After 200+ hours, Hades II still surprises me. Actually… it’s closer to 340 hours now, and that’s not even counting the time I spent on the early access build. No regrets.

The game is full of brilliant little design choices. One moment that hit me early on was during the Chronos fight. When I desperately paused to go pee, and he just screamed “Time cannot be STOPPED!” I swear I almost peed myself on the spot. And Scylla losing her mind if you mute the music? Perfect.

Even after dozens of runs, I kept finding new dialogue, new reactions, and even a completely new Scylla song I never expected to hear that late in the game.

Every character feels unique and oddly respectable. Even the “gross” ones like Eris, Narcissus, or Scylla. Not every weapon aspect feels dramatically different (I genuinely can’t feel much difference between Zorephet Melinoë and Charon aspects), but the mix of boons, weapon choices, and keepsakes keeps runs feeling fresh. The way the game encourages swapping keepsakes between regions is great. It keeps the flow dynamic.

My biggest frustration is with some prophets that depend entirely on RNG, like collecting every legendary or duo boon. Those don’t test skill. just perseverance and patience.

But everything else? Absolutely stunning. The world, the art, the soundtrack, the atmosphere. Crossroads, Olympus, and especially Scylla & The Sirens (with Charybdis!) are breathtaking. It’s a beautiful, surprising, endlessly enjoyable sequel.

P.S. I liked the early-access fishing more.

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No point beating around the bush, if you enjoyed the first Hades, then you have absolutely no reason to avoid playing its sequel, which improves on almost all aspects of the first aside from the story, but that's just a personal preference.

👍 The good parts:
+Fantastic combat mechanics
+Great music
+Excellent voice acting

👎The bad parts:
-The story did not hit me as much as the first(too safe)
-A bit grindy for completionists

I was in complete dark about the game's story since its announcement and early access, as I wanted to be surprised, and on some aspects it was nice to see some returning characters and whatnot. The main story is pretty cool at first glance, you have to defeat Chronos and someone else that I won't spoil, since it's mid-game, you have to meet a lot of new characters, and pretty much the same as the first, defeat the final bosses until you trigger the epilogue.

Bigger does not always mean better, and while a lot more characters and story beats are certainly a positive, in this case it felt like it dragged on for way too long, and sadly, much of the writing felt overused and kinda pointless at times. Melinoe is not a bad protagonist, however, Zagreus had 10 times more charm. The biggest issue is that it just did not do anything super risky with any of its characters. It was still a very family-friendly lore, and I wish it did something a bit more mature.

Story rating: 7.5/10

It's pretty much the same as the first, but with extra flavor and more ingredients. You make a run through its levels, upgrade your character with boons from Olympians, kill bosses, die, repeat. The difference now is that you have some extra stuff, such as pets or more weapons, or a more diverse system of upgrades for said weapons and your character.

The mirror was replaced with a card system, which you obviously have to acquire and upgrade. Each card improves your character significantly, maybe a bit more than in the first game, however, to compensate for more variety, they also increased the difficulty a bit. If you thought the runs from the first game were well-paced, well, Hades 2 makes it double. I won't spoil the fun, but be prepared to face more stuff than before, as well as learning a lot more boss patterns.

The weapons are the bread and butter of all your runs, so it was important that they were designed properly and were fun. There were a few duds that I just hated playing as, but I think they're about as fun as the first game.

Gameplay rating: 8.5/10

As I said, Melinoe's voice actress does a great job, however, her writing was less cool than Zagreus. The other characters are all great, everyone plays their part perfectly, and they pretty much carry most of the game's story. The music is fantastic, bigger and better than the first, hell, there's even a boss that is primarily focused on music.

The sound effects are all well-designed, and I had no issues whatsoever.

Audio rating: 8.5/10

Just like the first, it has the exact same art style, which fits and looks great, the difference now being a bit more variety than before, mostly due to the number of levels. Visual effects, character models, all well drawn.

Level design has improved, but I'll leave you to discover how exactly, and the game runs flawlessly, no hiccups, no bugs, no issues whatsoever.

Graphics, performance, and tech analysis score: 8.5/10

Just buy it.

Hades II takes the formula from Hades and masters it to make a perfect sequel!