I’m still playing Hades II (Supergiant Games) with God Mode firmly toggled on. That was the best decision I made when it comes to playing this game (turning on God Mode) because otherwise, I would not be playing it any longer. I can 100% guarantee that.
Wow. Ok. I just decided to look up–oh. There are going to be spoilers past this point. As always, I’m going to try to keep them vague, but spoilers they are.
*SPOILERS*
I hate the voice of the main villain of the story. It’s supercilious, reedy, and almost twee. There is more than a hint of whine that makes me want to punch him. I was curious as to who was the voice actor, so I looked it up. Much to my surprise, it’s Logan Cunningham. He also voices the narrator (Homer) and some of the gods. He has been the narrator in every Supergiant Games game, and he has a deep, rich, sonorous voice. I could listen to him talk for hours.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that he also voices my least-favorite voice in the game! Well, one of my least-favorite, anyway. That shows how much range Logan Cunningham has, and I’m quite impressed.
I’m still digesting the true ending, by the way. My impulse is to say that I don’t like it, but I’m trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. While I’m doing that, though, I’m going to gripe about a few other things in the game. At the end of the last post, I was talking about a character from the first game who was in this game. I needed to do something to aid this character, and I went about it diligently. The mission was introduced very early on in the game, and I saw the true ending without being able to finish the mission. I finally gave in and Googled it a few days ago. It turns out that it wasn’t possible to do the mission until after you get the true ending.
That’s all fine and good (it wasn’t) if the reward for the mission was good enough. It wasn’t. I was able to finish the mission today, and it was such a let-down. I’m not going to describe it in any detail, but there was no reward to it–not even an emotional one. It was shockingly bad, and I wonder why it was written that way. Now, to be fair, maybe there’s more to it, but that was a lot of effort for nothing.
I will concede that all the ingredients needed for the incantations for this mission were things that you just collected on your runs, save the last ingredient for the last step of the mission. So it’s not as if I had to go out of my way to do this mission, though I did have to keep an eye out for the resources as each could only be found in one specific biome, and I left an area without gathering the resources more than once.
Speaking of gathering resources, one of the late-game incantations grants the ability to automatically gather all the resources in a room. It’s great! It got so tedious to pick different resources in a room once I was done with combat, so I’m happy to have it. Except. Why is it such a late-game incantation? I mean, I get it. It’s a reward for when you fulfill certain requirements (basically gathering one of almost every resource, or so I gather (pun not intended)), but I would have appreciated getting it much sooner.
This is a general complaint I have about the game–it has so many components to it, and they don’t quite gel. It sounds silly because the first game had many of the same components, but they felt much more manageable in that game than in this. Everything seems just a bit overdone in this game, and I can’t help but think it’s because of the natural impulse to make things bigger and better.
Hades (the original game) was a rousing success. It sold ten million copies, which is astonishing for an indie team. Not unexpected as their first game, Bastion sold over three million copies, but still. It’s no wonder that they would do a sequel (in addition to them wanting to do a sequel, I mean) because it was a wild success.
I just unlocked another aspect of one of my weapons, which makes me wonder if there is an additional one for each weapon. I really like the aspect I unlocked, but it does make me think I might have to do somethnig similar (use the aspect of the weapon with the person it’s associated with in order for them to wax poetic about another aspect). I might be reading too much into it, but that’s how I got this aspect.
I don’t like having to look things up as I play, but at some point, I will. Resignedly, but it’s better that than to get too frustrated. If I don’t naturally unlock other aspects within a few runs (say, five), I’m going to see if there are any and what I have to do. Yes, that means I’ll lose the element of surprise, but at this point, I don’t want to waste my time, either.
This happens with every From game, too, by the way. At some point, I start looking shit up because I don’t want to miss anything and because I don’t want to spend hours looking for something I missed. I messed up several of the NPC questlines in Shadow of the Erdtree, which had a big impact near the end. I played it again and used a walkthrough to make sure I didn’t fuck it up again, which made the last part much better.
I really like this aspect of this weapon. I can see why they would want to give it to me as I enter the grind phase, but again, why not give it to me earlier? I’m guessing because it’s pretty OP. You have to do three specific attacks in succession (two specific and one general, but still specific for the third), and then you do 777 damage when it’s fully upgraded.
It’s incredible. I did one of the trials with it, and it carried me despite my very low health. I kept trying to do the charged Y, but that wasn’t happening, so I switched to the charged X (for the third button press). That worked well.
I don’t know how long I’ll go before I look up if there are aspects to the other weapons or not. I don’t want to think about the plat because then I’ll feel like I have to do it. Then, I’ll be resentful that I feel like I have to do it. Then, I’ll be made at myself for feeling like I have to do it, and no one needs tat kind of pressure.
I have more to say, but I might do my official review next. I have a hunch that there is a lot left for me to do, so I’ll have plenty to talk about. I want to make clear that this is a very good game. I don’t want that to get lost in my critique.