Welcome back to another blog, the show where we give you some straight-up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing. Hi, folks. It’s Zaid.
Supergiant Games is one of the foundational independent game studios, and while they found a lot of success early on with games like Bastion and Transistor—Bastion to this day being my favorite game of theirs—the first Hades was their big breakthrough hit. Hades is an all-time classic and an absolute masterclass of the roguelike genre, so it’s not really a surprise that in May of 2024 they launched their first ever sequel into early access.
Now, just about a year and a half later, the 1.0 version of Hades II is out, I’ve played it, and there’s no beating around the bush here, this game is fantastic.
A Sequel That Builds on Strength
The first game is excellent, and this sequel takes everything they learned from making the first and used it to make an even more confident sequel that improves on the original’s design in some smart ways. This one starts off with a bit more dramatic hook than the first. Instead of playing as the world’s most persistent runaway, this game tasks you with a revenge mission against the Titan of Time.
The Greek gods of Hades II are in full-on conflict. Hades himself has been imprisoned, and it’s up to you to save him and bring the mad titan to justice. It’s a simple but compelling setup that, much like the first game, gets expanded on through well-written but very punchy dialogue with your allies, through flashbacks, and playable memories that just do a great job expanding the world. It has worked since Bastion, and goddammit, does it still work.
Gameplay: Familiar Yet Refined
The basic gameplay is very similar, almost pretty much the same to the original game. You start off at your base, one might call it a bastion (groans), and at your base you talk to allies where you acquire upgrade and you do all that kind of crap before starting a run. You travel through four different zones, traveling through a randomly generated collection of rooms, fighting enemies, collecting upgrades and boons granted by the gods that give you various improvements to your abilities that drastically alter how you play the game.
Each zone ends with the boss fight, and your ultimate goal is to return to the Tartarus, avenge your family, and defeat Chronos in the house of Hades. Each run will last around 20 to 40 minutes, and at least at first, you’re not gonna survive the night.
Progression and the Arcana System
While each run is randomized, there’s a heavy emphasis on progression here. In fact, Hades II gives you even more routes to improve your character and expand the options in your home base than the first game. And the new stuff here actually manages to feel more meaningful and satisfying, stuff like the new Arcana system where you unlock and equip cards that give a ton of powerful bonuses, but there’s also a limit to how many of those you can use at once.
These things are a lot more fun to get and tinker with than the previous game’s upgrade paths, which were mostly just flat upgrades you’d unlock with a tiny percentage. And, just gotta say it, this is the kind of thing that they needed to improve.
With the Arcana, you get stuff like Death Defiance, which lets you survive a normally fatal attack, or you can constantly regenerate manna, perform special abilities faster. As you progress to the game, you can increase the amount of Arcana you can have activated at any one time. So you’ll get significantly more powerful as the game goes on compared to where you started. But there’s a little more to consider here than just making the numbers go up. I like that.
Surface Exploration and Boss Design
I just think that the early game progression is just a big improvement over the first game. Hades II just, I mean, you’re always unlocking something new or getting introduced to a new gameplay system, so even if you end up eating dirt with your most recent run, it doesn’t feel like you’re just treading water. There’s something to look forward to at all times when you return to your base at the crossroads.
There’s also an entire other direction to go in, which is great as well. You don’t just go down to face Chronos in the underworld. There’s also a surface to explore, which is another four zones, each with their own unique dangers and bosses. The surface is definitely more dangerous in terms of the two paths you can take. At first, you’ll die just by being there.
This new path basically doubles the amount of stuff that’s in the sequel, and it’s another way that the game smooths out the progression. By having a more advanced and difficult second path, they’ve made the first path to go down a little bit easier overall. The bosses are less of a difficulty while in later parts of the run. Chronos himself is no joke, but every other fight isn’t quite as bad.
The boss design here is a lot of fun and they did a great job making them not feel like a drag, even though you’re essentially fighting the same boss over and over again. Scylla is always a highlight. She’s the boss of the second zone and she fights you with songs that actually change depending on the run. There’s a backup guitarist and a drummer. They complicate things. It’s just a super fun fight.
There’s nothing here that I dreaded taking on, like with the Minotaur or Theseus from Hades one. Man, those guys just sucked.
Combat and Character Control
So the general structure of the game is very much similar to the first. It’s pretty much the same even. But how you actually play ends up feeling pretty different, and this is all down to how the new protagonist, Melinoe, controls.
Along with the standard attacks and special attacks, there’s the ability to cast, which at its most basic level creates a circle that slows down enemies. It might not seem that useful at first, but with the right boons, that could become a devastatingly powerful attack and you can center your entire run around it.
There’s also a manna bar to keep track of this time. Your standard and special attacks, they have modified more powerful mega attacks that cost mana. There’s also powerful super abilities that require spending a certain amount of manna in a fight to use, and mix all that in with how game-changing certain boons can be, like ones that modify your attacks but limit your total mana reserve, this game gives you a lot to think about in the middle of combat.
It generally feels a little slower and more strategic. You’re relying more on long-range magic and weapons that generally have more, well, range than the first game here. There are a few primary close range weapons, but out of these six total weapons, about four of them let you keep your distance from enemies. It’s most of them.
Comet feels just as good as the first though, which is good ’cause it’s still mostly what you’re doing.
Level Design and Presentation
In terms of level design, they don’t stray too far from the Hades slash Supermassive formula. They don’t mix things up too much. It’s mostly sticking with what worked about the first while adding a few new wrinkles here and there to keep things, I guess, interesting.
It’s not like they’re not interesting, eh, they like throwing you curveballs though. The third underworld zone is split into wider, more open areas, and that’s a breath of fresh air. The first two zones of the surface also mix things up with a more non-linear approach to progression, but at the end of the day, you’re still picking a door, fighting some enemies, and then getting an upgrade.
This is another game where it’s all about refreshing and refining the systems, not completely overhauling them, which is good, because the systems are good.
Another way the game has refined things is with the art direction, which is somehow actually better, like, the character and background art is just lavish and full of details. The music, the UI, the presentation in general is excellent. I have a feeling this is due to the budget, like, they really had big success with the first Hades, and everything in Hades II feels polished to a mirror sheen.
The confidence of these developers is really on display. Their take on the Greek Pantheon, it remains pretty fascinating, and again, they’re able to thread the needle making things funny and light while also retaining the power and mystery of the Greek gods. They’re not all just one-note jokes.
The game manages to be pretty funny though, which I think is something that you only really accomplish with strong writing, and the voice actors are all putting in the work to sell it too. It’s quality stuff all around.
Final Thoughts: Safe but Excellent
But if there’s anything negative that I can say about Hades II, and it might not be negative depending on your perspective, I don’t think to me it is actually even a negative statement, but it is ultimately a pretty safe sequel.
People who loved the first game and want more, this is probably enough for them. Actually, even for some people who had some problems with the first game might actually like this one, ’cause I think the progression is generally smoother in the early game, and the way the game doles out story and details I think is better than the first.
I also really like some of the weapons more, and I find that the boons have more exciting and interesting synergy possibilities, but that’s an individual taste thing, I would say.
A Few Quirks, But Nothing Major
If you’re just adamantly against the roguelike structure of doing a run, failing, and doing it again, this game isn’t gonna change that. It’s just what these games are, and the isometric combat focus is still the focus. There’s some talking heads, some slight base management in between. Hades II does not break the mold or reinvent the wheel. It could be argued that the game doesn’t innovate.
I mean, maybe if they waited a few years and made something else before returning to the Hades formula, it wouldn’t stand out so much. But they made Hades and then they jumped into Hades II. And if you’re a big time fan of their older games that did something completely different with each new entry, it might be a little disappointing.
But I don’t know. I am a fan of their old games, most specifically, in fact, their oldest game. In fact, Hades is probably the best game since Bastion of theirs in my opinion. So if you consider a complaint, it’s a minor complaint.
Verdict: A Must-Play for Fans
By any metric, Hades II is an excellent game with a ton of content to chew on that basically has doubled the amount of content compared to the original. And it’s mostly a good thing too. There may be a few too many random crafting materials to worry about, and nobody ever wants to hang out with you at the Hot Springs, which is a thing you could do in this game. Clearly Supergiant knows their audience.
But other than that, I really have nothing but good things to say about Hades II. The new weapons are mostly fun to use, the new zones are visually fantastic, and when you do have unique gimmicks, they’re not too annoying and they do not bog the game down. The enemies are generally fun. The new 3D models for stuff, especially the boss, is just looking incredibly good and they actually manage to mirror the character art pretty closely.
And they drip feed you enough story to keep things engaging even when you’re not actually making a lot of progress, which is not all the time, but sometimes.
A Roguelike With Heart
The great thing about Hades II is how it’s a roguelike but has the heart of a more traditional linear game. You’re always growing in some significant way. You’re unlocking new stuff to do in your base or getting a new weapon or receiving some kind of reward. And even when you’re not doing that, you’re still getting something for each run. Your time is never totally wasted here, like in some other roguelikes.
Still, going through randomly generated areas and gathering upgrades as you go is still what it’s all about. So if you just can’t stand some degree of randomization, then Hades is never gonna work for you.
But hey, I’ve heard of people who were there to push through all of that just because they like the characters in the first game and the story. And if that’s you, then yeah, you’ll probably like what they’ve done with this game too. It’s got the same charms as the original and the same general drawbacks, if not mitigated to some extent.
Final Word
Hades one was a massive hit. It won multiple game of the year awards. It dominated the discussion for a while. So at this point, you probably already know if you’re gonna like Hades II. Like, did you like the first game? Well, you’ll probably like this one. It’s the same, but more and better.
If Hades was just kind of mediocre, then, I mean, that wouldn’t be enough, but it’s one of the best indies ever. So making a slightly better version of that thing does make this game-of-the-year material.
So I think it goes without saying, it’s a recommend. I think you will absolutely enjoy this game if you’re a fan of the genre or of the developer’s previous games or whatever. Like, I think that it’s worth a try one way or the other. It’s not an expensive game either. It’s 29 bucks, at least on Steam, and I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s on sale once or twice.
Seriously, Hades II is great, but that’s, you know, my opinion. What do you think? Leave us a comment, let us know. And as always, we thank you very much for reading this blog.
