Tahseen Hades II Review

Hades II improves upon its predecessor in almost every way possible. Supergiant Games (SGG) has really pushed the envelope in terms of the rogue-like genre. They have build a finely crafted experience that surpasses hades 1. The gameplay is more fun and engaging, the combat is more enjoyable and has an added depth to it and the visuals and art is breathtakingly beautiful. However I did say that they improved in *almost* every way. The one part that I myself and other players really felt let down was the narrative. I feel they wanted to make the game more ambitions and more narratively complex but ended up biting more than they could chew, tripping over the final hurdle and not delivering a great ending to an already amazing game. I am normally not a roguelike or roguelite enjoyer. To me, losing all of my progress after fighting to create a fun build, is not that fun. The knowledge of knowing that weather I win or lose, I am going to give up what makes my build fun, makes me not enjoy these types of games. The one thing that does keep me interested in Hades II has to be the narrative. The way SGG weave in their narrative and story telling into every reset and failure circumvents my feeling of annoyance and despair when losing my gear in a run. Now I find myself wanting to lose a run to a creation boss or enemy just to see what unique dialogue I would get from my companions and the boss themselves. This narrative structure is why I enjoyed Hades 1 so much and why I wanted to enjoy this game too. The story and narrative is well written and enjoyable for the most part. The cast of characters are fun and memorable, and SGG’s rendition of the Greek pantheon is a delight. Its just that when it comes to the ending, It felt rushed and cobbled together. I understand that a story about killing time itself can be a difficult one to get right. I feel the way that SGG did it really wasn’t what I had hoped for. Even after being disappointed by the true ending, I pushed on to try and see if the epilogue would somewhat alleviate my disappointment, I was met with a shocking revelation that would have been more suited for the true ending and in my opinion could have been used to great effect in actually fixing the ending instead of having it locked being an arbitrary mission. Despite all my issues with the story's finale, I enjoyed my 100 hours in Hades II. All in all it took me 28 runs to kill Time for the first time, 32 to beat the boss on Olympus, 50 runs to get the true ending and 81 to get to the epilogue. 9/10 game, Time cannot be stopped.