Hades' Star
- July 24, 2017
- Parallel Space Inc
- 1600h median play time
Hades' Star is a space-based empire-building game where players start in their own Yellow Star system, expanding by colonizing planets, setting mining patterns, and trading. As they progress, players can discover and colonize Red Stars with valuable resources, but with a limited lifespan, adding a strategic layer to gameplay. Establishing diplomatic relations with other players allows for collaborative opportunities and control over system access.
Reviews
- Great community and friendly players, making it enjoyable to play.
- No ads and not pay-to-win, allowing for a fair gaming experience.
- Engaging gameplay with a mix of strategy, exploration, and resource management.
- Recent updates have drastically changed the game, making it feel unbalanced and frustrating.
- Progression can be extremely slow, leading to tedious gameplay.
- Matchmaking in PvP modes is often unfair, pairing low-level players with much higher-level opponents.
- gameplay356 mentions
- 45 % positive mentions
- 48 % neutral mentions
- 6 % negative mentions
The gameplay of the game is characterized by a blend of strategic depth and simplicity, appealing to both casual and dedicated players. While many users appreciate the engaging mechanics and beautiful graphics, some express frustration with the slow pacing and repetitive tasks that can lead to boredom over time. Recent updates have sparked mixed reactions, with some players feeling that changes have negatively impacted the overall experience, making progression feel artificially stretched.
“The gameplay is very fun and the fact that you don't get invaded and lose resources is wonderful.”
“The gameplay is great and well paced, and it's a good thing to log on to a few times a day without it becoming a burden.”
“Great game, has the relaxing galactic courier style gameplay, delivering tonnes upon tonnes of rare space minerals planet-to-planet within your own interplanetary ecosystem while at the same time it has the fleet commander style gameplay building up and customizing your battleships and sending them on missions to distant stars, truly a great game that will eat away at your time.”
“As someone who comes from a background of playing deep strategy games on the PC, I find most mobile strategy games to be tremendously boring due to their reliance on repetitive and overly simplistic gameplay.”
“Gameplay is just dull and it gets incrementally worse.”
“The game is great especially with all those trashy pay-to-win MMOs going around, but the gameplay allows for you to pick the game up, manage a few shipments to get credit, then leave your miners to mine and your researchers to research. However, after the initial interest, it's a total grind with no change in gameplay.”
- graphics333 mentions
- 60 % positive mentions
- 35 % neutral mentions
- 5 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with many players praising their beauty and simplicity, particularly in the context of space exploration. While some appreciate the minimalist design that enhances gameplay focus, others criticize the ship graphics as overly simplistic and lacking detail. Overall, the visuals are generally regarded as appealing, though there are calls for improvements, especially regarding ship designs and more dynamic graphical elements.
“The graphics are awesome and the game mechanics rock.”
“Incredible graphics! The gameplay is simple and the graphics are awesome.”
“This game has amazing graphics and real-world looking stars and planets!”
“The graphics look like a 1990s Game Boy game; red star time limits and the difficulty/abundance of enemy Cerberus has made it far more unlikely to succeed.”
“Omg, so many changes, and all your time spent to improve modules is mostly lost because several are non-existent anymore. The graphics took a huge hit, from clear and understandable to hard to guess and just awful to watch.”
“I used to really like this game... but the new graphics are ugly, and there's no option to use the original look.”
- monetization203 mentions
- 45 % positive mentions
- 22 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The game is praised for its lack of advertisements and a fair monetization model, with many players appreciating that it is not pay-to-win. While there are optional in-app purchases available, they are not necessary to enjoy the game fully, allowing for a genuinely free-to-play experience. Overall, the absence of intrusive ads and aggressive monetization tactics contributes to a positive gaming environment.
“Not that it doesn't have flaws or I don't have mild gameplay complaints, but the community is great, the strategy is great, and no ads and no pay-to-win aspects are phenomenal.”
“No ads, no pay to win, there's nothing you can't do playing for free.”
“It's great if you make all the in-game purchases, but you can grind out everything so the only thing microtransactions do is speed things up.”
“Very fun at first, but gated by caps on how much you can achieve per day without paying in-app purchases (even with the time accelerators).”
“Linear progression is annoyingly capped so you end up waiting or considering in-game purchases.”
“It's good if a little slow, I like the concept and the gameplay is well designed to not get too repetitive and the big downfall is that it's unforgivingly dependent on in-app purchases.”
- grinding136 mentions
- 1 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 99 % negative mentions
The game's grinding mechanics are a significant point of contention among players, with many describing the experience as tedious and repetitive. While some appreciate the depth and strategy involved in resource management, others find the slow progression and micromanagement overwhelming, leading to frustration and disengagement. Overall, the grinding aspect is seen as both a core feature and a potential barrier to enjoyment, depending on individual player preferences.
“There is no grinding away to no end, for no purpose.”
“Fun enough to get you hooked, and not tedious enough to kill the fun after a few days.”
“The monotonous grind without variation makes the game tedious.”
“The gameplay is very unique compared to other mobile titles, though it does retain a grindiness that I'm more than sure is just unavoidable here.”
“You're game will be interrupted constantly because you have to wait 2-4 hours at a time to research anything unless you spend money; this along with the constant tedious grind for resources quickly became boring very quickly.”
- story120 mentions
- 15 % positive mentions
- 81 % neutral mentions
- 4 % negative mentions
The game's story aspect is largely criticized for its lack of depth and narrative, with many players expressing a desire for a more engaging storyline or lore to enhance the gameplay experience. While the missions provide some structure, they often feel repetitive and grindy, leading to a sense of aimlessness without a compelling narrative to drive player motivation. Overall, players believe that incorporating a richer story and more diverse missions would significantly improve the game's appeal.
“I would absolutely love to see some lore and storytelling as well as a new feature where your solar system gets invaded and you have defenses set up.”
“A small, expandable story mode would make this game a 5 out of 5.”
“Awesome game, a storyline would be nice, and maybe a bit more to do, but all in all very fun.”
“The reason I gave it 4 stars is because there isn't much of a story.”
“No story or side missions or anything that would add flavor or interest in the long term.”
“There is no real scenario or storyline, so basically you grind, wait a lot, and climb the tech tree... ok but why?”
- music54 mentions
- 52 % positive mentions
- 43 % neutral mentions
- 6 % negative mentions
The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with many players appreciating its atmospheric and relaxing qualities that enhance the overall experience. Some users suggest that while the soundtrack is generally good, it could benefit from more variety and additional tracks to better match different gameplay contexts. Overall, the music is often described as beautiful and immersive, contributing positively to the game's ambiance, though a few players express a desire for improvements or alternatives.
“The graphics are so awesome and the music makes you feel truly like an interstellar colonist.”
“The music is outstanding.”
“With neat clean visuals and an amazing music score, it is very easy to immerse yourself into this game.”
“The music could be better.”
“I gave it four stars because the background music is not what I expected.”
“Only major complaint is that it's a heavy battery drain, even with the music disabled and the battery save mode on.”
- optimization20 mentions
- 40 % positive mentions
- 45 % neutral mentions
- 15 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's optimization is a mixed bag; while many players report smooth performance and minimal glitches, some have experienced slowdowns and performance issues, particularly after updates. Users appreciate the game's graphics and interface but express a desire for better optimization features, such as static backgrounds and reduced battery drain. A strong internet connection is necessary for optimal performance, and some players hope for future improvements to address the occasional lag and enhance gameplay dynamics.
“Probably the best space-themed game in terms of optimization for mobile screen.”
“Love the interface and overall game performance, simple yet extremely satisfying...”
“Gameplay runs smoothly and isn't hard to comprehend.”
“This isn't immediately apparent and there is no restart function if you want to start over and create a more optimized layout.”
“Considering the fact that it never overheats not even when I'm doing heavy gaming, I'd say the game needs some optimization.”
“Literally no change in battery drain, background could be made static, sparkly planet, ore, star and module effects could be made static or less flashy, could hide warp lanes or travel paths... nope, gulp gulp battery... please do some optimizations or remove the joke option.”
- stability20 mentions
- 15 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 85 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's stability is mixed, with some players reporting a generally smooth experience and minimal glitches, while others encounter significant bugs, crashes, and freezing issues that hinder gameplay. Frequent updates appear to improve stability, but persistent connection errors and specific menu glitches remain problematic for some users. Despite these issues, many still find the game enjoyable and worth playing.
“More updates and new additions keep coming in, making the game more bug-free.”
“No glitches to my knowledge.”
“Simple, clean, and mostly bug-free.”
“It's super buggy, many things and items don't work.”
“Way too buggy, the constant connection errors make it unplayable.”
“Whenever I touch anything, the game just freezes and crashes and sometimes resets my phone.”
- atmosphere8 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its beautiful graphics, atmospheric soundtrack, and relaxing ambiance, creating an engaging and immersive experience. Players appreciate the sense of community and competition, alongside the detailed environments that enhance the overall vibe of the game. The combination of smooth gameplay and meaningful updates further contributes to a captivating and enjoyable atmosphere.
“Beautiful game.. beautiful atmosphere.”
“One which I like is the planet, has great atmosphere and surface detail.”
“Plus, the ambience of the music captures the atmosphere of space and that's good.”
- emotional4 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The emotional aspect of the game is polarizing; while some players find it a deeply heartbreaking experience that resonates with their team dynamics, others criticize the lack of story and character development, which diminishes emotional engagement.
“It destroyed my team who bit by bit gave up, a truly heartbreaking experience.”
“It's heartbreaking to say goodbye, but I have to.”
- humor3 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is widely appreciated, with players finding it both funny and relaxing. The community adds to the experience, being described as great, funny, and supportive.
“It's funny and relaxing.”
“Great game, simple and funny!”
“The community is great, funny, and helpful.”
- replayability1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 300 % negative mentions
The game is criticized for having zero replay value, indicating that players find little incentive to revisit it after completing the initial experience.
“Zero replay value.”
“The game lacks any incentive to play again after completing it.”
“Once you've finished the story, there's little reason to return.”