After Hades II finally released on PS5 a couple of weeks ago, I immediately snapped it up and jumped right in. Aside from a brief interruption by Saros, it’s been my main game ever since, and I think I’ve got something around 40 hours into it so far. I’m not terribly good at it, so I’m, unfortunately, still working my way towards the ending, but I think I’m far enough to give some definitive thoughts on the experience.

Overall, I’ve really been enjoying my time with Hades II. It’s the kind of quality experience that Supergiant Games is known for, with everything being polished to an absolute sheen. I kind of talked about this in my last post about the game, but what can I say? I’m still thoroughly impressed! The artwork, music, animation, characters, environments and especially the combat are all absolutely sublime! My only negative is that the game has wound up feeling a bit long, but that’s mostly due to a skill issue on my part, I think.

If I had caught onto how making proper builds works a bit earlier, I likely could have finished the game by now. That’s something of a difference between Hades and Hades II, I think. In the first game, you could be a bit more loose with your builds and just kind of grab whatever helps you most in the moment. Doing that in Hades II only gets you so far, though.

If you want to win and do it consistently, then you need to become very deliberate about your builds. Fortunately, by the time you reach that point, you should have everything you need to make that happen most of the time. My biggest takeaway after playing this long and watching some guides, though, is that your weapon and preferred playstyle with that weapon are what you should build around, not just raw damage or some rare boon combo.

I’ve got a few go-to builds now, my favorite being centered around casts and stacking burn damage. If you can get it going and manage to find a boon that lets you turn your cast into a projectile, then you’ve basically got the means to just melt everything in your way, bosses and common enemies alike. Even armor doesn’t last against it! It’s fantastic!

I think I’m enjoying the regions in Hades II more than those in Hades as well. It’s not that there was anything wrong with those in Hades, rather it’s that I like spooky forest, aquatic steamworks, and ghost ships more than I do lava fields and meadows. As for the characters, I’d actually say it’s about the same. Everyone was well-written and fun to interact with in Hades, and it’s the same in Hades II. I suppose the only difference is that the cast in Hades II has more members. Actually, there’s more interaction between the NPCs as well, which is also a nice touch.

Something I didn’t like at first was the crafting system. Having to collect various materials and currencies in order to brew things in the cauldron or upgrade abilities was annoying at first considering the sheer amount of RNG involved, but the tagging system and the animal familiars you get later on make it much less of an issue.

I think I’d like to be more deliberate when it comes to chasing certain materials, but the system is pretty much fine as is. It’s just time consuming is all, and that’s something that can be mitigated by turning on God Mode and making sure your farming runs aren’t wasted.

(God Mode starts as a 20% damage reduction, so it doesn’t automatically win the game for you so much as it just helps you avoid wasting time.)

The real star of Hades II is, from beginning to end, Melinoe, though. Yes, she doesn’t have the same kind of dry wit that made Zagreus such a charismatic character, but she’s not without her charms. You can see where she’s coming from and can respect the single-minded determination that drives her forward. She’s forged herself into a weapon for the singular purpose of ending Chronos, and that’s very much reflected in her approach to life and her other role as princess of the underworld.

Still, she also, like Zagreus, has a very human side to her. She cares deeply about her friends, family, allies and mentors, and despite everything carries a certain naivete about the world and how it should work. It’s the same kind of naivete that Zagreus had in Hades, and I think it’s of a similar sort to what we all once had as kids. She sees the world as more simple than it is, or perhaps she believes it should be simpler.

To her, family should care about and take care of family, and she sees all the squabbling among the gods and titans to be pretty pointless to the point of tragedy. She also seems to believe in talking out issues and disagreements rather than turning immediately to fighting, very much unlike many of the other characters.

She also seems to be very forgiving of the gods’ emotional outbursts rather than taking offense in kind. She strives to live up to her ideals, which might be why it somewhat mystifies her that others don’t seem able to live up to their own. Anyway, just like with Zagreus, you get to learn all of these things about her as she fights and interacts with the other characters rather than just having it told to you, which makes both her and her story all the more compelling.

So yeah, I haven’t quite finished Hades II yet, but I’m already ready to say that it is indeed a worthy successor to Hades and another entry into Supergiant Games’ fantastic library. If you liked Hades or even just like Supergiant Games, then you’ll probably enjoy this one too, even if only for the story. Just turn on God Mode from the beginning and get to it if the story and characters are all you’re interested in.

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Have you had a chance to play either of the Hades games? What are you thoughts on them? What’s your favorite Supergiant game?

Image from the Steam page