Tom Marks
Guest
How do you follow up a character-driven rougelite that's nearly peerless at everything it does like Hades? You need to know where to go bigger without adding too much bloat. You need to know where you can tighten down some screws without smoothing away too much texture. You need to know what the essential, sacred elements were that made it special while also finding places where it makes sense to experiment and remix. Hades 2 somehow does all of these things with the care and flourish that has become Supergiant Games' signature at this point. There's scarcely a note out of place.
If you haven't played the original Hades recently, or at all, Hades 2 starts fairly abruptly. You're introduced to Melinoë, daughter of Hades and Persephone and sister to the first game's hero, Zagreus, and set on your way with little other context than an urgent charge to kill your grandfather, Chronos, the Titan of Time. It's been a couple years since I played Hades, and I didn't play Hades 2 in early access because I was saving myself for the main event, so it did feel a bit like being adrift for the first couple hours or so.
What We Said About Hades (2020)
Hades is a one-of-a-kind rogue-lite that sets the bar for creatively combining wildly different genres together and using their strengths to complement each other in unexpected ways. Its blend of satisfying, twitch-based action with countless modifiers to build replayability, dating simulator-esque character interactions, and turning failure into a thing you look forward to as a means of progressing the story coalesce to an experience that is more than the sum of its parts. Hades skillfully navigates the millenia-old baggage of ancient characters, reinterpreted through a contemporary lens that feels like they’re straight out of some animated series that’s way ahead of its time. I’m now over 50 hours in, 70 escape attempts deep and I can’t stop thinking about my next trip to Hell. Hades is an experience I never want to end. - Nick Limon, September 17, 2020.
Rating: 9
Read our full Hades review.
This feeling fades fast, though, as I grew to love an excellent and varied cast of mostly new characters inhabiting the night-shrouded crossroads between the realms of the living and the dead. Supergiant's character designs remain at the absolute peak of the mountain with their distinctive silhouettes, strident but never garish use of color, clever interpretations of classic myths, and tiny, delightful details placed just for the super nerds who can quote The Odyssey from memory. They’re still represented by static images, but this time the artists have built in subtle touches of animation that bring the characters to life that much more, like the glint of green light on Mel's lower lip.
Nemesis is probably my favorite of the newcomers, with the buff avatar of vengeance presenting an aloof rival who was so very satisfying to eventually turn into a friend (and more) through a long and complicated arc. Hecate plays the mentor and reluctant caregiver to Mel, always self-conscious of being compared to the heroine's mother while secretly wishing she could call her a daughter. There are so many layers here. Not even the archetypical Olympians are one-dimensional. And the voice acting is top-notch for everyone.
Mechanics and characters are added at a generous but not overwhelming pace.
"Layers" is really the keyword when it comes to Hades 2, and I don't just mean the ones you fight through to get to the next boss. Similar to the first game, things start simple, but more mechanics and characters and methods of progression get added at a generous but not overwhelming pace with each run, failed or completed. Even sitting north of 50 hours and 50 runs, I don't think I've unlocked everything there is to unlock and I've never had a night pass that there wasn't something new to discover.
It's not just new dialogue snippets, either – although there are almost an absurd number of those for so many different character combinations and contexts, where they react to specific things you’ve done in your most recent run or which other gods' boons you're carrying. Meaningful, permanent upgrades from Hecate's cauldron, tricky challenge runs from Chaos itself, a clever revision of the original's Heat system, a simple farming minigame, adorable animal familiars who can help you in and outside of combat… all added to the epic at a pace that always makes them an exciting treat without feeling like one too many things to keep track of.
Maybe the biggest single leap forward for the sequel is the fact that Mel has two paths in front of her each night (after you unlock the second fairly early on): down toward Tartarus to pursue the ultimate villain, Chronos, or up to break the siege his allies have placed upon Mount Olympus. Each consists of four regions with their own bosses, and the way the areas flow together is rarely as simple as going from one meadow to the next. In the surface city of Ephyra, for instance, there is a town square with 10 streets leading off into 10 different battles, and you can pick which six of them to visit (and which rewards to earn) to bring down the barrier blocking your progress. I really liked how stuff like this changes up the usual "pick Door Number One or Door Number Two" routine, and there are similar but different approaches in other areas as well.
But the real genius here is that alternating between the two paths creates double the variety possible in subsequent runs. Doing a Tartarus dive and then an Olympus climb, you won't be seeing any of the same bosses or areas back-to-back. It's not like the first Hades ever got really stale, but this one definitely won't when this choice is always on the table – and you aren’t forced to go through every Tartarus level to see the first Olympus one, which means it’ll take longer to get tired of them. It’s a very smart approach because if there's a particular boss on one route who's really driving you up the wall (Eris), you can switch to the other one for a bit and farm some upgrade materials before trying to break that wall down with your head once again. You will have to vanquish both routes multiple times eventually to see the end of the story, of course.
Zipping around and zapping monsters as Mel is snappy and delightful.
Zipping around and zapping monsters as Mel is just as snappy and delightful as it was as Zagreus, but also feels distinct. I almost think of it like playing the same RPG with a different character class. If Zagreus was a warrior, Mel is a mage (or more appropriately, a witch), with a stronger emphasis on clever battlefield control and an in-depth mana system to manage. Her varied arsenal can change this up a lot, from a pair of twirling torches that turn you into a ballerina of death to an enormous f-off axe that rewards careful timing with terrifying damage. Each of these comes with multiple unlockable variations with unique abilities and cool designs (turning the axe into a scythe, for instance), and your choice of weapon is a defining moment at the beginning of every run.
No matter which you take, you always have access to a weapon-agnostic Cast ability as well, which binds foes in a magic circle that can slow and damage them. Many of the challenging new enemies are built with this in mind, requiring you to really think about where and when to place your trap if you want to master her fighting style. It's very thematic and made me think about Mel’s battles quite differently than I would with Zagreus, which is awesome.
When it comes to the randomized boons various gods will offer, it's like Supergiant’s designers took every piece of feedback I could have given them about those in the original and used that to mirror-polish these new and returning ones. At this point, there is no Olympian whose sigil I will reroll immediately. They all have some really cool and powerful stuff that slots nicely into my preferred playstyle. Some are still more desirable than others, naturally. Hermes is still my boy, though darting around at warp speed isn't quite as powerful as it was in Zag's day. But even a few like Poseidon I used to sigh at have kept their thematic identity while also offering perks I actually want to take, such as speeding up the collection of valuable resources for unlocking more upgrades.
There's an interesting new consideration of elemental affinities, where boons all grant one of a handful of elemental essences, and other boons will activate based on how many of a specific essence you have – another layer to consider when planning out a build.
Selene is a major standout among the Gods and Titans in that her moon blessings give you an ultimate ability called a Hex that can range from slowing down time to blasting foes with lunar energy. Each time you pick her symbol, you get to put points into a powerful (and semi-randomized) talent tree for that specific Hex in order to make its effects last longer, hit harder, recharge faster, and some other really creative modifiers.
There are so many new ways to fish for synergies and discover gloriously overpowered builds that I rarely have a run that makes me feel weak or bored.
For my obols, Darren Korb is probably the best video game composer working right now, and Hades 2 is, as the kids would say, a "common Korb W." I would even call it a step up from the first Hades musically, as his blend of ghostly melodic motifs, lofi hip-hop vibes, and soaring nods to the heroic and mythical brew up a soundscape that is so distinctly his own. Long-time collaborating vocalist Ashley Barrett returns as Artemis for Moonlight Guide Us, my favorite of the new tracks, joined by Mel's voice actor, Judy Alice Lee, to create a hauntingly uplifting harmony that brings tears to my eyes. "Take shelter from the world above, in safety and in solitude," kind of sums up how I feel about Hades 2 overall. Things are a lot right now, and this is a place I like to go to hang out with my witchy friends for a while.
Of course I also have to shout out the musical Scylla and the Sirens boss fight, featuring the absolute pop-rock banger "I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes then Drown You To Death)." I find myself humming it every time it plays, even as I fight for my life against a group of sea monster divas with very little respect for my life or fashion choices. (An excellent touch to this fight is that the music changes as you defeat the drummer, the guitarist, and the singer individually, which you can do in any order.) Hades 2 can be laugh-out-loud funny just as well as it can be melancholic and introspective.
I played about 10 of the 50 hours I've logged so far on the Switch 2, and I should note that the Switch 2 upgrade pack was not available until launch day, so the version I was playing was almost identical to the Switch 1 version. And while it's just as good playing docked on a big TV as it is on PC, I did find that there were some minor readability issues in portable mode. Particularly in certain boss fights where it's important to tell which way a smaller enemy is facing, it can be tough to pick out with Hades 2's zoomed-out perspective. And I have better than 20/20 vision. It's not a deal-breaker, but I would often pause and switch to docked mode for tougher battles.