Hades II feels like Purgatory
I've gladly purchased every game Supergiant has put out either on launch day or as close to it as I'm able. They make great games over there. One might say that Supergiant never misses.
Hades II threatens to disabuse me of that notion.
After completing both the main story and the epilogue, I stand by my constant refrain from in between the game's announcement and its 1.0 release: Hades II will probably be is a perfectly good game. It has all of the hallmarks of Supergiant that I love: great character writing, amazing art, smooth and snappy gameplay, micro-level narrative reactivity, a bangin' soundtrack. And yet, I am fundamentally disappointed... because they made Hades II.
Novelty and discovery are huge elements of what I personally enjoy in games (or, as some might put it, "generosity"). I like investigating, being surprised, seeing things I've never seen or familiar things packaged in new ways. Following Supergiant for so long has been rewarding because I've watched their specific stylings evolve and change between each game. I've come to know what they'll keep the same; what's fun is seeing how each game turns out differently despite and because of that. The past-tense narration from Bastion naturally becomes the present-tense reactions from the eponymous Transistor; Transistor's background exploration of a larger cast comes into the forefront with Pyre's slate of teams and players; Pyre's themes of pushing forward past adversity are molded into a repeatable roguelite format in Hades.
...Then Hades II is Hades, but more. Rather than exploring the concepts important to the studio's output in new and interesting ways, it simply repeats what we saw last time with safe and straightforward expansion and adjustment. There are still six weapons with four Aspects apiece. There's a Pact of Difficulty Sliders. Chain Lightning is still really good. But now instead of public domain characters from the Iliad, there are public domain characters from the Odyssey. There are two biome tracks; twice as many bosses! Instead of mad dads there are angry lesbians!
And so I play. The hallways look different, but they feel the same. The same boons, over and over and over. I've got to bike my 5am nectar route every day just like five years ago. Another thirty minutes gone because everyone wants to comment on my weapon choice rather than progressing their questlines. Push circle, hold circle, push X, hold X, push triangle, hold triangle, push square, hold square, mash square. Push R2 if I'm feeling fancy. Again. Again. One more run.
Indulge me for a moment: in my opinion, great run-based games are meditative. You get in the zone, focused without straining. Even when a run goes bad, the information smoothly flows through you and you learn something either about how to approach the game or about your own mental state. You can relax and glide along until you decide that you've had enough or perhaps your podcast is over and it's time to make a quick snack before you hit the word processor again.
Merely good run-based games are masturbatory. You're looking to find and maintain an edge. You need a good slate of combos and synergies (tags, one might say) that'll take you all the way to the end. When a run's taking too long or just not coming together, you kinda feel like you're wasting your time, but you're not going to stop, because what was the point of starting if you aren't at least trying to finish? So you start to stick to old standbys you know work most of the time, and even then you end up glancing at the clock in horror at how much time has actually passed while you drank deep of the dopamine.
Hades is a good game. Hades II is also a good game. If it wasn't, why would I have played it for so long? If I've done so many runs, clearly I must like the game. I must actively want to spend half and hour killing things so that I can maybe give Athena another bottle of ambrosia and fill up that affection bar. Clearly.
Perhaps, this is hell.
Of course, what was I expecting? It's called Hades II. It's more of the same. Perhaps I was a fool, a sinner, for wanting anything else. And I admit freely that in the moment, pushing buttons and rotating sticks? I have a good time. The loops feel good, sound good. The characters are attractive and well performed and I enjoy hearing them react to the fact that yes, I am still wearing Arachne's dress thanks to my Hephaestus boons, thank you for noticing. It's when I turn off the game and take a shower or whatever where I start to think. This is what Supergiant Games has been doing for five years? Making another run-based action roguelite that feels exactly the same as before, but with a worse ending?
I have to talk about the ending (SPOILERS AHEAD OBVIOUSLY I AM MAKING THIS A RUN ON SENTENCE SO YOUR BRAIN HAS TIME TO INTERNALIZE THAT SPOILERS ARE COMING AS YOU ARE READING THIS SENTENCE IN CASE YOUR BRAIN IS LIKE MINE AND WORKS SLIGHTLY FASTER THAN YOU WOULD PREFER IT TO). I don't think it's very good! The narrative as a whole falls into the trap of making the stakes too large which causes the final conclusion to feel incredibly anticlimactic and unearned!! A satisfying conclusion is creatively fettered by the roguelite format!!!
The whole thing about the original Hades is that it's interpreting the mythological framework as like, Teen Family Drama. It's okay that Zagreus violently dies over and over because he's a god and this is the Homeric equivalent of climbing down the tree from the second story window when he's supposed to be grounded. Meanwhile Hades II wants me to buy into 50 hours of "Death to Chronos", how his armies are besieging all of creation, how Melinoe's entire family was stolen from her and she must kill time to reclaim them.
So when Zagreus chats to Chronos once and convinces him to chill out? It's a real rug pull. Melinoe doesn't actually do anything and doesn't accomplish any of her goals but Zagreus struts in and saves the day. Every single run has been under the premise that diplomacy has failed long ago or was simply never an option to begin with. But it's Hades so we gotta have a big happy family ending, right? It's in the blood, after all.
Sequels are supposed to be bigger and have higher stakes and shit, but I think they should have kept it more personal if only so that we don't get such an anti-climax. I am not particularly a fan of the "alternate timelines" artifice for allowing the game to continue, either. It falls within expectations considering the subject matter with Chronos and all that, but also kind of feels like a have-your-cake-and-eat-it situation. The first game's ending broadly sidestepped that feeling via leveraging its lighter tone.
I've long held that something almost good falling short of its potential is more disappointing than something that's simply bad, because the gap is felt more keenly. I don't know if I quite feel that way about Hades II because I was never interested in it creatively to begin with. My criticism is something closer to, "If we did have to get this sequel, couldn't it have been more interesting?"
My feelings ring even stronger thanks to proximity with another major indie sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, which I praised extensively for building upon the fundamental appeal not only of the first Hollow Knight but of the series' creative inspirations. If one were to be reductive, Silksong is indeed "just" another dark fantasy search action game starring bugs like the first Hollow Knight. But actually playing it, the texture is completely different in a way that shows how Team Cherry has learned and grown.
Comparatively, Hades II merely maintains a holding pattern. It feels... insecure, I suppose.
Granted, I think we're all feeling a bit insecure these days. Hades came out during that very first round of COVID, and the current state of the world is arguably worse in many ways. From a certain point of view, I cannot deny that making another One of These was the clear choice, if only to confidently maintain financial stability. My fear is that now they are reliant upon it. Is Supergiant Games going to announce Hades III (or, perhaps even more cynically, a proverbial Ragnarok) in 2029? Are they even capable of anything else anymore?
We just don't know, and that's disheartening. I liked Hades well enough, but I loved the original settings and stylings of Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre. I was willing to indulge Hades as a one-off experiment and maintain a simmering excitement for the next time I'd see the Supergiant Games logo in a trailer. Now, that's so much harder, because making a sequel has paradoxically diminished the studio's possibility space in my mind. I don't know if they can make something as weird and singular as Pyre ever again and I won't find out for another three to five years.
For now, I must simply bide my time and hold out hope. Hope that Supergiant still has it, and Hades II - as Hades before it - is just the studio getting something out of their system. Hope that when I see them again, we'll all be ready to move on to something greater.
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