[Cerulean Wake]

I loved this game, played it for 40 hours, but I can't play it anymore. If you want my essay about why, copy paste the tiny white text

WARNING: BIG SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING, PLEASE DONT READ IF YOU CARE ABOUT THAT

I hate the ending of this game, and it makes it unplayable. In other words: the ending completely ruins the essential part of what kept this game together: the characters and their interactions.

First of all, I want to say I love everything that makes up this game. I love the characters, I love the designs, I love the art, I love the gameplay, I love everything. It's so cool, it makes me feel like a badass witch killing mosnters while living out my fantasies of being able to date big mean women as a woman. PEAK!!

You can't have a Hades game without compelling characters and relationships, as the little bits and pieces you get from each character after each run is what propels you to want to play more beyond just the satisfying gameplay loop. It's extremely satisfying and compelling to see how Melinoe deals with her insecurities and how her strong ideals bounce off other characters like prometheus, chronos, eris, nemesis, hecate, hades, heracles, zeus, dora, etc!! She is consistently a strong protagonist and will stop at nothing to complete her goal: killing chronos.

Chronos, on the other hand, is an extremely compelling villain. He is evil, vindictive, powerful, twisted, hateful, yet he also could be seen as justified in some sense after being imprisoned, plus your godly family on olympus is not super unproblematic either- everyone kind of sucks. This dilemma makes the story interesting, and it seems like you're slowly realizing that instead of being in the right, you're choosing the lesser of two evils by killing him. He makes no obvious signs of being able to be redeemed though, so killing him is the only option.

I will also say, from a thematic standpoint, the femininity of the witches and magic being able to stop something as rooted as time feels really deep and rewarding from a feminist sense. You're literally clawing your way up and down back and forth from heaven and hell, even against nature, because you as a witch are outside the established godly laws. Witchcraft was and always will be a feminine art, and seeing women be the ones to tear down an old system would have been extremely rewarding. And all signs in the story from the themes, you getting closer and closer to killing time, and melinoe being positioned against an old innefective olympus.

Would have, except, the ending goes differently—instead of having melinoe fulfill this role as an outsider shaking up the system, she instead has her agency completely trampled and ends up taking a backseat in her own game in favor of giving zagreus, her brother, the ultimate say on Chronos's fate, and by extension her relationship with her family.

To kill chronos, she sought out Zagreus's help in the past to prevent Chronos from ever gaining enough power to usurp the house of hades, and together they create a weapon powerful enough to kill typhon and chronos. THIS is where Zagreus's role should have ended, but the game had other plans. Instead of melinoe continuing to use the weapon that she and zagreus crafted to kill chronos as well, melinoe sends it back into the past for zagreus to use on chronos.

Which, ok. Whatever. That's fine, bittersweet and kind of unfortunate. It would have been awesome if Melinoe could have gotten the final blow, but at least Chronos will be dead. Except-

Zagreus, at the last moment, somehow reforms Chronos, and gives him memories of growing up with Melinoe, that only him and zagreus share.

Why. just??? why???

This ruins the game. Flat out. Every single interaction from here on, chronos is PATHETIC. and it's AWKWARD AS HECK??? It creates a lopsided relationship where melinoe has no part in this redemption arc, and chronos flagellates himself and acts deferential with you whenever you see him.

I don't buy it.

Chronos would not be undone by a last minute talk jutsu. Not the titan of time, not by a weird false memory. He is THE TITAN OF TIME. he ATE HIS CHILDREN. WHY???

I don't want to hear "Time to see grandfather :)" every single time I go down to do a run, i want to hear "DEATH TO CHRONOS". Every run feels painful and pointless now. The mcguffin to keep going down into the house of hades and fighting chronos is stupid. it would have been better to just have chronos be undefeatable and for the game to never end.

I've ruined my save file by completing the game, and I don't know how to deal with it because once again, I love this game. I put so many hours into it, defeated chronos so many times, and it just feels like a huge letdown. I want to see my favorite characters again, i want to continue building relationships with them, but somehow by doing the thing I was supposed to do, I ruined my own experience.

So many people smarter than me have proposed better and more cohesive ways this game could have ended that wouldnt have ruined the characters of everyone involved. There's so many other gripes after the ending i didn't mention, like issues with cerberus, hypnos, more zagreus, prometheus, etc etc etc. If I could just ask for one thing without changing anything else, it would have been for melinoe to be the one to have reformed chronos, not zagreus. It still would have been lame, but it would have made the game playable again.

Rant over, I hope it isn't too boring or difficult to read, I'm not going to proofread it.
Enjoy the melinoe drawing XDD

[kageyenova]

this is so insane gm

[retro]

DAMN GIRL BANGER AFTER BANGER

[ambiorix]

this is so good!!!!! oml

[grassman.]

omg i thought this looked like hades
lovelovelove