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

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This is it–my true actual official review on Hades II (Supergiant Games). I will not write another post about this game. Ever! This, of course, is not true, but I am going to try my damnedest to make this the last post Here is yesterday’s post in which I mostly ranted about the ending of the game. I will briefly mention it in this post, but not to the same extent.

I’m going to do something wildly different with this review. Why? Because there are three numbers I want to give it, and since it’s my blog,  I’m going to do it. In addition, I’m going to spplit categories in two because that’s just how the game felt to me. It’ll make sense as I go. First up, let’s talk about the caharacters. And, yes, there will be rampant spoilers from now on.

*SPOILERS*

NPCs: I am so spilt on this category. In general, the NPCs in this game are not as good as they were in the last. While I did not love all the NPCs, I did appreciate that several had good stories. (While also noting that some were half-baked. My poor Hypnos.)

I like the Olympians just fine. I don’t like that Athena and Ares don’t show up until after a certain point (I think you have to beat Typhon the first time? Maybe?) They are both still great in this game, but I wish they were available from the start. I grew to really like Poseidon in this game (who was meh in the last), and the rest were fine. Oh, I still love Demeter, in part because Ireally dig her ice abilities.

There are two NPCs whom I really adored–Moros and Icarus. I did not like Narcissus at first, but he really grew on me. Same with Scylla. At first, I jsut wanted to punch her in the face. By the end of the game, I really enjoyed meeting up with her. Some were fine, like Odysseus, Hecate, and Medea. Some were meh such as Circe, and two of them were horrible: Nemesis and Eris.

Overall, I thought the NPCs were weaker in this game than in the first. I give them a 6. If Nemesis and Eris were gone, I would bump it up to a 7.5 or maybe even higher. Yes, they annoyed me that much. I hated them by the end of the game.

Music/environment/vibes: This is perhaps the best part of the game. The vibes are great, the enironments are thriving (mostly), and the music is top notch. I can’t give these elements enough praise. Here, the homage to the first game really shone, and I have to give it high marks. The video below of Scylla and the Sirens is my favorite song, Bewitching Eyes. I really like that several of the songs are some iteration of the Death to Chronos song.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games); my actual official review, part four

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It’s been interesting to read the discourse on Hades II (Supergiant Games) because of the varying opinions. Most people agree that the gameplay is the star of the show. Many people agree that the story is shit, especially the ending. There is a near agreement on how terrible the ending is, which is oddly gratifying. Oh, by the way, here is the post from yesterday.

The interesting part is the two camps of thought on how important the gameplay is versus the story. Most people play the game primarily for the gameplay and the addictive loop. I am in the minority (once again) in that I play the game more for the story than the gameplay. This is because I’m not good enough for the latter, and I had to swallow my pride to turn on God Mode, otherwise I would never had finished the game.

Side note: I underestimated how amazing God Mode was beacuse I hadn’t truly thought about the scope of it. It cuts down the damage you take each run after you die by 2% (starts at 20% less damage). It caps off at 80% less damage, and the things that flummox me (not being able to see everything on the screen; being pelted with bullshit from all around; losing so much health per region, etc.) were so much less annoying. It’s a duh realization, but I never used God Mode in the first game so I didn’t know.

Anyway, I think the multiple runs to get the true ending are a bit much (especially since they extended it for the true true ending), but I understand why it’s structured that way. I’m glad they patched the true ending to be the true true ending, but, man. It was such a huge misstep in the first place. I am still not over how bad the true ending was and how

*SPOILERS*

they did Melinoë so dirty like that. It was so egregious, it shook my confidence in Supergiant in general. Seriously. The fact that no one in the company said, “Um, guys? About that completely taking away Melinoë’s agency at the veryy end of the game? Maybe we don’t do that?” leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Warning: I’m about to go on a rant (per usual).

What the fuck, sexism? It’s really depressing how prevalent it is in our society (Supergiant is an American dev) that this game, which was in Early Access for over a year (nearly a year and a half) was released with that ending. I know I’ve been harping on it, but I expected so much more from Supergiant Games. I’m not sure why, really, because it’s not as if they had a female protag before. At least not to this extent.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games); my actual official review, part three

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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.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): my actual official review

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I am pretty much done with Hades II (Supergiant Games). I may do a few more runs to see if I get any more post-true true ending content, but I’m not much fussed if I miss out on a few new lines here and there. That’s so different than how I felt about the first game, dialogue-wise, and it makes me a bit wistful for OG Hades. Here’s the second part of my official review after 100%ing the game. I didn’t get that far into my review, but I wanted to show my work before continuing.

Before I review the game after finishing the true true ending, I want to state up front that I turned God Mode on after beating

*SPOILERS*

Chronos for the first time. Not right after, but when I could not come close to beating Typhon, I decided to give it a try. Then, for the next few days, I turned it off while running the levels and on for the bosses. After a few days of that, I gave in and kept it on. I liked the game so much better once I did that, and my only regret was that I did not tturn it on earlier.

I gave Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) a 7 when I reviewed it. This game is better than that game–or at least I enjoyed my time with it more. I was always going to give this game a better score than that one, but before the true true ending, I think I would have given this game a 7.5. I’m not going to say what I’m giving it now, but you can assume it’s going to be higher than that.

I struggle in talking about this game because my emotions are all over the place about it. In fact, that’s my theme for this year–games that I both really  like and deeply dislike at the same time. I would say that this game falls into that category, but I like more of it than I dislike. However, I can’t help but compare it to the first game, which I liked better.

Let’s talk weapons. There are six weapons with three aspects for each weapon. You start with one aspect for each, with is the Aspect of Melinoë (the main character). It’s the basic moveset and isn’t anything special, but I preferred it in at least one of the weapons. You have to unlock the other two aspects for each weapon in different ways. You don’t know how you’re going to do it, so basically, just keep playing the game with the different weapons and you’ll eventually unlock the other aspects. Then, you have to level them up, and it’s costly. I’ve written about it before that I thought it was too costly.


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

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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.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): my official review

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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.


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Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock); my actual official review, part three

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After two posts exploring what I like and didn’t like about Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock), I want to finally, finally give my official review of the game. I’m going to break it up to different categories just because I feel like it.

1. Atmosphere and general vibes. This is one of the best things about the game–with a few exceptions. I love the heart that went into this game and the community the devs created within it. I dug the characters (for the most part), and even the ones I didn’t care for had a place in the game.

I really appreciated that they had a very diverse cast. Does it stretch incredulity that there would be that many people of different colors/ethnicities in a small farming town? Yes. Do I care about that? No. Why? Because it’s so fucking nice to have a game that unapologeticallly stans for diversity, no ifs, ands, or buts. Yes, we’re going to put people of color, queer people, and a nonbinary person in the game. What are you going to do about it?

I have a hunch that they don’t care if people (read gamer boys) want to whine about the ‘woke left’ and how they (we) are RUINING GAMEZ!!!!

To which I would say, FUCK YEAH! I love ruining games if it means that there is more diversity in them. I never understand this particular whine. 90% of games (and that’s a low figure) feature a cishet white dude as the protagonist. What more do they want?? There is actually a huge database of games some discontent whiny gamer boys made of games they considered too woke to play. When I scanned the list, I had to laugh to stop myself from crying because they literally put things like a Pride flag in the background as a reason that one of the very popular shooter games was too woke.

I really loved running around this world and seeing peoplle of many different colors. And hearing about their heritages and upbringings. I liked their backgrounds and what brought them to Fairhaven (if they weren’t born there). This is one of the strongest aspects of the game, and one of the reasons I continued to play the game.

2. Daily activities. This is one of the most divisive aspects of the game for me. Of course, it’s a cozy life sim, which means that there are going to be several daily chores. This is just an accepted core aspect of the genre, but I think the balance is off. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this game had mining, cooking, farming (tending crops and later, taking care of animals–including breeding them), sewing, hairstyling, and repairing buildings/building new things. That’s just on the normal side–and that’s not even the whole list.


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Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock); my actual official review, part two

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This is part two of my official review for Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock). Ignore the several posts I have written prior that have the words ‘official’ and ‘review’ in the title because those were just the musings of an obsessed mind. I would like to continue from where I left off in the last post, which you can read here.

At the end of the previous post, I was talking about the robots that made life so much easier. I would have liked to get them earlier, but I can’t complain too much as I got them in the third season. In my first playthrough, I stayed in the first season for far too long. In my second playthrough, I think I made it to the third season more quickly than I made it to the second playthrough on my first.

There are always a ton of videos on things you should know before playing a game (oftentimes titled, “Things I wish I knew”, but I never watch them. I like to go into games as unspoiled as possible. I did know about the magic before going in, but that’s not really a spoiler as it’s in the trailer. And you find out really early on that your grandmother is a witch and so are you.

The tension between wanting to play a game unspoiled and not wanting to miss shit has been something I’ve dealt with since I started playing the first Dark Souls. It came to a head during the third game of the series when I fell in love with Yuria and would do anything she wanted. I did something unrelated to her (and I had to try it becuase it was something new), and the next time I tried to talk to her, she soundly rebuffed me. Then, she disappeared from my game and never showed up again. This was fairly early in the game, and I was devastated.

I contemplated starting over, but I decided to continue–albeit with hurt and anger in my heart. That was the moment when I decided that I would do some judicious looking up when things like this came around.

In this case, it didn’t really help beacuse I still made a decision that came back to bite me in the butt later on (when thinking about the plat). This is why I don’t like platinums/achievements. If I’m far away from it by the time the game ends (platinum/hunderd percenting), then I can just ignore it. If I’m anywhere close to the plat, then I’m going to go for it.

I think one of the perpetual issues with games such as this one is how to balance the grind. Is the beginning of the game, you’re always as weak as a kitten. You can barely take two steps without falling over. You have to replenish your energy in one way or another. In this game, it’s by eating/drinking. When you start doing magic, you have to replenish your magic bar, too. Your mana, if you will.

When I was doing the mining, I could do maybe ten swings of my pickaxe (the basic one) before needing to replenish my energy. Each rock took three hits to crack, so you do the math. It was irritating, and I didn’t find it fun or engaging.

In my second playthrough, I had all the money, which meant I had all the food. So, yes, I still had to stop every ten chops, but I could keep going with several food items. And, I had what I needed to upgrade my tools more quickly.


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Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock); my actual official review

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Now that I’m done with Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock) and have had time to reflect, I want to give my actual official review of the game. I have had such highs and lows with it, and I don’t know quite what I think of it in the end. I mean, I think it’s a good game. I’m glad I played it, though I’m not pleased with myself for doing the grind to get that last achievement. That’s on me, though, not the game. It’s up to me to pace myself, but I am really bad at it.

I went into the game expecting it to be a couple dozen hours of cozy life/witchy life sim goodness. I would do a little farming; do a little witchy stuff; do a little dating, and then I would call it a day. I did not expect it to be so meaty, nor did I expect to be obsessed with it for almost exactly a month. Nor did I expect the depths it had–and I don’t just mean in the mines.

I want to make it very clear that I think this is a good game with such heart. I really appreciate the thought and effort the devs put into the game, and the fact that they took on the feedback of their community while tweaking the game. They added update after update, and  with the last one putting a metaphorical coda at the end of their story. I read a bit in the forums afterwards, and there were people wanting more. Of course there were because there always are. But many people said it was an apt ending, and it was something they mentioned in the very beginning of the game.

I am amazed at how much they did with the game; I truly am. I have to say that I hesitated to pay thirty bucks for it because that’s more than I normally pay for an indie game, but it was worth every penty. I would have paid fifty  for it after it was all said and done.

When I wrote several posts griping about the game, it was coming from a place of love. I just wanted them to do better–for them. Well, for me, but also for them.

I cannot fault the general vibes of the game. The devs were shooting for a certain aesthehics/atmosphere, and they nailed it. The visual art style is not my jam, but it works with this game. The music was pleasant enough, though none of it really caught my ear. Then again, I kept it on low because I like to watch something on my other monitor while gaming.

I really appreciate the diversity in the game. Gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, age, and religion. All of these had solid representation. Size was not as varied, sadly, but you can’t have everything. I ilked that there were people of all different races/ethnicities because that reflects the real world.

I have never lived in a small rural town, but I imagine it has a fish bowl feel to it. This game captures that feeling perfectly. Everything Tara (the main character, my character) does is under scrutiny, and she’s the topic of all discussion when she first moves to Fairhaven to live with her grandmother, Hazel. The latter’s health is failing, and she needs help with her farm. Tara was laid off from her job and broke up with her fiance(e), so she was looking to lick her wounds along with  helping out her grandmother.


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Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock); my official review, part six

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This is going to be my actual review of Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock). Yes, I know I’ve said it before and then meandered all over the place, but I mean it this time. Here is yesterday’s post on how I’m resentfully playing through the game again just to get the one relationship (and the one achievement) I didn’t get in my first playthrough.

I have to say that knowing all the story beats and what I need to do in which seasons in order to do thing s expediently is such a big help. So is having an infinite amount of money. At the very start of this playthrough, it was so painful to buy anything because I had no gold. I had forgotten how so very little you have at the beginning at the game because I was used to having millions of gold.When I discovered the fish finger trick*, I never thought about price again.

A certain older and eccentric character sells odds and ends in the forest on the daily. I’m used to just buying everything they have because it’s almost literally pennies. Not being able to buy, say, three coconuts for under a hundred gold was a shocker.

I started doing the fish finger trick as quickly as possible. At first, it was only two or three here and there. Then, it was ten at a time, Soon, it was a hundred. And then it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to the millions that I have in the bank now.

I love this option. Really. I’m sure there are people who decry it, but you can turn on ’embargo’ in the options so you can’t sell the fish fingers if you don’t want to. I think this is a great choice that the devs have given to the player.

Look. Cozy games can be such grinds. This is like a core component of many cozy games. And at least personally, it’s rarely something I look forward to doing. Even in my favorite games. Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games) was an emotional gem, but, boy, did the grind get to me. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I haven’t gone back to the game after 100%ing it (and the DLC). The idea of starting over from the beginning? Hell, no. It has no appeal for me at all. But I’ve done everything there is to do in the game, so there’s no point picking up from where I left off, either.

Once I’m done with Wylde Flowers, I will not be going back to it. In fact, there’s only one cozy game I played well past ‘beating’ it. That would be Cozy Grove (Spry Fox), and that was because it had different things (insects, flowers, trees, fish, etc.) in different seasons, and each season lasted two real-world months. And a day in the game was equal to a day in the real world.

In general though, I play FromSoft games as my “I need to chill” games. Not the first time through, obviously, but by the time I have hit my twelfth playthrough of Elden Ring, it was comfort gaming at its finest.


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