Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Hades II

Hades II (Supergiant Games): let’s talk about story and characters, part three

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have stalled enough. I need to talk about the ending of Hades II (Supergiant Games). Early warning, there will be spoilers from here on out. As always, I will always try to keep the spoilers as vague as possible, but I will have to get prettyt specific in this post.

*SPOILERS*

When I say the ending, I mean the true ending. The one true ending. Sure, you can beat Chronos in one run and be happy with that. However, there is so much more to the game than that. I expected the true ending to be huge because there was so much more game this time around. I was nervous, though, because the whole theme of the game was Death to Chronos. Chronos is time. You can’t stop time, so what was the solution?

As I killed Chronos again and again, I was able to go travel a mystical road to visit my brother, Zagreus, in his bedroom. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s enough to get the gist across.
I had to convince him that I was his sister from the future. I said we needed to find a way to kill our grandfather, Chronos. I could not do it permanently in my time, so he had to do it in his.

Was this weird? Yes. Was it cool? Also yes. Was it fan-service-y? Yes as well. I was fine with all that, to be clear. I didn’t know where it was going because when you think about it, if you kill Time, well, then what do you have left? Zag even asked if that meant Mel wouldn’t be born, and Mel kind of brushed it off.

I did wonder how they were going to sq0uare that circle, but I shrugged it off. I mean, if they were going to go down that road, they had to have a resolution? Right? I will admit, there was doubt in the back of my mind, though. Chronos is Time. If you kill him off permanently, then how can life continue?

Mel and Zag realize that they need Hades’ spear, Gigaros, to kill Chronos and *double spoiler* Typhon, the final boss of the upward path. I’m not  going to get too into who Typhon is except that he’s the Father of all Monsters, and his boss fight is ridiculous–UTTERLY ridiculous. I will save that for my post on gameplay. For the purpose of this, I will say that I can understand why–no, wait. 

I can’t. Because my stance on this is that the game should have been one or the other path, but not both. It was too much, and as a result, I feel that the story and characters suffered.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): let’s talk story and characters, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’m back to talk more about the story and characters in Hades II (Supergiant Games). I have cleaned up everything I wanted to do in the game, and I think I’m ready to uninstall it and walk away. I’m not going to say how many hours I put into it; I will say that I wrung every bit of content out of it. I want to continue talking about the story and the characters, and here is my previous post about both of those things.

I want to start off by saying I think there are two camps of people who play the Hades games. In the first camp are the people who play it for the gameplay. They don’t care about the story and are impatiently mashing through the dialogue to get to the next run. The other camp is filled with people who are there for the story and/or love Greek mythology. The runs are to be tolerated or put up with while getting to the good parts.

I’m in the second camp, which is why, after some deliberation, I think I actually prefer the first game. Yes,, the gameplay is smoother in this game, and, yes, Supergiant improved several things in that realm, but something got lost in the translation in this game. I think they could have made two games out of this one, and while I appreciate what they were trying to do, I don’t think it worked.

One of the reasons is that the story completely fell apart at the end. Warning. I am going to spoil the hell out of the end of the game. From here on out, there will be massive spoilers.

*SPOILERS*

I need to clarify that The Crossroads (the hub world and where I return after each run) is between  earth/Olympus (upward) and Tartarus/the House of Hades (downward). At the beginning of the game, because of the family curse, Melinoë cannot go upward. I think I might have tried it and immediately died, so that taught me to just stick to the downward path.

I have to give credit to Supergiant for seamlessly weaving in important gameplay elements into the story (for the most part). Like, at a certain point (can’t remember when), I got an incantation at my cauldron to counter the family curse. In other words, I could go upward. That was pretty neat, honestly, and, of course, I immediately went that way.

I will get to gameplay later. For now, I’m sticking to story and characters.

Someone in one of the Reddit threads suggested that Supergiant ran out of time, which is why the story ended the way it did. The commenter also said it’s why some of the relationships seemed to come to a standstill after maxing out the hearts. They didn’t explicitly say the following, but that’s in comparison to the ones that had more to them after forging a true bond.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): let’s talk story and characters

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’ve been winding down my obsession with Hades II (Supergiant Games). I have a few things that are nagging at me, but in general, I’m done. I’m in the middle of reviewing the game, and I have wanted to talk about the story and the characters for quite some time. I did not want to put it in my official review, so here it is. Oh, and here is my last post, which was part two of my official review.

*SPOILERS*

The story is, I’m sad to say, hot trash. No, that’s not fair, but I wanted to say it because I said it about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive, and I meant it for that game), and I thought it would be funny to repeat it for this game. Also, I will be spoiling a lot for both Hades game, so this is your fair warning about that.

I don’t play the Hades games for the gameplay; I’m in it for the story and the characters. In the first game, the story was simple and heartfelt. I played as Zagreus, the son of Hades. He was my gruff, uncompromising f ather who did not know how to show love. Or rather, did not care to show love. He had nothing but disdain for me, in part because I was a young kid who just didn’t care much about his duties.

I started trying to make it to the surface in order to find my mother, Persephone. In order to do this, I had to get through four levels of Hades (the area), which included Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, and Temple of Styx (I had to look the last one up). There was a boss at the end of each level, and the big boss of the fourth level was (and this is the biggest spoiler, I guess) Hades, my father.

I mean, who else was it going to be? I don’t remember why he was opposing me. I have a hunch it was because those from the Underworld could not survive on the surface, and he was trying to protect me in his gruff, understated, bottled-up way.

That game was so fucking hard. I despaired of ever beating Hades. I was able to get to him rather regularly, but he wiped the floor with me. I thought about turning on God Mode, but I resisted. Though it took me many more tries than I care to admit, I finally got Hades. Much to my surprise, that was just the beginning. When I returned to the House of Hades, my father informed me that he wanted me to run security because it was clear there were holes in it. That was the excuse given, and it was serviceable.

The first time I escape, I meet my mother. She is surprised to learn she has a son, and I’m pleased to meet her. However, since I cannot live on the surface, I expire soon after and return to the House of Hades.

After I beat Hades ten times, I get the true ending. I think I knew this by the time I got to my tenth win, but it involves Persephone coming back to the Underworld (at least for six months of the year). There’s also a special family banquet that includes the Olympiads. It’s not depicted (or at least not a cut-scene), but it was mentioned.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): my official review, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’m back with part two of my official review of Hades II (Supergiant Games). I mentioned in the last post that I hundo chievo’ed the game. I have done everything but one Chaos Trial, and this one–ok. I have to confess. This is called the Great Chaos Above, and it’s a totally random load-out for a run upwards. I did the Great Chaos Below already as it was part of the plat. I was braced to it several times because I don’t do well with randomness in a game like this. I got really lucky with that and did it on my first try. It wasn’t that hard, really. Like, at all.

When I say everything, I mean the Arcana Cards (they give you different attributes like Death Defiances, a better chance to find different things, faster this, that, or the other thing, etc.), the Keepsake (from different NPCs, each with a specific perk ilke a revive, armor at the beginning of the level and additional armor for every room you go into when you still have armor, certain perks vs. Guardians, etc.), the familiar, and the weapon. There are a few of each that are plainly better than the others in each category, which makes for an interesting run. And by interesting, I mean terrible.

In addition, the Fear level is 20. That means all sorts of pain points are added (and, again, this is random), such as more mobs, enemies have a chance of reviving as a shadow and if you don’t kill them they respawn, less healing per health item, etc. The worst, of course, is the Vow of Rivals, which makes the Guardians harder.

I ate it on quite a few runs on the upward path for this trial. Oh, I should mention that the Keepsake changed every level–and this was a great way to fuck you over. In the Great Chaos Below, I got Moros’s Keepsake on the last floor. When you hit 0 HP, Moros’s voice counts down from ten, and if you manage to clear the room before he hits 0, you come back with 60 health (at fully upgraded). I was crushed because there was no way I would be able to finish off the final boss in ten seconds if I was felled by him.

I had had such a great run up to that level, too. I was feeling good going into the last level, like, maybe I could do it? I think I even had Toula (the cat) as my familiar? I can’t remember, but it was a strong run. Then I got Moros’s Keepsake, and I was crushed. I went through the floor, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was already preparing myself to do the trial again. I reached the final boss, and I did my best, of course, but he got me. There was no way I was going to kill him in ten seconds, so I resigned myself to having to do the trial once again.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): my official review

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I 100%ed Hades II (Supergiant Games) today. I don’t know how to feel about it because, well, I’ll get into it as I give my offiycial review of the game.

I want to start by saying this is a terrific game. I have to make that exceedingly clear because I’ve been down on it in other posts for various reasons. It may seem like I did not enjoy this game or thought it was a bad game, but neither of these things are true. I enjoyed it very much, especially when I turned on God Mode.

By the way, I read a post I had written about the first game, and I had said I was glad I resisted the urge to turn on God Mode. Now, I will say that if I had not turned on God Mode, I would have quit well before I even reached the final boss on the upward path. This game is exponentionally harder for me, and I don’t think it’s solely because my abilities have atrophied quite a bit in five years (though that doesn’t help, obviously). I know without a doubt that I could not have beaten the fourth and final boss of the upward path if I had not turned on God Mode.

I am amused because I was steeling myself for the last few achievements. Somewhere around me getting the achievement that meant I had seven or eight to go made me start thinking about one-hundred percenting it.  This was roughly the same time I starting thinking the same thing for the last game. Here’s the post in which I talked about going for the not-plat for the original game. I read a few more posts I wrote about that game, and I realized that something I thought was a completely new addition to this game had been in the first game as well, albeit in a slightly different form. Oh, warning. Spoilers from this point onwards. Nothing big, but still.

*SPOILERS*

It’s the animal friend system. In this game, they’re called famaliars, and you find them out in the combat areas. Huh. I read up on it, and you have to do a specific bunch of things before receiving an incantation you can use at your cauldron. Then, you will find the familiars out on the battlefield. You have to give them a treat, and they’ll be back at The Crossroads the next time you’re there. From then on, you can take them out on a run with you. You can also upgrade them with (different) treats that you have to brew up in your cauldron.

I had totally forgotten that you had companions in the first game! You got them by maxing out your relationship with certain NPCs, and then they would give you their animal friend for you to call upon in battle. You could upgrade them, too. And, when you used them in battle, their human friend came to give a battle cry before disappearing. I really liked them for the most part; I can’t believe I forgot they existed.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): I think I’m done, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have subtitled this, “I think I’m done”, but I’m really not. It’s more that I’m dealing with the frustrations that I have while continuing to play the game. I found out what the last incantation I unlocked does.

*SPOILERS*

It makes it so that you can change the seed of run you’re on when you’re at the Oath of the Unseen (the statue that lets you add different hardships to your run in order to up the Fear factor). When I first found out what it did, I thought to myself, “That’s it?? That’s what I needed five of the items from the upper path last boss for?” So I could choose a different seed? Who the fuck cares about that?

Then, I was trying to unlock the last aspect of a Nocturnal Arm I needed (the staff, Descura), and I soon realized how this ability (to quit a seed) was handy. With the staff as my weapon, I had to make it to the second biome of the upwards path. I had to find the NPC of that level, and she was usually to the back of the level. I had to talk to her with the staff in hand. It didn’t have to be her aspect activated, but that’s the one I liked to use, anyway.

I knocked the difficulty down to minimal because I was just trying to get to her. Oh, wait. I first did it for the aspect I needed for the skull. The NPC I needed to talk to was in the first biome of the upwards path, so I thought I could get there pretty quickly. First run, her room wasn’t there. I could tell at a glance of the map (the NPC rooms are marked with two clasped hands), so I undid the night (how to get back to The Crossroads as if run had never happened), and then realized I would have to reset the seed to get a different run.

That was the reason for that incantation! Was it worth it? Ultimately, yes. It  would have been nice to know before doing the incantation, though, or at least right after. It is useful because if I quit and go back, I’m in the same run. The only way to get out of that run is to die. That can take a long time with all the Death Defiances I have equipped.

I was able to get the skull aspect fairly easily. It did take several runs, but at least it was quick. I would look at the map as soon as I got into the city. If I did not see the NPC room, I would quit the night and change the seed. The first time I got into her room, I didn’t actually have the skull equipped so I quit out, but did not change the seed. When I went in, she noticed the skull and told me the wakening phrase I needed to use back home.

Easy-peasy! I naively thought it would be that simple with the staff as well. Spoiler: it was not. I did several runs to the second-level boss in which I did not see the NPC. Once I reached the second boss, I undid the night and changed the seed. I have killed the first level boss enough that I don’t care that I lost a few rewards from doing so.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): I think I’m done

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have played a surprising number of games this year (I tend to only play FromSoft games), and there is a theme that sums up how I feel about many of the games. That theme is love-hate. Or, in social media talk, it’s complicated. My relationship with the games, I mean. Those include Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock), and now Hades II (Supergiant Games). Oh, and I would put Date Everything! (Sassy Chap Games) in that category as well. I have not played that much of the last game, but I have my issues with it, which I will not talk about in this post. Here is yesterday’s post, to which this is a continuation of sorts. But not really.

I want to emphasize once again that Hades II is a great game. I don’t want the takeaway to be that I think it’s a shit game. In many ways, it’s a better game than it’s predecessor. However, I have had my frustrations with it, and I need to vent about them. Needless to say, there will be spoilers. I will try to keep them vague, but I can’t talk about my issues with the game without at least mentioning them.

*SPOILERS*

Today, I was doing a quest/mission on the Fated List of Minor Prophecies. It’s another one that was given to me ages ago, but I knew that I would not be able to finish it until after the true ending of the story. It had several different pieces to it; most of them were done just by playing the game–and meeting very specific conditions. Then, I reached the end of the mission with just one vague, cryptic instruction on what to do for the final piece. I had to read it a few times to understand what it was asking for.

Then, I had to do a run on the downward path in which I had to die in a very specific way in three consecutive rooms before dying for good (don’t ask) in a fourth room. All of this had to happen while having a certain keepsake equipped.

I cannot tell you how many times I fucked it up. First of all, this area is the second biome of the downward path, so not that hard. I had several variants turned on to make the run harder just so I wouldn’t cruise my way through each room. I also had my cat with me so I could breeze through the first biome. You have to prod the cat in order to get her to attack, and then she’ll attack several times (depending on how much you upgrade her) before going to sleep. I thought I could use her in the first biome with a Fear level of 10 (that’s still a relatively-low Fear level), but that made the last stage of the mission impossible.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): one true ending, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

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.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): one true ending

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I beat Hades II (Supergiant Games) and got the true ending. I have to say that it was WILD and not what I was expecting at all. And, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I won’t be getting into the specifics, but I have to say that it’s a good way to set up what is essentially NG+. Or rather, how to let you continue doing runs and adding different difficulties to up the heat. I will say, story spoilers from here on out.

*SPOILERS*

I beat the final upward path boss four times and nothing changed. I was surprised because I thought that was what I needed to do to trigger the next bit needed. But, no. That wasn’t all I had to do. There are a few more steps to take before youu get the true ending, and even then, I was holding my breath because it seemed like that maybe it wasn’t the end.

It was a bonkers ending, and I did not expect it at all. And, I have to be honest: I thought it was a bit, ah, discordant with the game itself. That’s the best way I can put it, and I don’t mean it in negative way, per se. After I beat the boss and it was clear that there was going to be a talky ending, I carefully set down my controller–but I kept my hands lightly on it. Just in case I had to pick it up and play again.

As I watched the scene unfurl in front of me, I started to smile. Not because it made me happy, but because I could not believe what i was seeing. It was so not what the game would lead you to believe would happen, I had trouble accepting it was the actual ending. Again, I’m not saying it was a bad ending, but it was certainly unexpected.

I’ll have to sit with it to see how I truly feel. It will probably take me a few days to digest it (while trying to tidy up the loose ends. And not loose ends. There are things that were set up fairly early in the game that have not been resolved yet. And not all my relationships have been maxed out. I have had some of them strengthen since I got the ending, but I still have a way to go with some of them. Also, with at least one of them, there seems to be much he needs to do before we can be besties. And knowing what I know about this game, I’ll be the one to make sure this happens.


Continue Reading

Hades II (Supergiant Games): God Mode, part four

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Yeah, I have more to say about Hades II (Supergiant Games), difficulty, and God Mode. This will probably be my last post about the game except for my official review (which will most likely take four or five posts. We all know that because that’s me). Here is yesterday’s post about my frustrations with game.

*SPOILERS*

I have beaten the final boss on both the upper path(twice) and the lower path again. I thought I needed to beat them five times each to get the true ending, but I’m not sure that’s how to get it (the true ending). My cauldron (where I make incantations) indicate that I need to at least beat the final boss of the bottom path five times for one incantation. I had assumed I needed to match it on the upward path because the incantation was asking for five ???, which I took to be five kills of the final boss on the upward path.

However, that requirement did not change after I beat the upward path boss, which I think it would have if beating that boss five times was the second requirement. In fact, another incantation showed up that had beating that boss four times as an ingredient (well, the reward you get for beating that boss, anyway. You need four of them) as well one of the reward you get for killing the big boss of the downward path plus the ??? . So have to beat the big boss of the downward path six times and the big boss of the upward path four times, plus you need however many of the ??? ingredient, which I honestly have no idea what that is.

For those keeping count at home, I have killed the final boss of the bottom path three times and the final boss of the upward path three times (if my count is right). That means I have to kill the boss of the upward path once more and the downward path three times more before I have to do whatever I have to do to get the true ending. Then, as the kids say, the real game begins.

I don’t mind telling you that I’m divided in my feelings about the game. All hail God Mode, though, I can tell you that much. I would not still be playing the game without it; I know that without a doubt. I have to take about 25% of the shit thrown my way because of my (I’m just going to say it for this post) disabilities which puts me at a serious disadvantage.


Continue Reading