I have gotten the true true ending of Hades II (Supergiant Games) and watched the credits roll (again), and I have many thoughts about it. My first thought is this. Two seemingly opposing things can be simultaneously true. That was running through my head as I bashed out run after run. Why? Because of this. Oh, spoilers, probably, from here on out.
*SPOILERS*
The main premise: the original true ending of the game was hot garbage. I know that’s harsh, but I was expecting so much because of how good the first game was. Dialogue-wise and story-wise. Yes, the story was simple, but it was so emotionally satisfying. In fact, I think it was so solid because it was so simple.
In this game, the dialogue and story were…fine. For most of the game, they were both stridently fine. I liked some of the characters, but not nearly as many as I had in the first game. In fact, I actively hated two of the characters in this game, both of whom I romanced. I will not get into that because I have written so much about them already, but I had a hard time believing the same team wrote this game as the one who wrote the first.
Even aside from these two terrible characters, the dialogue was not as snappy or as engaging. I did not care as much as I did in the first game about most of the characters, and my biggest thought on the story was how were they going to wrap it up in a satisfactory way?
In short, they didn’t. The original true ending was bad. Shockingly bad. I keep saying it was shocking because in the first game, the writing was so good. In this game, the basic premise was Death to Chronos. That was the tagline, and characters greeted each other by saying it. Chronos, Time himself, had taken over the House of Hades, imprisioned everyone in it, set free Typhon, the Father of All Monsters to torment Mount Olympus, and this sets up the epic fight between Melinoë and Chronos.
I was down with all that, but I had a thought niggling in the backk of my mind the whole time–how would they be able to do that (permanently kill Time) and simultaneously make it so the player could continue doing runs? I was willing to trust Supergiant to get it right so I waited to see what they would do to bridge that gap. Even though there was some light questioning along the way (in-game), the basic feeling was that it would all work out somehow.
In the original true ending, and, seriously, spoilers here, Melinoë meets her brother Zag in the dreamworld, gets him to find their father’s weapon, Gigaros (a gigantic spear) and give it to her. She uses it to kill Typhon permanently, uses the essence of Typhon to kill Chronos in her time before meeting up with Zag again and giving him Gigaros to kill Chronos for good in his time.
This was where the issue came in. Obviously, if Chronos was killed for good in the prior time, nothing that followed would happen. And gameplay-wise, no more game. I was eager to see how Supergiant was going to kill Chronos permanently and make it possible to keep playing the game.
Last warning. This is the ultimate spoiler: They did not. Instead, they had it so Zag talked to Chronos and convinced him to become part of the family again instead. That’s the really short version, but when they return to Melinoë, everything is copacetic between them, and after a shocked reaction from Melinoë, she just accepts it.
Then, the conceit is that there are anomalies out there that need eradicating so no other timeline (including a bad Chronos) can occur. That’s what enables the game to go on with endless runs, and while I kept playing, the joy completely left me after watching that ending.
It was such a slap in the face. After playing as Melinoë for countless hours, she doesn’t get to make the decision as to what to do with Chronos? Her brother, who doesn’t even show up in the game until after you beat Chronos once, is the one who makes the decision???? Yes, he was the protag from the last game, but still. It was so poorly handled, and in tandem with the two worst characters also being women, well, it was not hard to think sexism was at play here.
Melinoë was the protagonist of this game, and she was little more than a footnote for the ending. Now, I love me a footnote, but she deserved so much more than that.
In the patched version, they seeded it so that earlier, she was questioning what to do with him. Zag was reluctantly agreeable to killing Chronos if need be, and Melinoë was the one to suggest Zag talk to him and see if he (Zag) could break through his (Chronos’s) bitternness. In the last kill before it happens, there’s a third phase to usual two-phase fight in which Chronos shows Melinoë what life without him would be like. Or at least, that’s what it’s supposed to do. To me, it was just another phase of the fight.
Even before that, Melinoë talks to Hades as he’s in chains (long story), and he says that he wants no part of it. If she’s doing it on his behalf, well, then she shouldn’t. He denounces the aeon’s long war, and he admits his part in it.
When the final bit comes around,, and it’s Melinoë who makes the decision, it feels earned rather than just tacked on. It doesn’t come out of the blue the way it did the first time, and there was an emotional heft to it that also wasn’t there the first time.
The thing, though, is that it still serves an ending that is not good. I understand from a gameplay point of view why they made that decision. I also understand from a moral standpoint or even a personal viewpoint why they chose the ending. It’s pretty bleak to end all time and not have a hope that things can get better.
And yet.
It still feels bait-and-switchy to me. The whole game is about Death to Chronos, revenge, and helping out your family. I do understand that that was never the point (now, in retrospect). And, if I had gotten this ending (and the road to it) without getting the other ending, I may have grudgingly accepted it. I can’t, though, because I did get that other ending and it was SO BAD.
Once again, I’d like to say that the game is great in general, but the writing really let it down. I prefer the first game to this one (still), which is OK.
I don’t think I wrote my actual review of this game. I still have to do the epilogue (again) and see if redid the one mission that really mattered to me. Then, I will probably write the actual review.