But it's such a weird combination of aesthetic, story telling and gameplay I have to assume it prevents a huge part of the gaming population from enjoying it.
If anybody read those comments, DO NOT LOOK THE GAME UP if you plan to play it. Go blind.
I don’t think Hades came as a surprise to anyone who was already a fan of the devs from Bastion and Transistor.
As for transistor, the story is basically "futuristic world is being destroyed by virus-type-invaders and your sword/companion is the key to beating it", with a predictable end and almost zero character dev.
Being able to make ok games doesn't translate to the skill to make a masterpiece.
It was a quantum leap.
It would be like saying you can deduce Divinity Original sin 2 would be amazing because you played the first one.
But "finding good games requires a tiny bit of effort to me" is a first-world problem.
Some things really take you by surprise as well.
I never saw Inscryption, Disco Eliseum or Hades coming, and I think nobody did.
And even oldish games still have great value. I still play LoL or Isaac, and they are as good as they were on day 1.
Plus, you get the Switch then the Deck refreshed portable gaming experience. The latter made emulation so nice as well.
With terrific communities, insane speed runners, devs coming up with crazy new concepts and hardware that never stop to get better, it's hard to complain except that with a busy life, you will see only 1% of those masterpieces.