! I’m generally open minded towards any type of game, thx for recommending it
1. I like aspect of arthur. It has very high base damage, so it can be good with artimis/athena/chaos spam builds. Just don't turn on the damage block.
2. In hades, you can look at the boons you get for the first roll and then reset the run and change your weapon. You can basically chose on really good combos with epic rarity when you do this with the this with the god's keepsakes.
3. Dio and Zeus special build on Chiron bow is good too. Especially when you get the hammer that adds more projectiles to the special. You don't need arty crit.
4. No, the game is not meant to be played at 64 heat. No one does that. Just no.
I agree with him in most and it makes sense why he says that dead cells doesn't really have a followable story but it does. If you actually try to explore all the lore rooms then you see how messed up the kingdom is and you see how sad it is in some aspects. If you know all the story then you see how well put together but honestly it's a pain to explore that much because lore rooms are randomized. I myself had to look up lore videos for dead cells but it has a really good story still.
that one step from eden bgm at 13:17 really caught me off guard
Putting titan blood, diamonds and ambrosia as mostly cosmetic changes isn’t my experience. The weapon aspects make the game completely different.
I don't care much about difficulty designs and stuff, but I'm still stuck on 3BC for 3 days lmao
i was stuck on 2BC for WEEKS when i was newer, then i got gud and now can easily beat 4BC most runs and can get pretty far in 5BC most runs
I'm currently going through the process of trying to beat 3BC as well, got lucky with a run on 2BC and beat it unexpectedly and now just trying to learn to use the shields more often, going well but slow, those rampagers have wrecked me more times than I can count lmao
@@dylanwilson8965 i know this sounds crazy but roll TOWARDS them. they cant turn around mid frenzy so you just smack them from behind while they are stuck doing their attacks
@@dylanwilson8965 thats what happened to me too. Got lucky and got a really good heavy crossbow then just steamrolled the rest of the game.
Honestly, one issue I have with Dead Cells BSC levels is that they introduce more enemies that are designed to make combat more chaotic, while also reducing the availability of healing, so reducing the margin for mistake while at the same time making them mistakes more likely which is seriously frustrating for me as it really makes trying to indulge in the more chaotic combat more of a punishment than reward, and rally system is not really that reliable, especially if you keep taking hits when trying to recover the health, also enemies having higher health and scaling the health up faster does make the slow and methodic cleaning of the map much harder even if it would be the best option when having much more limited healing, tho I have other issues with Dead Cells, like way shields work (and I know it's meant to prevent players from just camping behind the shield but Force shield is a good example you can limit such behavior without undermining the point of the shield, to begin with) or fact that backpack is extremely clumsy to use while it should allow a quick swap between it and ne of the weapon slots. And I do agree that on higher difficulties Hades feels like your victory is too dependent on getting a good build but at least the pact of punishment system allows for a good way of getting used to the difficulty, especially in the way how I run it (that I run difficulty one heat level higher than what I have beaten the game with previous time with the specific weapon) also this might be a bit of my fault but after unlocking majority of stuff with Hunter's orb I really don't need cells this much and doing runs on BSC 3 and losing them before reaching the forge or getting a new blueprint for a costume to spend them on it makes it feel like I'm wasting my time while in Hades even if I loose run getting gems and darkness makes it feel like run might be lost but was still worthwhile
And for context, I have 192h in dead cells and 187h in Hades
This is basically a story vs gameplay discussion
On one hand we have DDLC and on the other Pac-man
Even at a beginner level, the difficulty sort of scales:
1. Can i make it to the end... Of this level?
2. Can i risk clearing more of this level for more rewards?
3. Can i clear all this level... So I'm set up better for the next one?
4. I just beat the end boss with an aspect rune... Am i ready to try without that boost to unlock higher difficulties and more rewards? Or should i stay at this level longer and unlock a few more things while i improve my skill and knowledge?
Each of those decision tiers comes with increasing risk, but also increasing reward - if you can pull it off.
Then there is the added choice of biomes, where you either voluntarily challenge yourself, or intentionally take it easy, or just get done variety.
This is a difficult game, yet it's one of the few that i keep coming back to and getting farther.
It feels like it keeps finding ways to reward you for trying harder pushing more.
hades has an incredible voice acting, charming characters and a beautiful art direction, but deadcells is just fantastic as a game, without all that fancy graphic makeover has a better game design in every aspect, I played hades because I thought it would be a worthy opponent to deadcells as a roguelite, not even close, still awesome game but mostly for the story and characters, the gameplay is good enough, just good enough
I would HARD disagree. Hades is such a massive improvement to the genre in terms of design. I stopped playing Dead Cells out of boredom. There was so little feeling of progression it eventually felt meaningless.
I like how Dead Cells have more varity of pretty much everything though
Haven't played Hades but it does seem like a better Roguelike for beginners although it's kinda hard to say that since many roguelikes/roguelites play completely differently.
Dead Cells my favourite indie game of all time tho, been playing since March 2018 and haven't stopped since!
what i thought was annoying with the heat system in hades was when i started to remove stuff from the mirror it went from the bottom.
i think removing the bonus dmg stuff would've been more interesting than removing the RNG-help.
what i think dead cells lacks is the story progression, something that went insanely well with hades.
Spoilers:
so i'm currently at 1BSC and have had some very good attempts at beating it succesfully (i might have a negative bias as all my near-victories were really annoying losses)
after having still no clue beyond "something something zombie virus, i wanna kill the king, but killing him actually doesn't work", i watched a story summary.
if i understood correctly, between me stabbing the king and 4 bsc, nothing is added story-wise.
as some people have claimed it can take up to 2 years to beat 5bsc, this really sucks with the pacing. even if you're good, that still probably means there's >100 hours between new story elements.
I think there are a few points in this video that aren't really very fair in my opinion.
The first one is that enemies don't change and that difficulty feels artificial. I can... kind of understand your point? Having the same enemy but 5 times instead of 3, with added damage and moving faster, definitely doesn't sound much more interesting than the default difficulty. However, this is completely ignoring the Benefits Package pact of punishment, meaning every armored enemy is going to have new perks.
When an enemy is now teleporting, or is summoning copies of itself, or it's ranged attacks are now linked to other enemies, these combined with enemies moving faster, having more health, etc. might as well mean that you're facing new enemies. The only constant throughout this is, sometimes, the attacks themselves. Enemy hitboxes, health, speed, *everything* about them can end up changing at some point in most encounters, meaning you approach them in much different ways with different strategies than you would without any heat option on.
The second thing I want to bring up, and it seemed relatively minor, is the complaint about max heat. I've speedrun Hades quite a bit, I've been apart of that community for almost a year now and I don't even know a single person who has *beaten* max heat. It's not meant to be beaten at all, and the maximum difficulty is supposed to essentially be whatever the player's limit is, which changes, of course, from person to person. This is something that is just purely better than Deadcells, where you're set at different levels, while Hades allows you to fine tune the difficulty to exactly what you want it to be. I think this is a pretty major oversight not to mention this somewhere in the video that this is an upside for Hades.
And lastly, I think that this video does both of these games injustice by *just* focusing on endgame difficulty, not difficulty leading up to that as well. Early and mid-game difficulty is just as important as endgame when players are doing 45+ heat in Hades, and the equivalent to that in other roguelikes.
In Hades, early game difficulty is captured, I would argue, much more effectively than Dead Cells. You're discovering new weapon and boon combinations, learning enemy and boss patterns run by run, and you're progressing the story alongside this, making difficulty progression all the more satisfying.
And maybe this is different for other people, but for Dead Cells, it felt like for the first area, everything was incredibly easy, and then I was banging my head against a wall against the first boss for 15+ runs until I eventually found the right weapon and upgrade combinations by pure luck. Then I proceeded to have no issue with the next area afterwards, until then proceeding to get stuck on the boss again just like the first.
Hades tackles things differently; The difficulty isn't *just* based on bosses in the early game like Dead Cells, normal encounters can definitely ruin your run if you're not paying enough attention. Progression is much more smooth because you're dying at different points in each run, not just at bosses, and you're also making progress each run too concerning how to approach enemies and different room layouts, like survival rooms.
I think this is a really well made video and I can respect the effort that went into everything here, and really I haven't played enough of Dead Cells to disagree with your idea entirely, but I just don't think you're giving Hades here the proper justice/understanding it deserves.
I agree with everything you said, and with the point on enhanced enemies, I'd much rather the old enemies I'm used to become more threatening than leave the old ones easy as fuck to beat and add in some extra ones that one-shot you.
I wouldn't say that Hades' heat system being player controlled is strictly better. High heat was not necessarily designed to be beatable, so that the player can find their own limit. But this means that these options weren't completely explored and tested and curated for the best user experience. 5BC is a purposefully crafted and curated experience. It rewards you with the most difficult, but also the most complete, version of the game. Heat doesn't have that same careful consideration and while it gives the player more choice it also puts the responsibility of making it "good" difficulty on them as well.
For me Hades lost its flare after awhile. But Dead Cells and Skull the Hero Slayer are just way too fun to stop. If you like Dead Cells, play Skull the Hero Slayer.
7:50 dropping thru floors in dead cells is a mini game worth mastering on its own 😂
6:55 there is achievement for the second skelly statue which requires a minimum of 16 heat.