Chronos is underwelming both as a villain and as a boss fight...SPOILER

[EdenNotFound]

I know i am supposed to hate him because what he did to Hades and the family but in the end what did he exactly do? Not much.
He trapped them in time. Hades is alive, Cerberus is alive, prolly Zagreus will be the third boss on the surfice so he's alive.
I wish we could see Chronos defeat Zagreus, Nyx and Hades at the same time. That would'have established him as competent and skilled but we got is a lame flashback in which everybody is frozen in time because of some kind of magic Chronos can't use against Melinoe. For what we know he could'have attacked while they were asleep, like a coward.
He started a war on the surface, just like Zeus and the other did many times before. I don't feel him as a threads. He's supposed to be this ominous pressence that studies all your moves carefully but in the end he's just a petty old dude that likes to watch young people working.
The way he finds the location of the Fates is Morbious level of writing:
Chronos lies to Chaos, an omniscient being. Maybe is because my first langauge is Italian and not english, but i am pretty sure omniscient means that Chaos knows everything that happened and will happen. He has to know that Chronos is lying. Let's pretend Chaos is not omniscient, why would he tell Chronos where the fates are? Does it take a genius to forsee what a Titan, known for eating his children and getting ripped by them, would use the fates for?
He's not charismatic, intimidating nor interesting.
Fighting Chronos as Melinoe has not the same pathos of Zagreus facing Hades.
In the first game, Zag vs Hades was more than a boss fight. It was father and son using action to communicate what they say and don't say to each other. Hades is a father that doesn't want to see his child hurt by the truth while Zagreus has to prove to his father that he's ready. This is special.
Why does Melinoe face Chronos? Because that's what she's been trained to do and because he has separeted her from people she didn't even met. On the other side, Chronos fights her in the same way he would fight any other foe. This is meh.

Let's talk about him as a boss.
In fase1: He can jump at you, swipe with the scythe or throw it. It's easy to understand when he dash but the timing for dodging it is werid. The only difference between the swipe and the throw is how much time it takes him to unleash the attack. It's all fine until he drops at 50% hp. His attacks are faster and more frequent, there is no way to predict him consistently. And the explotions from the scratches on the ground have weird hitboxes. He's immune to all CCs, the core of Melinoe's kit. WHY? Crowd Controls are the only thing that make Melinoe different from Zagreus, without them, she is just worse. She doesn't hit as hard, she doesn't move as fast nor does she have access to the same boons. Every hit is 30+hp of damage. It would be fine with more telegraphed and less frequent attacks. His healt pool just makes no sense. If your dps is too low, which can be quite al lot of times because the boon are very weak compared to the first game, this fight becomes just thedious.
In fase2: All the problem with fase one plus new ones. The arena now is a clock dial and Chronos can summons the hands of this clock, which are yellow. He can summon enemies that attack with a yellow aura that frozes Melinoe in time. He uses other aoe colored in yellow. His attacks with the scythe era yellow, he's yellow, the balls he summons are yellow. All of these things happen at the same time and the fight evolves from thedious to an epileptic seizure simulator.
The boss fights problem are easy to solve nerfing him or buffing Melinoe. But there is not much they can do with Chronos as a character unless they rewrite him.

[A Street Sweeper]

Messaggio originale di EdenNotFound:

Fighting Chronos as Melinoe has not the same pathos of Zagreus facing Hades.
In the first game, Zag vs Hades was more than a boss fight. It was father and son using action to communicate what they say and don't say to each other. Hades is a father that doesn't want to see his child hurt by the truth while Zagreus has to prove to his father that he's ready. This is special.
Why does Melinoe face Chronos? Because that's what she's been trained to do and because he has separeted her from people she didn't even met. On the other side, Chronos fights her in the same way he would fight any other foe. This is meh.

Totally agree with this and you've put it quite well. There is no emotional connection in the story and doubly so in the fight at the end. I dont care that it's some epic battle for the gods.

To compare it to Marvel for example it's just like the multiverse being at stake compared to a showdown between cap and iron man. One is clearly bigger stakes but its actually meaningless and difficult to care about.

[Kylestien]

Messaggio originale di jalpseon:

I do agree that there are some glaring issues I hope they elaborate on. Namely Melinoe being able to go head to head and best Chronos in one on one combat where Zagreus, Nyx, Hades and all the other Cathonic and Olympic Gods individually were unable to hold compare to Chronos in such a way; where it took Hades and 5 other Gods simultaneously to be able to overpower him.

They really need to do a more succinct job at explaining these plot points, the whole "she trained her whole life for this moment" is carrying a lot of water and seems far-fetched. Time and Creation are the fabric of reality embodiment and it shouldn't matter if you had millions of years worth of attrition of "training" - concepts like this are likely what we would consider boundless.

I fee like there's something I need to bring into this discussion, and that is The Fates. SPOILERS FOR LATER BTW:

In classical mythology, NOONE, and I mean NOONE is above the fates, save PERHAPS chaos itself. The gods themselves are at the Fates whim, and so are the Titans. They dictate the very flow of how things go. If the fates weave "Chronos will die by tripping over a log and accidentally stabbing himself with an axe", then Chronos will bloody well die by tripping over a log and and accidentally stabbing himself with an axe.

This is why in game, Chronos devotes time and effort into finding and capturing them. They can't write his defeat into reality if he stops them in time, or worse, forces them to write in his favor.

But... he also really can't force them to write in his favor, because you can't really kill ANY of the gods or beings above them. Best you can do is remove them from the playing field. And doing that works in THEIR favor too: sure, Chronos has no prophecy stopping him... but NEITHER DOES MELINOE.

Basicaly, all that about time being the very fabric of reality? Entirely unimportant. Fate dictactes the greek myth, and the fates aren't writing for either side, so it's anyone's game.

[goodbye_bonito]

She doesn't hit as hard

Bruh, bosses melt in seconds, literally being one shot, including Chronos. Mel is insanely overpowered in the current state of the game balance. Even "bad rng" at start can be recovered into oneshot machine, or at least into a decent dps

[Tricheur]

About who's gonna be the "boss" of Olympus biome, i would assume Supergiant will introduce some new gods and goddess, what about Athena and Dionysos at first (more for the boon than the boss), but there are plenty of good call i think, like Dolos, Leto/Latone, Lyssa, why not Momos ? There is an aspect of them, but no others mentions so it would be fun.

About all the things about the lore : like a lot of people say, holes in scenario are here due to EA but i like the POV of Kylestion, about the fact that "if Fates can't pronounce the deaht of Cronos, neither can they pronounce the death of Mel".

About the weaknesses : It's all about the playtime actually, like all souls games, all roguelikes, all games i think ... My first run going to him i was like "OH ♥♥♥♥, CRONOS, ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥", no i'm just grinding the Fear and take my time, soooo yes, sometimes, runs are doomed even for the best player in the world (and i'm not but i assure to you, as far as the EA is, some runs are actually doomed) but it's ok, let's just go to the next.

[Frenzy85]

1. Hades story was always about the character interactions, not overarching plot
2. If you want to be overly reductive, Hades's story back in EA was... absolutely nothing. Zag wants to find his mum. That's all we know, that's all we got. Your descriptions of its story did not exist when it was in EA.
3. Hades's strength was literally never established other than us knowing Hades from mythology as one of the strongest Greek gods.
4. Chronos is clearly seen confronting Hades while Hades is awake in a flashback.
5. Chronos clearly has a soft spot for Melinoe somehow. The same way Hades had an underlying reason not to prevent Zagreus from trying to get to the surface; Chronos did not stop Melinoe from doing whatever she's trying to achieve.
The story could go a lot of different ways from here. If you think the only path forward for Supergiant is to let Chronos be a one-dimensional nonsensical villain from the base they've built, you simply lack imagination.
6. On that note, Eris implies she's not on your side, but also not on Chronos's side. Yet why did she stop you from getting to Chronos early in the story?
7. You've just played Hades a lot more and know what works there, but clearly haven't warmed up to the idea that Melinoe plays differently. Check out Hades 2 speedruns and you will see that Melinoe can be strong; especially since one of the methods to maximize DPS is to keep low flatHP, yet they can still win.

Lastly, Supergiant clearly knows that since this is a sequel, a lot of people have a lot of experience with Hades mechanics. Given free reign, some of us may even beat Chronos on the first night.
Hence probably why they added the Eris debuff and she eventually just stops debuffing you.

Given you seem to like Hades, I think Supergiant has proven themselves enough with Hades 1 that you can give them the benefit of doubt.