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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 (Supergian Games): thoughts after the true true ending, part three

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I have one more post to write about the true true ending of Hades II (Supergiant Games), the epilogue, and the one side mission that infuriated me. Let’s start with the last one because I watched a video of how it went down before the patch, and it’s pretty much as I remember it from after the patch. I can’t find a video for after the patch, and my memory is shit. Either way, though, I am so unsatisfied with it. Before I go on, here is my post from yesterday.

*SPOILERS*

In a nutshell, Hypnos is asleep the entire game. He became one of my favorite NPCs by the end of the first game, even though he was so bumbling and inept. Maybe because he was so bumbling and inept? At any rate, it was really endearing how he greeted me every time I (as Zagreus) returned from a run, and I came to look forward to it. Yes, he was bumbling and inept, but he had such a sweet and earnest heart.

In this game, he’s sleeping through the entirety of it. People comment on it, and I do what I can to wake him. The first time I use an incantation to awaken him, I am so let down when it doesn’t work. The second time, I’m let down, impatient, and upset as well. The third time is when you acutally can awaken him, and it’s after the true ending because you need an item from a freed Hades.

Then, when I finally woke him up, he babbles a bit, tells me he loves me, and then runs back to House of Hades because he’s so late for his job. Even with the added context and a few scenes of him in the House of Hades, I still did not like it. At all.

It felt like a cruel joke on Hypnos, and a few people in the forums mentioned it as well. There was one theory that put the decision in a better light, but I’m not sure it’s true. The theory is that the real ending was going to involve putting Chronos in some kind of permanent dream/nightmare and keeping him there. It made sense in that Hypnos was the god of sleep and Melinoë was the goddess of nightmares. There is some dialogue in the base game about how the latter had learned from the former something about dreams. So the theory did make sense.

Fans went on to surmise that Supergiant freaked out when they read that people had figured out the ending and pivoted to the current true ending. I dunno. I don’t see Supergiant being that kind of company, really. I mean, if they were set on that as an ending, I think they would have kept it and just fiddled with it to bring some twists to it.

Some other people maintained that it was like Supergiant to make the whole mission one big joke. I don’t agree with that. I mean, I could see them making a lengthy joke, but not something that mean. They seem to have genuine fondness for their characters, and I don’t see them doing a beloved character from the first game that dirty. It feels too much like punching down. I mean, yes, he’s a god, but at least how he’s portrayed in this world, he’s pretty harmless and pitiable.

Someone in one of the forums said that Hypnos was their favorite character in the first game, and they wished he had not been brought back if Supergiant was going to do him dirty like that. I have to agree. I would feel better if there had been an actual reason for it ending up the way it did (like time ran out before they could do something meaningful with it).

Back to the true true ending. Jade King from The Gamer wrote an article about the true true ending of the game with which I really agreed. She was the one who wrote an article about using God Mode to enjoy the game better, and it’s what helped me flip that (literal) switch instead of walking away.

I am pleased that King brought up my main issues with the true ending pre-patch. The biggest one was how it took all agency away from Melinoë and made her a nonentity at the end of her game. HER game, not Zagreus’s. By making it so he made the crucial decison, it was such a slap in the face of me as a player of this game.

Another was how the ending came up out of the blue. By adding new scenes of dialogue and changing it so it was Melinoë’s suggestion to Zag (saving Chronos) rather than his decision on his own took the bad taste out of my mouth, mostly.

King even mentioned how she was ‘still bummed’ at the original ending and wondering whether this was the plan all along (the rushed patch) or if it was in response to fans’ outrage. I feel the same. I can’t separate the two, either. Meaning, I can’t deep-six the first true ending as if it never happened because it did happen, and it was so fucking shitty. The added flavor texts made it better, but I still remembered the betrayal I felt at the first true ending. I know that’s a strong word, and it’s not quite the right word, but it’s close.

King was more forgiving of the actual true ending itself, saying it was a way of breaking the dysfucnctional family cycle. I get her point, and maybe I would not be so bitter about it if it hadn’t been done so atrociously in the first place.

Other people say that it was never going to end with Chronos being permanently killed beacuse that was too obvious. It’s the steady beat of the drum throughout the game, so of course Supergiant had to pivot at the last moment. That’s the defense, though. Supergiant could not actually killoff Chronos because that was too expected!

They could have, though. I say that with no snark. Wh the hell could they not have done exactly what was on the tin? There was no need to throw a twist in at the end. And, yes, they made it better with the patch, but I would have preferred a different ending altogether.

Still. I can’t fault the game for it’s “just one more run” feel, some of the characters, and the smoothness of the gameplay itself. I don’t like the weapons as much in this game as I did in the last, though. I felt mosttly meh about this batch. I also felt the cost to unlock each aspect was too steep.

I’ll go over each aspect (no pun intended) of the game in the next post and give it an official score. Then I’ll be done with it for good. Maybe.

 

 

 

Hades II (Supergiant Games): thoughts after the true true ending, part two

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I’m back to talk more about Hades II (Supergiant Games), the true true ending, the epilogue, and the one side mission that infuriated me. All of these were things that I did again because of the change to the true ending, although I didn’t know if there would be a change to the latter two. I chose not to read the patch notes because I wanted to be surprised in getting the true true ending. The epilogue and the side mission were items on the Fated List of Minor Prophecies, and they became un-crossed off when I went back to

*SPOILERS*

just before beating Chronos for the frist time.

Side note: I always go back and forth as to whether I can talk about this boss without spoiler tagging. Yes, he is the last boss of the downward path, but “Death to Chronos” is the mantra of the game, and it’s not as if it’s ever a secret that’s the final goal.

Back to the true true ending. Here’s the post I wrote on it yesterday. Now that I’ve had a day to think about it further, I have more thoughts on it. I’m saying this with no snark: Supergiant did the best they could with what they had. What do I mean by that? There was no way they were going to change the ending, obviously. That would have been way too much work and a complete restructure of the after cerdits game. Given that they had to stay with the ending they wrote, this was the best possible way to get there. The true true ending, Imean.

Instead of the out of nowhere feeling that the original true ending gave me (and how dirty they did Melinoë), the path to the true true ending made sense. I could see every step on the way there, and even though I did not like the actual ending, the game got there locially.

The biggest improvement is that Melinoë was the driver of the action as she should have been in the first place. She was the one who made the decision to try to reason with Chronos before eradicating him rather than Zagreus, even though the latter was the one who had to do the actual actions.

It remained her game, rather than suddenly ceding control to her brother. I’m still not over that, by the way. How deeply sexist the original true ending was, I mean. It just goes to show how endemic and deep the patriarchy reigns and that sexism can come from the least-expected places.

I was saying to Ian that it’s hard for me to judge the true true ending because I had experienced the true ending unvarnished. And it was, as I have said repeatedly, hot garbage. I think if I had experienced the true true ending as the only true ending, I would have accepted it as making sense (as a way to end the main game while allowing for continuing on with endless runs) without actually liking it.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): thoughts after the true true ending

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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.


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