Hades II

[one-armed dwarf]

I know it's out in just a few days, but I was looking for something to play and instead of doing like I said and trying Hollow Knight again I wanted to give this another shot, the early access. I've really turned around on it in this session I think, maybe it's due to updates or maybe the quality of the game is a lot better than Hades I, or maybe it's just that I'm better at the sequel. But I think it's really good, something is really clicking here this time.

 

What I think it is that the battle systems are more intricate, cause of the shift towards this style of battle mage gameplay. It has more or less the same systems and mechanics as the first one, but with a stronger emphasis on finding harmony with your combat options I think. Your basic starter is a staff with decent range, you have a cast which binds enemies and you can stack boons on top of that obviously, and you have your specials which tend to be ranged moves, but not always. The cast is hugely useful for kiting enemies and grouping them, which benefits certain AOEs that like clustered enemies but it can also be used by you with certain boons to regenerate mana.

 

On mana, it feels like a much more important mechanic than in Hades 1 I think, if I recall in that game the game didn't just recharge your mana in each room, but I might be wrong on this. In this game, they specifically tell you to spend all your magic in each room, there's a big benefit to speccing builds that regen mana passively or from certain attack combinations and I think this lends to combat feeling less mashy and more skillful, which is a problem I think I had in the last game, it always felt like I was mashing. Here it feels much more like I'm actually playing the game, but that might be just on me not really enjoying the first one. But I think the sequel's witchiness just produces more interesting kits to fight with and makes it feel 20 percent less unga bunga (but still pretty unga, all told)

 

Another thing which makes high mana use important is the 'hex' mechanic, which is the same thing as the super mechanic in the first game but you proc it by spending mana. So if you're holding onto magic and not finding opportunities to use it up a lot, you are throwing away DPS and crowd control

 

There's an absolute shitload of 'reagents' and things that unlock stuff in your home base, and it has the same gift system as before to unlock accessories you level up in your runs. It has some new mechanics like an armour system which buffs your cast speed, or makes you run faster or whatever, but you lose it when you lose your armour. My favourite weapon so far are these fireball staffs that let you play like a zoner, and they have a special which is about crowd control damage. You unlock boons for it that let you zig-zag the fireballs around when you dash around and things like that. 

 

If you've played Hades 1 there's not a lot to say, I'm sort of skimming through the dialogue cause you can't turn subtitles off, which means I kinda just read it quickly and move on. I'm not that interested in it, but there's a few exceptions. One thing is that there are way more Homeric inclusions here, characters like Odysseus and others I won't spoil, so it's stuff I'm more familiar with and I enjoy the stylish twist it offers. There's a boss fight in this I cannot spoil but it's the coolest boss fight I've seen in a game in a while, and Hades 1 really only had one good boss fight imo, the last one. Maybe the first one also, the other two were rubbish. So hopefully that's a standard it can keep up. 

 

Anyway, surprised it's clicking with me, as a Hades 1 hater. I think I read that your saves carry across to the full game, but if they don't then I'll just treat it as a challenge to push as far as possible with a low level character come release, and maybe I'll actually read the dialogues this time. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I got to the final (?) boss and kinda just tanked a load of mechanics with an armour and steam build, so with some figuring out I could probably get a clear (especially cause I recorded the fight on shadowplay). Maybe that's a good point to wait for the full release. 

 

Don't know if the game is a lot easier than Hades 1 or if it's the RNG gods. I will say that the third realm is a bit dull, and so is the fourth but the boss seems cool. Maybe the full game will pick up a bit the third realm. 

 

One thing I forgot to say is there's a sprint mechanic now, and it makes navigating the spicy floor pizzas an interesting dexterity puzzle. Some of these encounters feel like MMO fights. I'd also say if you have a PC, get this on that. 120fps means a lot for this game in making things easier to avoid and capitalise on (edit apparently switch 2 supports 120hz in docked mode, so there you go). This game is also much more reliant on positioning I feel like, again in the same way as an MMO and less like a character action game if that makes sense. 

 

Spoiler

Cerberus fight in realm 3 was kind of boring, basically zero challenge with my zoner build. I really really like the Scylla fight, and I love the theme music to it also.

 

 

Heceta is decent, lets you get a sense of things. Chronos has lots of delay based mechanics, stand here to avoid this AOE when it goes off. I can see people finding him annoying

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Forget about waiting for release, I got my first clear, but I'm sure there's more to come based on some stuff I've sort of heard about. 

 

The last fight has some real visibility issues. Mechanically it's really interesting but at a certain point you've hit maximum bandwidth of your eyes and brain, you know what I mean? Like your optic nerve just goes 'wait a fucking sec game I'm still half a second behind you digesting all this nonsense'. This is a common issue in modern video games but Hades II clears the bar in making me feel like I need another set of eyeballs, and I wonder if you turn the graphics down does the game make more sense. 

 

My clear was with a torch build with a lot of bonuses from the new 'Hex' mechanic, where it buffs your power and speed after using it (it's like 'Call' in Hades 1). Then I made a lot of use of the arcana that gives damage bonuses if you stack two curses, as well as some boon I found that gives bonuses on backstab. I also got an arcana that gives you a crit chance bonus if you alternate between different Omega attacks, which is what they call magic in this game. But I think the Duo boon I have here at the end is the real reason I won

 

Spoiler

 

But yeah, I really would like if it they made the final boss easier to see. Just turn down some of the effects, I'm running this on a 4k screen at 120hz so I'm doing all I can on this side. It could be a 10/10 game but for this issue. Still, Hades II is incredibly more fun to me than Hades I, it feels like with this game I'm getting the hype, finally, just years later and in its sequel. The main character is so much more interesting to play as. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I got 2 more clears last night, one with the skull weapon and another with the knives. The skull is a super interesting weapon, only just unlocked it. Can charge up AOE projectiles, fire basic fireballs and pick them up (like Zagreus' projectile diamonds). The special is a charge, which when 'charged' up creates line AOEs on each side, so it's another good zoning style weapon. You can do lots of fights with very little dashing

 

The knives I'm not as much a fan of, you can do a fan AOE of projectile attacks which is quite strong when you get the boons I got, ones which distribute chain lightning around and another which buffs the damage when hitting enemies at close range, which made the basic attack pointless cause chucking knives was always the best option. The cross up special attack is cool as well, but for it to be really useful you have to get a boon which allows it to charge fast.

 

I think the game feels slightly too easy. I'm stacking the Hades 2 version of the heat system, which is 'fear'. You unlock 'nightmare' for every fear bounty you unlock (same thing as Titan Blood in the first game), like it might be beat the second boss with 3 fear and you get a nightmare. It's very slow work, so it's a good thing there's a bit of variety in the form of (this spoiler is in reviews, but just in case) 

Spoiler

the second run, up to Olympus, which has a totally different type of design to the Tartarus run. You end up in a courtyard in the first realm and go into 5 different rooms, then fight a Cyclops. That's how far I am anyway. 

 

I'm expecting there to be some sort of difficulty spike to bring it closer to the kick-your-butt experience of Hades 1 at some point, but the obstacle right now is all this low stakes grinding to unlock different weapons and their aspects. I kinda just want to get the weapon aspects unlocked now. I think when I unlock the last weapon it also unlocks the upgrades. What I really want to do is find the Hades 2 equivalent of 'Extreme Measures' from Hades 1, which is the coolest difficulty modifier, it made the last fight in Hades 1 really exciting to complete

 

edit I take back saying the game is easy, it's totally kicking my butt atm. There's so much in here, I think some of the criticism of bloat are maybe warranted, it kinda feels like the FFVII Rebirth to Hades 1's "Remake", but I happen to like a lot of the stuff in it. But I do wish I could play it with PS2 graphics or something, to make things easier to read. It's just hard to look at sometimes

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah so I've hit that difficulty curve, even without pushing the 'Fear' system too high. The surface stuff is really hard, it feels like the real game. I think this is why I felt like the game was a bit too easy, it's trying to onboard you slowly and then when you think you're bad ass it just starts beating the shit out of you 🤕

 

It helps that the weapons are all so interesting, keeps it from burning you out. I've just learned that this has a couple weapons which can 'block'. The way it works is you charge up an attack and it puts you in a block animation (I guess it's kind of like the shield in Hades 1), certain weapons work a bit differently with it (the knives will only block like 60 percent of attacks or something, but will proc powerful counter attacks if it works. The black coat is different again). They've done a lot here to make each weapon feel like it's doing different things, I had a few runs with the Black Coat where I was standing in my casts, using the Omega attack to block stuff, benefiting from a boon which generates gales if you are standing in your cast. It was like a sort of Royal Guard playstyle. The weapons are just much more expressive in this one, largely because of the Omega attacks and the way they work. 

 

I got very close to clearing the surface, but 

Spoiler

Prometheus

is causing me problems. There's a memory game they make you play in it, so I have to come up with some sort of habit to make that reliable. There's another boss before it that's either extremely easy or hard depending on builds, as it's an enemy that spends a lot of time not on the screen. The final boss of the route has a lot of bullet hell elements, which is the one thing that I think Hades 2 shouldn't be doing cause of how it all blends together. I've read huge complaints about Switch 2's handheld mode in this regard, as the motion clarity issues on it worsen the problem. 

 

The other part of the game, where you hang out in the Crossroads and listen to all this wordy dialogue, I just don't really get the appeal of this part still. Feels like a bad dating sim. I feel guilty for just skimming past or skipping lots of it, but it's 90 percent filler that they write in case you are in a holding pattern and it's something I can't really get into, it doesn't work on me. On the other hand, some of the reactive dialogue is really cool. I used a

Spoiler

'raise the dead' move against a multi-enemy boss fight and on the next encounter, the boss ate the head off me for causing them to fight each other. I wonder just how many different permutations of player-driven events they think of like that

[one-armed dwarf]

Massive boss fight 2 spoilers, with Vow of Rivals modifier

 

Spoiler

The song is called "Between a rock and a hard place" and the whole fight is a visual pun of the chapter in the Odyssey about Scylla and Charybdis, where you're getting crushed on all sides like Odysseus' ship, the song lyrics describing the shit you're going through. This game is something else

 

 

 

 

GOTY

 

Tuesday edit, got a 8 fear clear of the underworld and 

Spoiler

6 fear of the surface, I don't think this is a spoiler cause it's such a fundamental thing that the game has two options instead of one, but I don't want to make assumptions while I'm in blogging mode on this game, wait for someone else to comment about it first 👀

 

I like that the second run is quite freeform in its first realm, with how you can pick different boons pretty freely and feel like you have some control over the initial stages of your build. What I've not figured out yet is the best way to maximise gold. I never have enough to buy everything in the last room, even if I pick up gold every single time I get the chance and use Charon's boon. It seems like that last room would be a big lift up in power cause it has really expensive boons. 

 

There's also some gimmicks in the first fight I'm not clear on, Polyphemous (VoR version). I've gotten finally used to the way his AOEs look, most of the time (they are still coloured way too dark, especially the fast shockwaves). But I think there's a gimmick involved where you can distract him and make him command grab his sheep or his adds, Mel mentioned 'his sheep' when I was doing a fight which I think is supposed to be a hint. No idea though, but I would like to make this fight feel more reliable cause right now it isn't. Eris is also very volatile (VoR again) but I think that is literally the point of the fight, as the embodiment of Strife. 

 

Clear screens, v. minor spoilers
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Next is 12 and 16 fear, I got really close on 12 fear last night and cleared the third boss fight on Vow of Rivals, which was wildly easier than expected cause the fight frontloads a lot of its difficulty in the normal version. Once you've got the pattern recognition down, the extra bullshit they throw at you is easily dealt with, which is good cause it's one fight I don't really enjoy. 

 

I like how every weapon becomes my favorite weapon, they all have such a different feel. I had one aspect with the staff which repeats delayed versions of its omega attacks, which I combined with a Hera boon that produces line aoes in the direction you face when charging up spells. So basically I had lots of things popping off the whole time, got to the second last room but fucked up. But the game makes a good attempt at making it feel like runs aren't wasted with the bounty system at least. 

 

One thing I'm finding is that Death Defiance could be a trap, as there's an arcana called 'Strength' which buffs your damage by 20 percent and mitigates damage taken by 50 when upgraded if you have no DDs. It might seem like DD is better, as you can get loads of them, but you're getting less 'value' out of your healing cause you're taking more damage and dealing less, and when you use up all your DDs and Strength activates you are only on half health. It suits me anyway cause I always lose momentum when I lose a DD, my offense turns into bullshit and I get scared. But without it I'm fearless 💪

[one-armed dwarf]

Like Sisyphus, nothing will stop me pushing the Hades 2 thread back to the top of the forum category 😃

 

12 fear clear and 16 fear down, these clears are coming a lot more easily than Hades 1. My 12 fear clear feels undeserved, I got it with the 'Black Coat', holding down the attack button to charge up attacks which also blocks attacks at the same time, and I had a cast that produces a deflect which gave me high uptime on "fuck your mechanics I'm just pressing buttons you cant touch me" gameplay. 

 

Clear screens

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

I fought for the first time the 'Vow of Rivals' version of the third realm fight, I've seen all but two bosses with this modifier now. This last one is probably the hardest, but I got lucky with a build with the Axe of Thanatos which was fully upgraded to have a really fast attack speed, which fixes the biggest weakness of the weapon (it being slow). At the same time it was fixed with a Demeter curse that made everyone else slow, and a Hestia curse which causes enemies to get hurt even when you're attacking something else. Like in Hades 1, it's hugely beneficial to pick the arcana buff that increases the damage you deal to enemies which are carrying two curses at once. It's like compound interest on your damage

 

So that's two statues unlocked, but going to turn the difficulty down for a bit before trying the last one, cause there are lots of weapon aspects I don't have and I want a different twist on future runs. I've barely used the knives, and I'd like to use the staff some more as that has some really cool aspects. Also I want to see that third realm fight again without the pressure of getting a clear. 

 

I think I'm nearly at the end of the story also, but I'm not really trying to get there. I'll say I prefer how they have structured it in this compared with Hades 1, where there are two 'threads' you are pursuing and you can swap between them. Reminds me of Alan Wake II a bit, lets you mix things up rather than just grind a win 10 times. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I rolled credits on it last night, the ending doesn't really have a strong sense of catharsis. I've not been super locked into this part of the game, and it is a problem cause the game leans heavily on character interactions and storylines to smooth over the rough patches. Fortunately, most of my time with the game has been a series of high notes, the only real low points are right now trying to figure out how to get a 32 fear clear of the Underworld, which might require a good bit more patience. But it means the postgame feels a bit empty. But also, I've read people who are super into the story and characters of these games report a similar sense of ennui with where it leaves things, like it drops the ball pretty hard in this regard. Some of the characters who I've followed bits of dialogue from, Odysseus and the Doom guy, also Nemesis, they aren't that easy to get excited about. It feels like they replace having a personality with sexy character art, or something. There's not as strong a througline either through the main quest for Melinoe, who's story feels a bit incoherent to me compared with the simplicity of Zagreus' rebellion

 

Doesn't stop it from being my GOTY though, I've found a new weapon. This smashy smashy hammer, I love the movement of it. Unga bunga

 

Spoiler

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

32 fear was exponentially more difficult, but I cracked it with a pretty sloppy run, the type of one that gets to ignore boss mechanics. Aspect of Thanatos but I got hit so often at the end that I didn't get to take much advantage of its hitless buff (extra crits). Eventually I'll figure out how to do Vow of Rivals 3 better, as well as 4, and this is only my third time seeing the final phase of the last fight at this difficulty. Basically it was Hestia on cast and attack (as Scorch pairs well with fast attacks due to damage over time), and I had some Hephaestus which also had a glow effect, which I used to proc the Origination buff that you get from putting two curses on enemies. But Hephaestus is a bit hard to work with and its uptime was lower than I'd liked. I also don't really understand the last boss yet, without the self healing I'd have ate it.

 

My choices for the Vows where mainly the boss fights, making some stuff more expensive and a light time limit, as well as priming my max magic (decreasing its limit) depending on boon rarity. Well, it makes more sense if you've played the game and understand these systems, hard to just explain it all, but it was the easiest options I selected I think.

 

 

Clipped my run, this vid is the last part and last boss, postgame spoilers

Spoiler

 

 

The build was basically messy on all things related to dealing damage, and I ended up with lots of self sustain. So that kinda carried me across the finish line. Lets me relax now and consider how to beat Chronos without suffering more damage than I have max health 😮

 

The Vow of Rivals version of Chronos isn't half as cool as Extreme Measures Hades unfortunately, that fight is intense and has such a great soundtrack for its final phase, it's something everyone should check out. But Chronos is definitely more complicated, the clock mechanics and insta kills make it really scary, as do his crazy combos that leave trails everywhere. I sort of learned after this fight that you're meant to hit Chronos when he starts his attacks, not when he finishes them. Which is a hard thing to figure out. 

 

I'd like to try 32 fear with every aspect but I'm going to slow down a bit with the game now, novelty worn off a bit. Still GOTY, way better than Hades 1. 

[mfnick]

1 hour ago, one-armed dwarf said:

way better than Hades 1. 

I’m definitely more interested in this after reading your posts. 
 

The changes to combat actually put me off again though. While I didn’t think Hades felt the best to play, I still think I’ll prefer it to the more distance based and slower sounding style of this. 
 

Be a while before I get round to it either way. Far as I know a PS5 date hasn’t been given yet and don’t want to play something like this with the shitty Switch controls. & I want my trophies. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I actually ended up gravitating towards the up close and personal combat by the end. It's actually more challenging in this, than the ranged safe options. The axe ended up being my favorite, while I started off preferring the torches. I don't really like the knives though, they feel too fiddly and fairly weak for the amount of enemies they throw at you. But you can cross enemies up and backstab them which is neat

 

But the whole thing with zoning anyway is that there's times to go in and times to retreat, and lots of ways to control space. It's not necessary far distance based, it's multiple ranges. But it is slower, though at the same time you are making more decisions per second in this IMO than Hades 1 cause your base combat kit is a lot bigger. More active, less frantic, a big improvement to the formula in my view though you really do have to use all of Melinoe's new powers, unless you are building something which isn't based around them (like a build which 'primes' her max magic, which means cutting into her mana reserves). My favorite boons to get were Aphrodite cause they are all based around "being close" (cause of being a sex god init). Close range attacks are stronger, make enemies weaker, things like that

 

It's a top 3 game of the 2020s for me though, somewhere up there with FFVII Rebirth, Doom Eternal and Alan Wake II. Maybe mix and match these around

 

Waiting for PS5 makes sense cause the benefit to image quality and framerate will matter a lot with this

 

Not Zero Punctuation's review came out today

 

 

He gets a thing wrong though, about Chronos

Spoiler

He didn't get castrated, he castrated his own Dad, Uranus (lol). That's what the scythe is for, look it up, it's for chopping off nads. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronus

 

Dying to that feels cruel

 

[Pikman]

Wow, reading this makes me realise I am only scratching the surface. I've had about 10 runs and got to the 3rd level down so far (only twice).
I don't know what half the things you say mean though, lol. I don't think I have noticed a 'fear' system so far.

What I can say is that I am loving it, although it is destroying my sleep pattern. Well.. I no longer have a pattern, I have Hades 2 until I can't keep my eyes open any longer 😅

[one-armed dwarf]

"Fear" is a modular difficulty modifier you get after a while. I think you get it after beating Chronos once, but can't remember. It is mainly used to unlock upgrades for weapons, Hades 1 had the same system but called it "heat"

 

[Pikman]

Ah, nice! 
I seem to be a way away from Chronos so far, although I'm getting there!

[one-armed dwarf]

You will definitely want to push the 'Rivals' one to level two, some very funny fan service if you're into Greek Myth (as I think you said you were reading The Odyssey)

[Pikman]

Indeed! Nice one!
I don't have this option yet AFAIK - I got to the end of level 3 last night but my controller ran out of battery at exactly the wrong moment and I got a bit hammered. Well.. that's my excuse anyway 😅
It is such a fun game, it is ridiculous for the 'just one more go' problem.

[one-armed dwarf]

Interesting patch notes, they're adding new scenes leading up to the ending. Which must suck for people who already beat it and were disappointed by its buildup being a bit rushed. Though you can rewind it now and see that stuff again

 

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1145350/view/505090299391902119?l=english

 

Quote

• True Ending Enhancements: Added new events in the lead-up to the True Ending, and some after. As part of this, increased the number of Underworld clears required, and added to and revised parts of the main True Ending scenes before the end credits. Note: The vast majority of changes are to the Underworld route; the Surface route is mostly unchanged.

• Returning to a Real Possibility: Added Cauldron incantation lets you return to an earlier point in the story in case you wish to re-experience key events, such as the True Ending.

 

As someone who dgaf about that, the thing that stands out most is the increased range for picking up plasma, the thing that Ares drops that makes you faster/regen magic and other stuff. Ares is sort of crap so any reason to bring him more often is a plus. 

 

Also

 

Quote

• Danger Pulse: new! You now can toggle off the persistent flashing at critical Life levels

 

Fuck sake, more games need to offer this option. Watching some of maf's footage of NG4 with the low health screen jam effect, I hates it. If I die, I die. 

[Maf]

The red jam makes sense in games with no health bar. But when I can clearly see I’m in fucking trouble it is redundant 

[Pikman]

ooooo, I saw the surface! If you've been there, you'll know why I didn't last too long 😅
It seems like there might be other 'ingredients' there though, so I'm not sure if I should keep trying or not.

[Pikman]

It’s do-able now!

And a ton of stuff just became available to make the underworld multiple times easier, this is great!

This game is VERY hard to put down, it just keeps on getting better and better.