I’m at the crossroads in Hades II (Supergiant Games), and I don’t mean the hub world in the game. That’s called The Crossroads, and it’s where I go between each run. Several NPCs are there, and I’m now at the point where I can spruce up the area. There was a similar mechanic in the first game, and I was allll about decorating the House of Hades in that game.
In this one, however, I have barely done any decorating. Why? Because it feels more tedious in this game. I’m not sure it is, but thats’ how it feels to me. In that games, you needed Gemstones, Darkness, and Diamonds to upgrade the house (I looked it up). In this game, you need Kudos (had to look that up, too), plus varying other things such as rewards you get from beating bosses. Here’s the thing, though. You can’t earn Kudos in the game itself. You have to recycle other objects into Kudos with the Wretched Broker (main shopkeep), and you need a ridiculous amount of Kudos to add any one item.
In addition, each object you recycle gives you a different amount of Kudos. Also, if you want to use the main currency in the game, Bones, you can’t recycle them directly to Kudos. You have to buy Ashes at the rate of 15 bones to one Ash before converting Ashes into Kudos.
I’m a hoarder in games. So everything I’m growing and looting from around the regions, I am loath to part with them. Thusly, I have not done much decorating at all. In addition, I do not like the one in charge of decorating here. She’s in my tent, and she is far inferior to the maid in the first game (roughly the same kind of NPC). It’s clear that the NPC in this game is supposed to harken back to the NPC from the first game, but she misses the mark.
I’m in that part of the game where I feel like I’m not making any progress. Granted, I’m fucking around with the different aspects of the weapons, which means I’m not really trying to make it to the final bosses. But, I did make it to the topside third boss (final?) with an aspect of my least-favorite weapon, and then I died with about a tenth of the boss’s health left–at least on one health bar. Dunno if it has a second phase or not. I mean, there’s a second phase, but I don’t know if it has a second health bar. I would not be surprised if this fight did.
I don’t know if I have the fire in my belly to continue. I use so much energy and resources just to get to this boss (and the supposed final boss of the underworld), that I have nothing left when I get there. I remember feeling the same way in the first game, but the difference is me.
The first game came out September 17, 2020. I platted it on December 3, 2020. That’s 2 1/2 months I dedicated to this game. And, yes, I had times when I doubted I would beat the final boss of that game. But, I’m stubborn. I’m so goddamn stubborn. I was a skeptic on my first twenty or thirty runs–well, more. But there was something there, something that kept me coming back. At some point, I realized that it was a really fucking good game. I hung in there, and I eventually beat the big boss.
It took me so long, and I doubted myself every step of the way. To be quite honest, I only did it with a shit-ton of Athena boons (her boons give you deflects. All the deflects. So many juicy deflects), and this game does not have the ults that the last one did. The ult allowed the god of choice to come in and help you out directly. It’s so powerful, but it took a lot to get procked. This ability is not in this game.
This game doesn’t feel as balanced as the last game did. And, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there is just way too much visual clutter. Sometimes, I can’t even parse what is going on, and I just resign myself to getting hit. This is especially bad in the boss fights, and there are times when I can’t even find the boss. Especially when they’re human-sized and there is so much visual bullshit going on.
I’m thinking of one in particular, and it doesn’t help that the weapon this boss uses is super-fast and wrathful as well.
Side note: One thing I really appreciate about this game is how it calls back to the first game. Including this boss. I’m leaving it that vague because I don’t want to spoil it. But people will talk about Zag (the protag of the first game and my bro) and how he specifically was in the first game. It’s a nice way to tie the two games together, and I like the line they walk in doing it. They don’t make it cloying or treacly. They just present it as facts and move on from it.
Anyway, back to the bosses.
I’m so tired by the time I finish a run. And yet, I almost immediately start a new one. That’s the epitome of a good roguelike, and this is definitely that. I have said that it’s better than the first game, and I stand by that. It’s just me that’s changed.
I’m five years older than I was when the first game dropped. I had a major medical crisis in the in-between that I was very lucky to survive. Even before that, my reflexes suck, as did my depth-perception and other things that make these kinds of games really hard for me.
Did I mention that I’m stubborn?
I don’t know if I have it in me to scratch and claw my way to beating this game. And, after beating it, the energy to get the true ending. Oh, I’m sure there’s more past the ‘final’ boss. I would bet a hundred bucks on this. In fact, I already have other side missions, as it were, that I need to do. Or are they actually side missions?
This is something that was in the first game, too. It’s a list of Fated List of Minor Prophecies, and it’s basically a list of side missions. It gets updated throughout the game, and you get rewards when you finish everything in one mission. I recently got one that really puzzled me because it seems more main story than side quest, but I have no idea what to do with it.
There is so much in this game, and I’m feeling overwhelmed. What I did in the first game was just go on run after run, choosing the weapon that gave me extra currency. Darkness, maybe? In this game, it’s the one that gives extra…I want to say Bones, but I’m not sure. There are just so many items in the game; I can’t keep them all straight.
Except, I’m getting stressed out by how much game there is and how bad I am at it. As I said, my skills, which were pitiful in the first place, have significantly eroded since then.
So what is the crossroad? One, do I continue playing this game. I don’t know if I have it in me to beat the final bosses, let alone get the true ending. Two, if I do decide to continue playing the game, do I turn on God Mode? That would be one way to ease the combat, but it wouldn’t make the fights less grueling and dare I say it, tedious. Yes, I dare.
At some point, ‘hard’ games decided that having each combat situation take everything out of you was fun. And, to be fair, their core players would agree with them. This is where the problem comes in. When games start catering to their hardcore fans, they cut out everyone else. I’ve seen it happen again and again with roguelikes, and it’s cut me off from each one after a certain level.
I have more to say, but I’m done for now.