For my part... I have been avoiding this game like I've avoided all rogue-likes/rogue-lites myself and I also didn't care for Supergiant's past games, but I admit the neverending praise does give me pause. Then again people gushed about games I ended up hating too. Hrm.
Can someone sell me on Hades, knowing this about my taste? I know there was some praise for the story, but to me that's not enough if I hate the gameplay...
This largely depends on what specifically you don't like about roguelikes/roguelites, but what I personally feels sets it apart from most games like it is:
-There's a very real sense of progression. Every single run gets you *something* concrete that you carry forward towards your overall progress into the game. Even if you don't manage to slay bosses (which gets you the big progression items), you are always getting darkness (used to unlock permanent upgrades and abilities), gems (used to unlock cosmetics and new kinds of helpful dungeon rooms), keys (used to unlock weapons). Even if you eventually buy all the upgrades with a certain resource, there's also a shop that lets you trade resources. As such, there is effectively no such thing as a wasted run in Hades. Every single playthrough will permanently reward you in some capacity.
-The permanent upgrades that you can get between runs are incredibly meaningful. Abilities that you can buy with darkness include things like being able to outright shrug off death a number of times, increasing your starting HP, increasing the probability that you get higher quality boons from the gods, and such. Gems are seemingly just for cosmetics at first, but then you start to see that you can unlock things with them in the dungeon like jars that hold increasing amounts of money, safe rooms where you can heal, and more. Keys unlock weapons (which dramatically impact your playstyle) and can also be used to reset your darkness spent on abilities (and thus lets you respec if you decide that you want to spend your darkness elsewhere).
-While it is still very much a roguelite and the moment to moment action is randomized, you actually have more control over the randomness than most games of its type. You are almost always given the choice between possible encounters, which impacts the enemies you face and the rewards you get per room, and can even see if you are possibly going into a challenge room where a mini-boss or something else difficult might be waiting.
-Similarly, while the gods that give you your boons (which serve as both your passive support and some active abilities) are ultimately randomized through most of the runs, you can collect permanent equipable trinkets to push the game towards giving you the gods you want so you can better get the abilities and builds you want. It's not 100% control over the chaos, but it's control that most roguelikes would otherwise not afford you. You can mostly reliable get started on a run with the general abilities that you want.
-People talk about how good the narrative in this game is (and it truly is) but it's also worth mention (with regards to spoiling as little as possible) is that the narrative is very incredibly woven into how the game itself is played in a way that very few games of its type have ever successfully pulled off.
