I'm playing Hades II

Written: May 27, 2024

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~344 words, 2 min read

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  • Promotional artwork for Hades II

I've been playing Hades II since it dropped in early access some time ago. I've put around 100h on the original Hades, and about 1/3 of that in the new one.

I've been having a blast. Even though it's early access, it's full of content both in terms of gameplay and story.

I've found it a bit more difficult than the original, specially the end game boss.

Spoilers - About the final boss

Even though Hades, the end boss of the original game was formidable, Chronos is another beast altogether. He's much faster, for starters. His attacks come out incredibly fast and has little anticipation to his movements. He deals a ton of damage and has much more environmental dangers with him. He also summons some of the most annoying enemies in both games (the satyrs, goddamn).

I've been able to defeat him a few times, but only once I got three Death Defiances and started to find out which builds are more effective. Generally with him, I either had to keep away with a Cast boon such as Demeter's, Hestia's or Zeus' or use a pure melee build with the axe and Demeter's freeze so enemies don't punish the slow attack speed of the weapon.

I've also found Hades II is harder just in terms of game progression. Where Hades I was fairly linear and had a small amount of progress resources (such as Darkness or Jewels), Hades II has two concurrent routes and tons more gathering materials: from what you use in the cauldron, everything related to the Arcana, and everything related to weapon progression, there's a lot of stuff to keep track of.

Still, I think it's a great game. I don't think everything I said is strictly a negative, either. Hades II is a bigger game, in general, and that also reflects on the story and characters. There's a ton of characters. If you're a fan of greek mythology, you'll have a field day meeting every character you can.

Also, the soundtrack is a bop.