Hades & Children of Morta | Parallel Play

        This week for Parallel Play, I’ll be cheating a little bit; I didn’t play Hades and Children of Morta simultaneously. I had in fact finished Hades a good while back after it came out of early access. But since I just finished Morta and Hades has just arrived on Gamepass, there is probably no better time to write about these games.

 

As always: spoilers below for both these games, so beware!

 

        Most people won’t need an introduction to Hades since it’s been massively successful to the point of being nominated (and winning) tons of awards for Game of the Year. But in case you’ve been living under a rock (or not as much of a nerd as I am), Hades is the newest game to come from the acclaimed halls of Supergiant, a superstar indie studio I absolutely adore. It’s a rogue-like based on Greek mythology, with the conceit being that you are Zagreus, son of underworld-god Hades, and are trying to escape to the surface to find your birthmother. As is with every other Supergiant game, it has been crafted with love and polished to a shine, but this time they’ve done it in early-access, bringing in player feedback to help guide them in their development. And for their first foray into this minefield, they’ve done remarkably well, and Hades has become their most successful game! Congrats to them.

 

        Children of Morta, on the other hand, flew under the radar for most people. I think I heard about the game from Jim Sterling? It isn’t as massively popular as Hades, but looking at the large number of reviews and the “very positive” rating for the game on Steam, it isn’t doing too bad for itself. It’s the first notable product from studio Dead Mage, published by 11 bit who themselves made This War of Mine and Frostpunk. Like Hades, it is a rogue-like, and it also centers around the idea of family and home (although implemented very differently). In the game, the Bergson family is tasked with protecting their mountain home as a malevolent force threatens the existence of the entire world – and you’re playing as the whole family, not just one character!

 

        Although these games belong in the genre of rogue-like (or rogue-lite if you’re feeling particularly pedantic), they have more similarities to each other than games like The Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon. Because of this, I have decided to come up with another arbitrary genre – because we definitely do not have enough of those – that will distinguish these two games and perhaps others that will continue to follow in their footsteps. Behold: the narrative-driven rogue-like!

 

What the flipping heck is that?

 

        Whoa! Hello, and good question, disembodied voice. Although the name is rather self-explanatory, what I mean by a “narrative/narratively-driven rogue-like” is a rogue-like that focuses on using their genre mechanics to deliver a story. Because of this, there are a few important differences between them and traditional rogue-likes. First, persistence is very important in these games – a determined gamer can grind their way to victory through persistent upgrades in both Hades and Morta. In Hades, you have upgrades to your weapons (the main source of mechanical variety) as well as to Zagreus himself, giving bonus damage, money, and even lives. This would be antithetical to traditional rogue-likes, which pride themselves on the purity of skill-based progression. Your characters don’t improve – your skills at playing the game do. But since the focus in these two games is in delivering a narrative experience, gating the story through skill would only serve to bar access to the most compelling part of the game to most players. Thus: persistent upgrades make up a large part of the game, making it resemble an RPG (especially for Morta, which has character levels and skill points).

 

So, why is that important?

 

        This distinction has important ramifications on the way the game is played. Rather than deriving the entertainment solely from the challenge of the run, players are driven to continue by the narrative. This is an interesting innovation, as it provides something that is sorely lacking in other rogue-likes: a compelling reason to keep playing. When playing rogue-likes, I have no reason to continue playing after a few tries, as a few runs would be enough to satisfy my curiosity about the game’s mechanics and world. For instance, Slay the Spire comes highly recommended by my friends who extoled the virtues of its deep and complex battle system. Unfortunately, after giving it a try, I found my curiosity sated after a single run. I had no compelling reason to continue, as the game drops you straight in without even a smidge of motivation other than, well, it’s a game so keep going until you win! I didn’t bother. The story is more of a framing device for the game rather than anything of importance. Conversely, for Hades and Morta, the rogue-like mechanics are there to complement the narrative. For Hades in particular, the rogue-like mechanics are integrated into the conceit of the narrative – immortality, escaping from Hell, a Sisyphean task – and thus creates ludo-narrative consonance that enhances the playing experience. These two games have taken the next logical steps in the development of the genre, retaining the core gameplay loop while grounding it in a story.

 

Great! Does that mean these games represent the greatest heights of the rogue-like genre?

 

        Well, it certainly is a great innovation, but one that sets it rather far apart from your Binding of Isaacs, meaning that it is difficult to fairly compare them. Taken on their own merits, I would wholeheartedly say that I very much appreciate this shift in direction – although with a few caveats. While the introduction of a full-fledged narrative is a welcomed addition, it does bring with it some issues that both Hades and Morta suffer from that their other rogue-like cousins do not face. The issue is, plainly, the pacing. The core gameplay loop of a rogue-like is dependent on repeated playthroughs – you play, you die, you learn, you begin again. How does one fit a story into such an odd structure? Hades tackles this problem by parceling the story out between runs. The things you do during each run, whether it be talking to an NPC or beating the final boss, will lead to you advancing the main and side stories each time to return to the hub. Finally, you must complete a number of runs to advance the story to its end, as well as complete a few other side objectives. The issue with this quickly becomes clear once you play the game – because the player’s skill determines the pacing, there is only so much the developer can do to exercise control over the narrative’s delivery. To give a concrete example, I’ll discuss my own experiences playing it. While I loved the game, at some points I felt like literally killing myself – in game! This was because while I wanted to pursue a certain side story, I could only advance it little by little each time I returned to the hub. Rather than going through the entire run of about 45 minutes, it would be faster to kill myself early on and return to I could talk to the NPC again in a shorter time. And herein lies the issue: the gameplay gets in the way of the story in unfortunate ways, leading to a conflict between the two parts of the game. Each run felt more and more like a slog, discouraging me from playing the game at all.

 

        Interestingly, Children of Morta avoided some of these problems, as its structure differs from Hades in crucial ways. Instead of having each run traverse the entire dungeon in a single run, the game is split into three distinct areas with two to three zones within. Each of these zones are self-contained runs – go through a few floors, fight a boss, and you’re done. If you’ve played Hades, imagine if each of the layers of Hell was separated, and once you’ve completed Tartarus, you moved on and didn’t have to go through it in the next run. This means that the game operates on a very different model than Hades; these areas are basically stages in a puzzle-platformer, or a mission in an FPS. Because of that, the main story can be delivered in a much more consistent manner. Furthermore, as opposed to the frustrating work in Hades to complete side quests, Morta’s shorter and separated dungeons meant less time was wasted in wading through unnecessary grind.

 

Damn, that’s a hot take! Are you saying Morta is better than Hades?

 

        While Morta’s structure allows for better pacing, the gameplay and narrative aren’t as tightly linked as it is in Hades, which attempted to craft a story that worked together with the unique mechanics of a rogue-like. While I am impressed with Morta’s innovative approach to a rogue-like, Hades ultimately made the bigger leap and proved to us that we still have new ways to tell stories. Aside from that, Morta feels less polished, with fewer interesting interactions and events found in the hub; Hades can take pride in the massive amount of dynamic dialogue and situations that makes the House and everything in the game feel genuinely (and ironically) alive. Ultimately, I believe that any innovation in this genre has been a long time coming; other games like Loop Hero and Returnal are also doing interesting things to mechanics and turning stale ideas into fresh and interesting gameplay. In the end…

 

These great games are a boon to the industry, as these studios are bringing something new to the table – a chance for others to learn and develop it even further!

 

That was my line!

 

Sure, sure.

 

Hmph.

 

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!