Can Time Not Be Stopped? – A Hades II Game Review

“Death to Chronos”

In Supergiant’s last game Hades, we witnessed Zagreus throwing hands with his dad, Hades. Those events are now but glimpses of the past. The crossroads are now filled with the sounds of potions bubbling and chants sung, as another father figure haunts the halls of Tartarus.

In Hades II, the successor to the fairly well-received Hades, we get to play as Melinoë – Zagreus’s little sister. Instead of fighting Hades, we now turn our focus on Chronos, after some unfortunate events occur in the discordant family of Chthonic Gods and Titans, who are ever-ready to grab each other by the scruff. Just like its predecessor, the game combines the genres of roguelike and dungeon-crawling. As Melinoë, we fight against endlessly different types of shades, skeletons, mer-creatures, and more abominations while we try to reach Chronos and teach him a lesson that he can (hopefully) never forget.

 

As we defeat every dungeon room by dashing around and obliterating enemies with the weapon we choose at the beginning of each day, we get boons from our lovely Gods and Goddesses, who are willing to aid us in our tough journey to save their own tails as well. These boons change or enhance many different mechanics of the game like how we attack, sprint, or block. The choices of boons we are offered by them change how we play the game immensely, and the game offers us more choices than its predecessor. Combined with the fact that we can choose six different weapons (and each has three different aspects), it is safe to say that the replayability factor of the game is quite high, as I struggle to finish this article because I am forcing myself to not boot up the game. However, with replayability also comes some tediousness. To craft some spells that help us make The Crossroads a better place so we can get stronger, Melinoë needs to gather some materials in each run. Sometimes it felt like I had to modify my run to get those materials, and I felt like I was prioritizing progress over fun. But I should note that the game does not feel overly grindy, meaning I did not have to work a lot to prepare the spells I needed.

 

The game tries everything in its power to not fall into the trap of boredom some roguelikes tend to fall into. In essence, roguelikes are about replaying the game over and over, and some roguelikes can feel tedious while playing. To combat this, just like its first game, Hades II offers us its story in parts. We get to learn about what is going on by playing more runs. Every time we progress further in our runs, we are blessed with new pieces of information that slowly reveal Melinoë’s story. Another implementation different from the first game is that there is another level players can explore – The Surface. By giving us the option to choose between The Underworld and The Surface, the runs do not feel boring as we can simply choose the place where we feel like going.

 

The game’s art is also among the features updated in Hades II. The isometric view is kept in place, but the art team decided to upgrade the 2D sprites of Hades I to true 3D models. This means that Hades II’s new character, object, and enemy models scale much better and definitely look better on our screens. With this upgrade, hand-painted environments of the game display their contours much more vividly, resulting in stunning visual compositions.

 

Although it is still in Early Access, Hades II feels remarkably polished and almost done. It adds a lot to its old formula while trying to prove that it deserves to be called a god-like instead of rogue-like. Certainly, the game will get even better in time with updates because it is set on a firm foundation built by passionate game developers who even now very frequently update and balance the game. As a roguelike fan, Hades II scratches an itch that no other game can.

Blurb: Hades II takes players deeper into the underworld as Melinoë, sister of Zagreus, who now faces Chronos in a rogue-like quest that builds on its predecessor’s legacy—does it live up to the myth?

#roguelike #hadesii #godlike #roleplaying

Photos: From the game Hades II by Supergiant, taken by Berk Dönmez

Basic information:

Publisher: Supergiant Games
Developer: Supergiant Games
Platforms:  Microsoft Windows and Mac OS
Release Date: 06 May 2024
Genres: Rogue-like, Dungeon Crawler, Action Role-playing
PEGI: Not yet rated, likely 16

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