Hades 2

Game Title: Hades II
Released: September 25, 2025
Game Length: Too Long
Grade: B+ 

Regions

 

Two Choices: Supergiant Games took their original game and decided to build on top of it. The gameplay, characters, setting, and abilities were all fine-tuned and at the same time different than its predecessor. Instead of trying to escape the depths of the underworld, you are trying to reach it and restore that of which was taken. You travel through four regions that are somewhat similar to what was seen in Hades while defeating each of the bosses that stand in your way. Most of the Olympics return with a remix of abilities that benefit you on the way. Then the developers surprise you. After you make some progress, they introduce another route through five new regions with new boons, characters, environments, and enemies. Both ways feel different because some things are only found in one or the other. Going down may complete an achievement with an unlocked weapon aspect while going up and unveil new stories with the characters you met below. 

 

Chaos Trials: The Pitch-Black Stone in the Training Grounds will start offering you scenarios the moment you have the right weapon and keepsake. These include all four Nocturnal Arm aspects, including the final ones that are only unlockable after receiving a coded phrase from a well-liked individual. Regardless of what you may have equipped beforehand, each trial will set you up with a predestined weapon, sometimes pet, boons with set levels, keepsake, occasionally vows for difficulty, and vitality. You start and end the run in a single region after you defeat a guardian. You are awarded the precious star dust that should be first used exclusively to craft treats for your animal friends. Each time afterwards will provide you 50 bones. No materials are present in the wild during your run. You will be able to buy any daily gifts since each trial counts as a night, time will pass, and any progression earned on your keepsakes will still count afterwards. If you choose one with a weapon that is currently Gravest Thirst, you still get the appropriate gems. After a certain point, you will have a chance to run with a randomized setting for gems.

Pets 

Companion: When you first begin your adventure, you will spot three pets hanging around the Crossroads. While you can easily obtain the frog by your tent, the other four will require a little bit of progression. Each one will boost how often a certain resource will be found in the wild and automatically collect them without any sort of mini-game or animation. Frinos will collect Lost Shades without playing Simon Says and Toula will instantly gather fish without the need to watch a bobber. While nothing stops you from gaining items in combat, your pets will not act when enemies are nearby. 

Beast-loved Morsel: The primary source of obtaining these little pet snacks comes from the cauldron. One nectar and one star dust will provide you with three. Each pet has three abilities that can be upgraded three times. If you do the math, that means you practically need to pass every Chaos Trial successfully to get enough treats for all your pets. Unfortunately, you will need to do other activities beforehand since the cauldron needs 14 "time" to tick down before collecting. Cosmetics for each of the pets will not be available until you aren't able to feed them anymore.

Familiar Forms: After all of a pet's abilities are at the maximum, their treat button turns into a form button. They have four alternate appearances with the last one always being a dark nightmarish tone with red eyes. Their reagent costs vary according to their theme but on average requires 4,000 kudos to unlock the three other options.

Keepsakes

 

Expiration: As you begin each region, there will be an opportunity to equip a little trinket that can sometimes continue to be active even after you switch to another one. This opens a world of possibilities as you try to determine which ones would be worth having the entire time or only through the final region. Make sure you check which one you have on before starting a run. Each one has three tiers that can be upgraded after a number of encounters. This includes the ones that are preselected for Chaos Trials. A Demeter and Hera boon called Cherished Heirloom can temporarily increase all keepsakes by one tier for the night, causing keepsakes at the third tier to increase above what is possible to the fourth tier.

 

Effects: Synergy between upgrades vary depending on the keepsake, like how Luckier Tooth acts like a death defiance or Vow of Scars does not reduce the amount of healing with Ghost Onion. Unlike how timers start and stop only during combat, Metallic Droplet will continue to tick after an encounter when you are gathering materials. Blackened Fleece tallies the damage you receive the whole night and apply the bonus immediately after equipping the trinket. Chaos Transcendent Embryo continues to function if removed and can apply different buffs in the same run if you decide to undo the night early.

 

Fates Within: Three keepsakes are only obtained after you complete your primary objective and watch the credits. You cannot equip them if you have any of the 4 Arcana Cards that provide you Change of Fate rerolls. You cannot earn the cards if you have one already equipped. These keepsakes will be disabled for the night if you slot any Olympic keepsake, regardless if you already had them equipped. The Blessing from Jeweled Pom still functions and will apply for either final boss. Calling Card can rarify a single blessing from any boon-giver, not just Olympians, up to heroic standing (if possible). Time Piece can break down practically anything from Red Onions to 150 gold or Gift of the Moon to 550 gold. Chaos boons, upgraded boons from mini-bosses, and Daedalus Hammer all give 550 gold. It is possible to have all three still active in the final region. 

 

Decorations

 

Renewal Project: After awhile, your shade friend Dora will take it on herself to start adding decorations around the Crossroads. She will appear at the tent, by the cauldron, at the taverna, and the training grounds. As you unlock decorations, you will be able to advance the tiers to see more expensive options. There are five tiers with high-end decorations that can cost upwards to 3,000 kudos each. The descriptions can be a little misleading. An alternative decoration is supposed to replace something that already exists while an extra decoration is something that will be added to the current space. Extra decorations can replace other extra decorations. Alternative decorations can still replace rocks or other less interesting background objects. 

 

Options: You will be able to see a preview for most decorations. You will not be able to see what the environment will look like until you purchase it. Posters are only revealed on your wall after you buy them. Descriptions will help inform you where they will be placed. None of the decorations have any extra meaning or secret scenes that play, but you will occasionally get some added dialogue from characters like Dora or Nemesis who notice the changes. Quite a few decorations like rugs or pillars will highlight designated spots characters would normally stand around in the Crossroads.

 

Training Ground: Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the trophy stand that appears by your keepsakes. Once you build a trusted bond (full relationship) with a character, there will be a little statue you can purchase for 799 kudos each. In addition, charms and play toys can be crafted for your pets. You can replace the training dummies and extend some interesting features around your favorite skeleton. 

 

Ambience

 

Music Maker: Very similar to the first game, there is a place to buy songs that play in the background of the Crossroads. The costs range from 150 kudos to 2,400 with some requiring special reagents from the bosses. You cannot preview the song ahead of the purchase. Though, there is a small description that hints to what it might be. You can have the shade play any song each time you enter the Crossroads, change them at no cost, and have the shade randomly decide between all currently unlocked tracks. Anytime Artemis appears at the Crossroads, her singing will override the track. You personally can sing along with her (without starting the song over) from a few songs she knows.

 

Oath of the Unseen: Previously known as the Pact of Punishment, you can increase the difficulty of the game by building up "fear" that will unlock "testaments" (up to 48) that you can complete for "nightmare" currency that upgrades your Nocturnal Arms aspects. When you defeat a boss, the next one in line will become available until all bosses are defeated with each weapon. The amount of required fear increases specific to each weapon. In addition, you can complete objectives with high fear requirements to unlock the glory of The Night's Champion statues in the far corner of the room. The Vow of Rivals adds a new spin to bosses and requires you to complete each one in order before the next one becomes available. Thankfully, the Fated List of Minor Prophecies only requires you to "behold" the final rivaled bosses instead of beating them.

 

Spirit Mixer: Have you completed everything and still have more to give? There is what could be described as a badge of participation given to people who donate a large number of kudos and reagents to the dumpster of leftovers. There are a total of 50 ranks you can progress with absolutely no other benefit than to display something extra on your completion screen. They start at the high price of 1,000 kudos and only increase from there. 

 

Problems 

 

Currency: After all the development phases of the game, the biggest problem is trying to determine what to do with all the currency. There is no clear-cut explanation on whether you should save, spend, or recycle what you have into something new. Important reagents like nightmare or fabric cannot be accidentally exchanged for something else. You can accidentally buy more of something that can be recycled than you need to upgrade. However, Star Dust you get from Chaos Trials can be used to craft treats for your pet, moon dust for upgrading your Arcana cards, mixing three bottles of ambrosia, or eventually six bottles of sweet nectar. The "kudos" currency for decorations cannot be earned or bought outright but is bartered from the material you earn from the regions. Fish has no other purpose than exchanging for bones at the broker. The best thing you can buy with bones that can be used to earn kudos for decorations is Psyche. If your weapons initiates Gravest Thirst, gems you earn serve no other purpose than exchanging for kudos at the broker. An average run will net you enough bones to purchase your daily gifts and recycle enough kudos for one cosmetic.

Consistency: Characters are not always available. You'll find certain characters suddenly taking a break away from the Crossroads. Sometimes, two characters will be inaccessible one night if they are talking with each other. If Hecate and her minions are around the cauldron, you can choose to join in with their incantation or move to the Training Grounds and back to place her back into position to talk. Not all gifts will prompt a time out at a site. Some characters will hoard them or deny you time together. Watch what is said during a conversation as well since sometimes characters, including yourself, will be too upset for a gift exchange. Gifts that expend time will "hide" from the character sheet and interface if you already spent time with a character that night. There are rare occasions that you can offer gifts without seeing any sort of relationship progress. This may or may not offer additional dialogue like in the case of Hypnos. All of these things make it rather unpredictable to coordinate with other attributes that expend time such as the cauldron, crops, package deliveries, and Chaos Trial runs. Sometimes you need to progress a relationship by prompting a special visit somewhere before they will converse with you again.

 

Narrative: Generally, developers try to conform the game's mechanics to the story. Hades II seems to do the opposite. Even when you are conversing with the Olympics, the idea of traversing the same routes to defeat the same bosses shows how confusing the whole concept can be. The game also has a very unusual way of extending how many times you run through by limiting what is available from the beginning, not always telling you how to make progress, making things incredibly expensive, and offering a number of challenges for awards that aren't necessarily to complete the game. Perhaps the most notorious problem is how unrewarding the epilogue is after finally finding the Fates. I spent 11 nights defeating the first region, 6 nights trying to get into the second region, 12 nights increasing my Arcana, 6 nights to defeat the second final boss, and 28 nights doing Chaos Trials. It took another 40 nights while completing testaments, prophecies, unlocking decorations, upgrading keepsakes, maximizing relationships, and going on romantic encounters with people before somehow stumbling into an awkward situation with three gals who were completely safe, not very helpful, and didn't want to do anything more for anyone. You can revisit all your friends for additional dialogue about your experience.

 

Summary

 

Review: Although you can run through the game in about 30 hours, discovering all of what Hades II has to offer will take you at least 100 hours. Offering gifts to characters in order to learn of their plight and advance their story takes quite some time. Unlocking the various weapons, abilities, and decorations as you seek out completing achievements can extend way beyond what you see before the credits run. The amount of dialogue available goes beyond ridiculous as characters point out almost anything that might be different from the pet following you to the type of weapon in your arms. The game would have been less stressful if they cut back on some limitations or offered conveniences upfront. Instead, there is a lot of confusion on what needs to be done to make progress and some very unusual currency exchanges. Despite its problems, the added content and extended mechanics makes it a compelling game. I definitely recommend it.