Hades 2 Early Access Review

it is shocking to see that Hades 2 is only in Early Access and that super giant games plans to let it spend at least the rest of 2024 there before it's ready to call it version 1.0 shocking because it already has just about everything I want from a sequel to one of the best rogue light action games of all time Hades 2 manages to keep everything that made the original such a master class of design but it does so in a way that changes up how each of the pieces fits together and gives it its own unique identity rather than feeling like a glorified expansion the result is a familiar but fresh follow-up that challenged surprised and delighted me with every Triumph and failure in equal measure there are a few things missing with an actual ending to the story being the most substantial among them but once it's complete it's hard to imagine Hades 2 not living up to the mythological Legacy of the first at last a worthy opponent [Music] I'm not going to spend too long explaining why what's carried over from the original Hades works so well IGN gave it our game of the year award in 2020 for a reason and if you haven't played the Greek gods gift to Gamers yet and you think you might enjoy some of the smoothest most stylish isometric action ever made tied up with the story that just keeps getting deeper with each run you absolutely should before jumping into round two don't worry this this review will still be here when you come back all right now that you're up to speed you can appreciate that what Hades 2 does exceptionally well is swap out all the old weapons most of the old Boons booths and other pieces from the previous game with brand new ones that do a lot of the same things but in fresh and exciting ways to begin with this time around you play as meleni zagas his sister and the daughter of Hades who very much Shar her brother's smooth vocal tones and cool demeanor in the name of Hades Olympus I accept this message she's a bit more proper and less playful than zag with a personality befitting of the princess of the underworld out of my way Aris I won't be wasting any further breath on you while you perpetuate this nonsense but she's no less likable and equally well written she controls largely the same as zag but with a couple of key changes that lead to some dramatically different play styles for instance there's a Sprint that can be used endlessly to escape danger or if you have the proper bounds enhancing it to charge head first into it the increased sustained speed comes at a price though she's far less Dash happy than Zach she still has a dash that allows her to slip through enemy attacks or cross gaps but in my 40 or so hours of play so far I've yet to see an upgrade that allows her to increase the number of dashes that she has this is a big change because Hades is a game where I Dash a lot heck I Dash more than I run for the most part but super giant has done a great job of Designing its enemies and bosses around that gameplay change and as a result I never found myself missing multi- dashes too much eventually I fell in love with the Sprint and the Boon that enhanced it which might increase its speed to make it better at evasion or turn it into an equatic bulldozing attack or turn you into a moving Crosshair for Zeus's lightning electrocuting any enemy you run close to since melino is a witch she's also got a completely revamp magic system that adds several wrinkles to combat that require you to think a little bit more about resource management by holding down the button for three offensive techniques attack special and cast she can use an Omega variation of those abilities that use Mana so for example the starting magic staff has a regular attack that just does a standard three hit combo but if you hold down the attack button to charge up an Omega attack when you release it you'll shoot out a powerful magic blast that extends a great distance both in front of and behind you Omega attacks are an incredible addition that not only improve the momentto moment action and decision-making of hi's combat but also add some new options when it comes to build crafting and this is where Hades 2 really shines even brighter than Hades did before there are just so many options you can build your character towards during any given run that dramatically change how you approach it and the beauty is that while there are certainly builds that are stronger than others I always felt like I had a shot of getting further than I did before regardless of what build I tried so many Rog lights suffer from this feeling of having doomed runs where you just don't get the kind of scaling or key upgrades that you need to survive in later levels but that was never my experience in Hades 2 my deaths largely came down to encountering new enemies or bosses that I wasn't yet familiar with getting too greedy with my attacks or simply just making too many mistakes as opposed to feeling like I just fell behind the power curve though I will say that the final boss in the Underworld currently seems a little bit overpowered compared to everything leading up to him I'm not going to spoil what the fight looks like but it took me like 15 tries one run had me getting a bunch of power-ups for my cast which is now a circular sigil that you place on the floor that will temporarily snare enemies that run into it one particular Boon though made it so that after remaining on the floor for a few seconds the sigil would do rapid fire explosions and deal huge damage to anything snared inside so I would Dart in drop down my Omega cast Then charge up my Omega special which on this run caused multiple projectiles to Circle me and just watch with flee as the enemies melted in my circle of death that was completely different for my run with the giant axe which had me enhancing my Sprint speed so I could put a ton of distance between me and my enemies before charging up an extremely powerful Omega special that would virtually wipe out all the enemies in a line in front of me if I got a chance to let the move Rock which takes a little bit of time like any good Rogue light every run of Hades 2 felt different taught me a lesson I could use in the future and was fun in its own unique way everything that we've covered so far has largely been stuff that was already good in the first game that's tuned to be just a little bit better in the sequel but the one area where Hades 2 absolutely blows the original out of the water is in the depth and variety of its regions no two are anything alike with the third underworld area in particular being a series of more Open Fields that require you to clear multiple encounters and obtain multiple rewards before being able to move on on to the next you may have noticed that I keep specifying the underworld regions which is because there's a whole separate set of levels enemies and bosses waiting for you above ground as well I don't want to spoil too much of what awaits you if you take the stairs going up but suffice it to say that these levels are where super giant really experiments with the level design to great [Music] effect in between runs you'll find yourself back at the crossroads a hidden sanctuary in between the Surface and the underworld pretty much everything that you could do in the House of Hades in the first game can be done in The Crossroads as well you'll go around gifting Nectars and other presence to NPCs in order to increase your bonds with them and gain their keepsakes you can cross off long-term Milestone goals from the prophecy list for a variety of rewards and you can engage in seemingly endless dialogues with the many legendary Greek figures who inhabit it from the heroic adicus you look as though you've seen a ghost if you'll forgive the very Antiquated mortal Turner phrase G to the rebellious Nemesis why don't you take your bottle before I Smash It and get your scrawny ass out of here to the adorably sassy shade Dora Mel you know I like doing nothing sitting in the bath house with you well that's got to be the next best thing so shall we that said the way in which you progress Mel's strength is very different from how it worked with Zag this time around there's a grid of Arcana cards that each require a certain amount of resources to unlock once you do you can equip its bonuses assuming you have enough grasp which limits how many cards can be equipped simultaneously and will also reveal the bonuses of the two adjacent cards on the grid it's a great system that balances powerful bonuses with higher costs and also makes the decision of what you want to prioritize finding once you're in a run feel even more important do you go for more of the resources need to actually unlock more Arcana cards or more psyche which is used to increase your maximum grasp and allows you to equip more cards in addition to these resources there's a lot more to find in the levels of Hades 2 there are different types of flowers metals and monster Parts with all of them being used to concoct incantations that unlock some sort of new gameplay element or mechanic this is very similar to the house contractor from the first game but it works even better in Hades 2 where you can make more decisions about what kind of resource collecting tool you want to take with you into a run and prioritize one concoction over another one of my favorite incantations actually adds a hot spring to the crossroads and that allows you to invite NPCs on a bit more of an intimate Hot Springs date as you might imagine this leads to some fun conversations that dive a little bit deeper into these characters than your standard chats when they've got an exclamation point over their heads look them Square in the face as they perished often in horror you do this for recreation sake well I can't say that there's been a dramatic Improvement in how Hades 2 looks relative to the first game that's an extremely high bar and I'm not sure I'd want it to change that much anyway the art style remains as Stellar as ever with a soundtrack to match my favorite boss fight is currently skill in the Sirens which has a banger theme song that dynamically adjusts whenever you take out one of the performers to remove their part from the song that's a really cool touch on already awesome boss fight and it's things like that that make me especially excited to see what super giant has held back to really wow us when Hades 2 launches out of early [Music] access music EO through sea but before we get to the verdict it's also worth mentioning that after beating the final boss of the underworld you unlock Hades 2's equivalent of the paack of punishment called The Testament of the night this allows you to add specific difficulty modifiers to your next run that might increase the damage of enemies or make healing items less effective or make all enemies faster it's basically a customizable New Game Plus mode with rewards and incentives that was brilliant in Hades 1 and I'm stoked to see it already in Hades 2 so what's unfinished about Hades 2 to make it release in Early Access well there are still some placeholder portraits for characters like Kon narcissist and a few others that I won't spoil some Boon icons are missing unique art and just have letters to differentiate them and most importantly even though you can unlock its version of new game plus the story currently doesn't have an ending hers is a tale that shall withstand time yet it requires time as well the development road map on the title screen also makes it clear that they're still working on a whole new region to explore new cosmetic features for the crossroads and another new weapon to be released in the next major update Hades 2 feels impossibly huge and unbelievably Polished by any standard much less An Early Access game Mel is awesome the new tweaks to combat and progression are excellent and it's just unbelievably feature packed with twice the content of the first despite that it's still clearly a work in progress there are some placeholder art assets there are still more weapon aspects to come there's a weapon missing from the Arsenal of six there's currently no proper story ending and there's still another planned region that will be part of the next major update in the next few months but even with all that's currently missing what's here right out of the gate is astounding and the thought of more coming on the way is a tantalizing treat thanks for watching and for more Hades 2 make sure to keep it here on IGN

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Keywords: hades 2 review, hades 2 early access review, hades 2 first review, hades 2 impressions, whats new in hades 2, hades 2 ign review, hades II review, hades review, best roguelikes, best roguelites, supergiant games, supergiant games reviews, hades 2

Id: 3c6vNSmEZ70

Length: 12min 8sec (728 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2024