Recent reviews by SKELETON

This game is such an unbelievable steal for $12.99, even in its current state. It's a compelling immersive sim (read: for those of you who have no clue what that means, think System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex) with frankly fan-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-tastic level design and inspired visuals. This is a game that if you're even slightly on the fence about, you should be buying immediately. It's a certified banger on every metric - The music, the core combat, the voice-acting, even the story - In-between games like this and Cultic, budget retro-revival shooters are in the best place they've ever been, and I would genuinely consider Fallen Aces to be one of the best recent releases for the genre in a long, long time.

There's a lot I like about Hades II.

The art direction is on par or even surpasses the first one - Use of color is great, character designs are on point, and areas are compelling.

There's much more content even now than there was in the first Hades, and it's noticeable - You already feel like there's a ton to see and do, and that's huge. It's a tremendous achievement to release a game in the state that this game is in, and still call it early access.

However, I still can't recommend this game for a simple reason, and we'll break that down - The gameplay. It breaks my heart to say that the gameplay in Hades 2 is a clear downgrade from the first title.

Boons are worse - They've been made more unique, but far more niche; As an example, you might continuously strike foes with lightning bolts while possessing 10 or below Magick, or destroy foes projectiles and inflict burning damage on them while sprinting. Those sound okay on paper, but the problem with them is how the game's core mechanics disincentivize you from actually utilizing them.

Why sprint when in a majority of circumstances dashing is better? How are you supposed to utilize something that requires such a small amount of Magick when a common boon reward amongst all gods is Magick regen? Many abilities aren't evenly divisible to help you get to 10 or below, and one of the most common room clear rewards is a Magick capacity upgrade? This is just one of many examples - You'll often find yourself settling for an upgrade that just doesn't impact your run in any meaningful capacity because it doesn't fit your playstyle at all.

Another huge - absolutely gargantuan problem with the game is how just terrible the weapons feel and how poorly balanced they are. I haven't unlocked all of them that are available right now, but genuinely, the only one that felt even close to being on the same level as the weapons is the Axe - They all lack range and impact, and the Umbral Flames especially feel just terrible to use. The projectiles are molasses slow and deal negligible damage for how hard they are to use well - They genuinely and unironically feel bad enough that I questioned if they were tested before someone shipped this game, because they feel that terrible to use.

Finally, the most contentious and decried feature of the gameplay so far, Strife. Strife is a feature I literally can't even wrap my head around - Why put this in a game? Especially a game where healing is a relatively rare resource? For those that aren't familiar, Strife is a debuff that you receive when you progress through the game too quickly - at least, as I understand it. It forces you to take an additional 20% damage that grows with each encounter.

Part of the allure of the first Hades - at least for me - was that the game was legitimately difficult and had encounter and boss design that made clearing up to a certain area on your nth run a legitimate achievement. You could go to your friend and say, "I got to Hades on only my tenth try!", And that was a legitimately very impressive feat. The new subsystems and difficulty tweaks in play for Hades II make feats like this nearly impossible.

Level design & the strife mechanic itself basically ensure that some runs absolutely will dead-end no matter what you do as a player unless I'm just missing something - The sheer amount of damage and situations you'll be put in while not having enough damage with weapons that just don't feel up to the task is just something I'm not here for.

There's actually quite a bit of subtle "♥♥♥♥ you" that Hades 2 does to the player in terms of breaking established rules in an unfun way. Another good example is that one of the characters, Nemesis, follows you into your excursions, and while I was desperately low on health, she beat me to one of the shops and stole a healing item from Charon and then left, ensuring I was going to die during my run.

I wouldn't mind mechanics like these if they were at least made clear to me or it was explained that Hades 2 was going to be a far more spiteful experience than the first one; I like hard games, don't get me wrong, but I like hard games when they play fair. Establishing something like 'Go to shops to heal if you need it' and then cucking me out of a healing item to point and laugh in my face doesn't do anything but embitter me as a player - There's a certain level of distaste that's inescapable when the NPCs chide you for losing when the game is doing everything it can to ensure that you lose at times.

Maybe the devs will listen to some of this feedback and make adjustments, but in its current state the first game is definitely better.