I’m on part three of my actual official review of Hades II (Supergiant Games), and I want to delve a bit deeper into the characters to start the post. Here is yesterday’s post in which I was bitching about how there are no good female characters in the game. Selene, the Moon Goddess, is too fey for me, whereas Artemis’s sprite is way the hell too cutesy. Aphrodite is the same from the last game (which, quite frankly, means I’m meh about her), and the new goddesses are meh as well. Circe is irritating execept for when she gets upset, and that’s about it for the women in the game.
On the men’s side, I really liked the addition of Apollo. He’s sweet and has a beautiful voice. He makes me smile every time I run into him. Odysseus is fine. I wish I could bang him for some no strings-attached sex, but he didn’t seem down for that for some unfathomable reason. He banged every other sorceress and goddess in the game, apparently, so why not me? I wonder if it was simply they ran out of time.
This is one of my puzzlements in general. There are several stories in which they seeded it so that I anticipated more story than actually happened. For example. In the first game (and, yes, I will have to mention the first game frequently to make a point about this game), the training dummy was a skeleton named Skelly. He was a pompous yet-affable fool, and I got along just fine with him. It was immediately clear that he was a liar, but he was good fun.
In this game, the training dummy is named Schelemeus, and he’s clearly Skelly putting on airs. I just skimmed the IGN description of Schelemeus, and they said that he was promoted. I mean, that’s the story that yopu’re supposed to presume, but I think he’s just lying again. When I meet up with
*SPOILERS*
my father much later in the game, rescue him, and talk to him again, he says he doesn’t have an employee named Schelemeus. This is all played with a straight face, and I can’t quite figure out what Supergiant wanted to do with the character.
In fact, that’s how I feel about the characters in general. For most of them, there was so much more they could have done. There are a few characters who had a very satifactory arc. I’ll list them now. Moros and Icarus. not coincidentally, they are my favorite NPCs in the game. Moros used to be my favorite, but Icky (as I called Icarus) edged him out ever so slightly by the end.
When I returned to The Crossroad, I always visited with people in the same way. First, Dora because she was in my tent where I returned. Next, I skipped past Moros while saying hey (in the real world) because I wanted to save him for last. I went to Eris and gritted my teeth if she had something new to say. I mashed through her dialogue as quickly as possible before hurrying away. If Artemis was around, I’d sing with her a bit.
Then, I’d dutifully talk to Selene if she dropped by. I did not want to talk to Nemesis, so I’d get her over with as quickly as possible, too. Then, Hecate because she was important and I needed to hear what she had to say. Her story was one of the most unsatisfying, I must say. I’m still bewildered by it and how it was supposed to have worked. I did not like that she was Melinoë from another timeline, but I accepted it with a weary sigh.
I have to say the character who really grew on me in this game was Poseidon. I liked him fine in the first game, but he was strictly mid. He’s the same character in this game that he was in the first game, bluff, hearty, and jolly. I was always glad forone of his boons since they were frothy and fun, but they were not my first choice.
What changed my mind was a new boon of his called the Sea Star. What is it? Any resource you get, except for a certtain few including boons, there’s a chance it’ll be duplicated. I slept on it for quite some time, and then took it once just because I did not want either of the other boons. I think I got one of the better rarities, and I immediately saw the benefits. Every time I got a Centaur Heart (permanent upgrade to life), I could get another. Every time I got an upgrade to the amount of mana I could have, I could get another. Same with money. It’s astonishing how quickly that can add up.
When it worked, Poseidon would laugh and say, “Have another!” or something similar. I really dug it, and I started saying, “Thanks, Uncle!” out loud every time I got an extra resource.
If you’re keeping track, I felt that that Supergiant could have done more with Skelly, Hecate, Nemesis, Eris (though she’s a lost cause), Odysseus, Moros, Icarus, and my beloved Hypnos. Of those, I would say the most important was Hypnos, and I will never get over it.
Another thing I puzzled over was why the third boss on the downwards path, Cerberus, the three-headed dog. He was in the first game as the guardian of the path to the final boss. You did not fight him in tthat game, but had to find a bag of smelly treats to give to him. Then, he ran off and you could go through. If you fought Extreme Measures Hades, then Cerberus showed up in that fight, but that was it.
In this game, he’s haunted by dead spirits and acting all crazed as the boss of region three on the downward path. Except, he’s really easy. Like weirdly easy. I was flummoxed by it and wondered why he was so easy. I made peace with it by saying he was only playing and that he wasn’t really trying to hurt me. He recognized me somewhere deep down inside, and he went really easy on me. I can’t think of any other reason why he’s so easy, especially as the third boss on the upwards path is so fucking hard. SO FUCKING HARD. He was one of the reasons I turned God Mode on–not going to lie.
By the way, Ben Starr is the voice of Prometheus, said third boss on the upward path. He’s so good, I didn’t recognize his voice. Ooooh, he’s another character who I wanted more from. His story is intriguing. He’s fighting on behalf of the mortals against the gods, but he’s closed lips as to his true reason why. When Heracles showed up for Prometheus’s Vow of Rivals boss fight, that was a proper, “What the fuck?!” moment. I hated it, but it was such a good addition, thematically. I wanted to know more about Heracles, too. So, yeah, the two of them. What motivates each of them to join up?
I’m not mad about it because I can understand that it’s very tangential to the main story. However, it would have been nice to know more about their motivations.