Xandor's Stuff - Hades II Review
A Worthy Sequel
A Worthy Sequel
Hades 2 is a worthy sequel to the original. You play as Melinoe, goddess of nightmares tasked will killing Chronos (the titan of time) after he goes and takes over the underworld and makes war on the rest of the gods.
Light mechanical spoilers ahead! If you've played the original, you'll be familiar with the gameplay loop. Chat with a bunch of cool characters at your home base (the crossroads in this case, instead of the house of hades), progress their various storylines, and then head out for an action roguelike run to take down the big baddie at the end of it.
While you're out there, you've got a few new options this time around. You get access to a bunch of new weapons/weapon aspects as the game progresses, an updated version of the "cast" mechanic that spawns a slowing circle around your character, omega versions of all of your moves that cost mana from a new mana bar, and an unlockable yet limited set of arcana cards that augment your builds instead of a static set of power bonuses from the mirror of night. Later on, you even unlock some mini pets that can follow you around on run and grant a few nice passive bonuses.
The gameplay is definitely a step up from the original thanks to all of these new additions, imo. Combat feels a lot more dynamic to me, and you've got to really make use of your whole expanded kit to do well on the higher levels of fear (this game's version of heat). I managed to beat as high as 32 fear to unlock some optional cosmetics, and had a great time getting good at the game to do so. There's a good deal of mechanical and execution depth to be had if you dig at it. Between all the boon upgrades, hammer upgrades, pre-run build setup things like arcana, familars and keepsakes, and different weapons and weapon aspects, there's a lot of stuff to explore gameplay wise. Another nice aspect is that after you progress the game enough, you unlock a whole second path to run through, with 4 new zones/bosses on top of the original 4.
I enjoyed the story and characters. I played through after a patch that gave the ending an update, so I can't speak to the original ending, but I felt like the first credits roll was fairly satisfying. Maybe a bit on the rushed side, but I also had some solid experience in the original, so I got to the first pre-epilogue ending relatively quickly.
As far as protagonists go, I like Melinoe. She's cool. Not super humorous like Zagreus was, but she makes for a good foil to the relatively wacky gods/demigods/other weirdos you run into at the crossroads and on runs. I think I personally preferred Zag, but Melinoe is good too.
The music is once again excellent. A lot of great tracks to choose from, including a couple real earworms courtesy of a mid-run boss I won't spoil. The art direction is similarly great. I enjoyed seeing some returning characters get some refreshed designs (mostly the gods), and the new characters have some pretty fun designs.
Hades 2 is kinda just Hades, but more. If you liked the original Hades, you'll like this. It doesn't change up the formula all that much. I feel like this game is a lot more of an additive sequel than a transformative one.
As far as the narrative goes, the stakes are definitely a lot higher in this story, but for me I feel like that's a little to the game's detriment. I liked how personal the original story felt, mostly being a struggle between Zagreus and his dad. Here, the stakes are sky-high almost immediately, so it feels a lot more like a superhero movie than a character drama. This is ultimately a minor nitpick, but I feel like its a bit of a sidegrade, storywise.
At time of this review, I've wrapped up the epilogue and cleared 32 fear, so now I'm just wrapping up a few more loose ends like maxing out character relationships and decorating the crossroads (and a few lingering chaos trials). I've had a great month or so playing this game, and will probably play it a good deal more through the holidays. I played this pretty much all on my steam deck, and it held up great there.
I'd recommend Hades 2 to anyone that's a fan of action roguelites, fans of the original, or anyone interested in seeing some great art direction and tunes while cutting down a bunch of ghosts and ghouls in the greek underworld.