Hades II

Perfect drug i mean game

[i]Hades II[/i] ups the ante in just about every possible way from the original. The cast, the enemies, the power ups for your build, the locations you visit, and especially the stakes - all are drastically increased in this game. This also opens up a lot of opportunities to fail, but surprisingly, Supergiant mostly delivered. The game feels, plays, and looks better comparatively to the original [i]Hades[/i]. I usually am a bit down on “the first one but more” sequels as I like when developers experiment and create unique experiences, but [i]Hades II[/i] keeps you engaged with how well everything meshes with each other that my usual criticisms never crossed my mind. I believe there’s a tendency for me and many other gamers to fall into only using one ability or mechanic in a game and I usually have to actively remind myself to play with the full arsenal, but [i]Hades II[/i] is built to where everything feels like it has a use so I never felt like utilizing a different playstyle felt unnatural or unnecessary. This is a definite improvement from the original [i]Hades[/i] as it’s only the attack, special, and dash-strike moves that feel consistently rewarding, with the cast in particular catching cobwebs throughout my runs. There’s nothing that’s outright bad in [i]Hades II[/i], but on certain things I was feeling left like I wanted a little bit more. To start off, I wanted Supergiant to break the roguelike structure a little bit more throughout the narrative. The need to have constants throughout your runs holds back the narrative in some aspects, for example, in the postgame it would serve the narrative well to change up certain boss fights. This can result in the feeling that you might miss great content if you don’t meet the requirements early enough or the specific night-to-night script simply doesn’t allow for it to happen, but in the late game there’s an option to bring your save file to an earlier point so you can re-experience anything missed. That’s the solution right there I’d say. A bigger point is that the roguelike structure kinda forces the epilogue to progress in a way to allow you to still keep making runs, which results in the epilogue lacking a sense of finality. In the original [i]Hades[/i], the ending and the epilogue were two parts of bringing the story to a complete conclusion, whereas in the second one, a lot of the conclusion is front loaded onto the ending. Considering how the stakes are raised from the first, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to make the game have a definite ending point, and it possibly may have made the game completely perfect. With the original [i]Hades[/i] being one of my favorite games, [i]Hades II[/i] had some large shoes to fill in my view. But it filled and exceeded my expectations, and even if Supergiant never revisits these characters, I am glad I got to experience their world one more time.