Escape Attempt 44 With the Railgun
All right, my friends, we're continuing our 44th escape attempt here on Hades, this time with the Railgun. I was interested to see how it would go, because things had been moving a bit slow and a little bit challenging lately. Right away we got our Death Defiance back, and I was curious how we'd hold up, since our first run with the Railgun had been a little bit challenging.
Then we took both of the bosses down — so cool. Close, but we just barely got them without even using our call, which was really well done. I was impressed, and it gave me hope for the final boss. We only made it through at 11 health up in that business, but it worked out.
Racing the Timer Against Hades
Then a new problem: wait, do I even have time to fight the boss? Do I actually get more time? Dude, my timer was getting hella low, and that's a problem. We needed to go right after that fight — right now — or we weren't going to have time to get out of there. I didn't even know if you get any more time once you're up against Hades.
The fight started strong: it hit him for 666 — a lot of damage right there. But he hit me hard right back, and it became a race to take him down before he took us down. We got him down once, with one more life left. It was going to be close, and the time was ticking out too — I honestly didn't know what happens when it runs out. Then he killed me. With the time running low, we had to go hard on him, and I knew to save our call for when he does that red attack. Then I had only 13 seconds left. Finish him! He was so close to dead! Oh my God — I missed it by like 15 seconds. That was so brutal. Holy crap, that was brutal. I told myself I'd have a better setup next time, because that last one was kind of weak. At least it's fun watching the Pool of Styx and everything, but man, so close.
How Much Was I Drinking?
Somebody asked how much I was drinking back in the day, so let me answer honestly. I would binge drink. I know one night I would go through like a half handle of vodka — so like a liter of vodka — and then I'd have a few beers and other drinks too. And I'd do that a few nights a week.
Here's the thing, though: that's just how some people drink. In my experience, you can very much be an alcoholic while just having a few beers every day without ever aiming to get drunk — four to six beers a day. You've got to diagnose yourself on this, though. For me, that definitely qualified. It was comparable to having maybe ten beers every two days and getting drunk.
Out of Death Defiances
Back in the game, the Doom was hitting them hard. But things got dicey — I was dashing out of trouble, almost finished, and then, oh my God, I was out of every Death Defiance. We needed some Death Defiance replenishers or we were done, man. We were in dire straits. Those food items are clutch — one might save our butt after all. We pushed on to the next room and I got to half health. We could do this: half health against him, and with my build, the more he hit us, the more damage he took. Keep dashing, deflect him — I deflected one real nice — but we came up just short. He was at half health and I had basically nothing left. I died two or three times in a row like that.
Almost Quitting on the Blade Rift Build
Ironically, losing makes me want to win more, so we went right back in. I was honestly about to quit that run at the start, because if I don't like how my build starts off, the ideal time to quit would be right at the beginning. My first reaction: this thing sucks with the cast, that's horrible — I mean, what do I need a Blade Rift for? But you never know. Sometimes I've played this game thinking my build was terrible to start off, and it actually worked really well.
Then I got the boon that changed everything: your Weak effects also have a 15 percent chance to charm foes. Wow, that's dirty. That's real dirty. If you were on the receiving end, that would be real annoying. Charming them is so dirty, and I knew it would work real good against the final boss especially. You know what — this build might actually work.
And it did. The big boss got charmed, we hit the Blade Rift on him, and finished him with 18 health left — so close, but let's go. The key was to keep hitting the special on him. At one point both bosses were going down at once; I deflected an attack real nice, one died, then I found the other and finished him with a special and the Blade Rifts. Oh my God, look how big those Blade Rifts got — holy crap. That might have been the way to go after all. I also decided to keep 200 coins at all times, so whenever we didn't have a Death Defiance we could buy one back. Between the charms and that rule, we should finally be able to escape on this one.
The Climax: Fighting My Father
We had died three times in a row at the final boss, and this could be the time we got out. We were up to 335 life — pretty good — going for our seventh time beating this game, and I thought this build should work really well against Hades. On the way there I got a Death Defiance back: that's GGs right now, that's GGs. This was the climax of the game, and I thought we were finally going to beat him.
Think about the setup: in the game, I'm the son of Hades, fighting my father in a battle to the death, and if I win, I get out of hell — for a moment. Our Blade Rifts would go back and seek him now, which was super helpful. He hit me hard early, but then he got charmed — the charm is really good. We were well equipped; this should definitely be a win. At one point he was basically hitting himself. Dude, this deflection shreds — Athena is the goddess. Then he was dealing 40 percent less damage to me too, which was really helpful. He hadn't even killed us yet. Hit me, old man — come on, take a good swing. I waited a minute to get my call back, and he went down without me dying once. Let's go — that's halfway, because you have to knock him out twice.
In the second phase, my Athena meter filled up unbelievably fast, and the Blade Rift — remember how I said I was going to quit this playthrough because it looked really bad? It turned out incredible. He came close to taking us down for the first time; one attack nearly killed me, and I was down to two revives, thinking the next time he did that big move it would be over. So I went all-in on deflecting, and he basically blew himself up doing his own attack. He was dying — and we only needed one Death Defiance the whole fight. Let's go, baby! We finally took him out. That's seven times beating this game out of about 45 tries, and three more wins and we'll beat it completely.
Wrong Again, Boy: A Life Lesson
I was so surprised that Blade Rift was so good. When I first got it I thought, this sucks, it's not even going to work — and as my dad would say, wrong again, boy. Wrong again. We whooped him up that time. We whooped him up good. And remember, the first boon I got was something from Poseidon that made it easier to fish — I was like, yeah, that's so weak, and I wanted to quit right there. But this is a good life lesson: sometimes you don't know how things are going to turn out. It can look like it's not going to work out well, and sometimes you just don't know until you play it through.
Then came the story payoff at the top. Hades tells Zagreus he came here under false pretenses, and I'm thinking, I haven't fought all this way over and over again only to be turned down. Then Persephone says she cannot return after all that happened with Hades — so you're just going to stay here, my son? She tells Zagreus she knows he's made hard sacrifices to be there with her and she's forever grateful to have finally met him. Wow. Betrayed! Rude! I'm coming back, though — I don't care if she said not to, I'm coming back.
And on top of the win, we got a rare achievement: Master of Arms. Only six percent of players have it, because you have to beat the game with all the different weapons. If you want to see more runs like this, check out my Games playlist — thank you for reading, my friends, and I'll see you in the next escape attempt.