Plot problems

[Aleksandreza]

Hello Supergiants!

I’ll say right away that I understand perfectly well that the game is now in early access and the main story has not yet been completed, but my fears from this are even more real.

The conversation will be difficult, but important.

First of all, there is no doubt that Hades 1 is a masterpiece. This happened not because of the combat system or variety, but because of the plot.

1. The presentation of the plot in games of the roguelite genre has become revolutionary
2. The story itself was great: the main conflict, the character arcs, the drama of the secondary characters - everything was at the highest level.

The plot of Hades 2 does not yet cause such enthusiasm.

Firstly, after the first part the effect of novelty inevitably disappears, but there is another problem - the scale of Hades 2.

Yes, yes, that very scale, which at first really seems like an advantage, but is it so?

According to my rough calculations, Hades 2 has about 1.5 times more characters with whom you can talk (including bosses, of course). And that's a lot, even too much. How many more will there be?!

The intimacy of Hades 1 made it possible to concentrate on a simple and understandable problem - at first we got to the surface, then we brought my mother back, then we reconciled the families and at the same time found a home. Side dramas told during the races enlivened and complemented the main plot.

In Hades 2, even the main conflict itself sounds too complicated: kill Kronos (but he is immortal, so we need to collect information about him and take away resources) in order to free his family? and also lift the siege of Olympus in order to... what? Did the Olympians help defeat Kronos completely? Melinoe herself, in one of her remarks, describes her mission in a long paragraph, and not in a phrase: I want to escape...

This, again, is due to the sheer number of characters. It becomes very difficult to fully reveal everyone, and even if this succeeds, the player simply cannot remember it, and in the absence of a full-fledged replica diary, the whole story is lost;

Secondly, the development of so many characters inevitably affects the quality of this development, and it’s not even about the quality of the writing of the lines, but about the ideas of the characters themselves, which are not as deep as in the first one. Well, is there really a character here on the level of Sisyphus?

Let me remind you that Sisyphus in Hades 1 is essentially an illustration to the philosophical work of Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus.” In a computer game!

Or a very witty, and most importantly, very authentic joke about the Orphic origin of Zagreus?!

Is there something similar in Hades 2? No. I hope not YET.

Instead of Achilles from the first part, we have Odysseus, but he does not have any story arc of his own. Odysseus, with little commentary, simply retells the plot of Homer's epic "Odyssey".

In the first part, Achilles, Meg, Orpheus, Nyx, even Dusa had internal conflict and their own arcs! All this filled the world with life. There are big problems with this here.

Can this be fixed? I don't know.

If you write out every Arc for a character, then there will be too many of them, but there is also a main plot. Even if the arches are created perfectly, not a single player will remember it.
If the Arcs are not written down, then we will be faced with a stream of “empty” (insignificant) information (or have already encountered it) in the dialogues.

So far, the plot is crumbling almost into separate phrases. Also How Kronos disintegrates into golden sand.

It seems to me that there is only one way out now.

If you describe the situation using an image, then you need to collect all the loose snow and make a strong snowman out of it.

[SkerdyFox]

We're still at the early release of the game so most of the contents are not yet fully presented. However, that may give them some ideas that might be added in the future.

[UNBREAKABLE]

Just like Hades 1 - most of the story is not going to be added until version 1.0. Kind of silly to compare the half implemented story to the finished story in Hades 1. Obviously all the characters will have their own plots, that's why there's still hearts missing we can't unlock yet. You can already sort of guess some of them too.

[vesuvean2]

Just my 2 cents; Odysseus have some protagonists of his journey present;

Charybd, Scylla, Circe, Polyphemus to name a few; so I guess when they thicken the plotlines it will be adressed (it would be weird that we don't adress Circe/Pilyphemus at least)

And it is quite evident that the plots between each characters are not totally finished in this build; (most gods cannot have a relationship superior at 4, there is any repercussion to max ay reltionship at this moment etc..) it is quite evident that it will be adressed at some time

[ShadowDark3]

Supergiant has a long history of telling incredible stories. Personally, I'm not worried in the slightest, and am expecting some interesting and exciting plot development once the full game launches.

[Aleksandreza]

Originally posted by ShadowDark3:

Supergiant has a long history of telling incredible stories. Personally, I'm not worried in the slightest, and am expecting some interesting and exciting plot development once the full game launches.

I hope you all are damn right!

[roach]

really makes you think

[Arrokoth]

I am less optimistic about the story issues being addressed in the final release, seeing how many characters already have like 16+ heart/salt/fish events fully voiced where very little of relevance or interest happens. The main problem I have with the story is that its foundation is rather dull. Kill the maniacally mustache-twirling bad guy. The story is less personal, less interesting, less gray, less human. And I am not sure how much the developers can mitigate these issues by adding content on top of what's already there.

For the mechanics of the game, I have high hopes. I think they will turn out great. For the story, unfortunately, I have not. But we will see, I guess.

[AquariaMoon]

Originally posted by Arrokoth:

I am less optimistic about the story issues being addressed in the final release, seeing how many characters already have like 16+ heart/salt/fish events fully voiced where very little of relevance or interest happens. The main problem I have with the story is that its foundation is rather dull. Kill the maniacally mustache-twirling bad guy. The story is less personal, less interesting, less gray, less human. And I am not sure how much the developers can mitigate these issues by adding content on top of what's already there.

For the mechanics of the game, I have high hopes. I think they will turn out great. For the story, unfortunately, I have not. But we will see, I guess.

I do get that concern, but Supergiant are pretty known for actually fully voicing placeholder lines so that isn't as big an indicator as it might be in other projects. You could still be right of course, but for example the (many different) voice lines when exiting the Chronos or Eris boss arenas are definitely not going to be in the final game.