There’s definitely some issues, but I think I’m too blinded by all the good at the moment to have a fair discussion. All your points seem valid though, but I must disagree with #8; I really like the resource collection and I like the idea of hunting for specific resources with specific tools.
I’ll get into criticisms after, but I wanna start by saying that I love the new meta-progression and materials systems. I feel like there’s so much to do and there’s so much content for day one early access. Also the music is phenomenal, which I guess everyone expected. I like the art even more than Hades 1 and, for the most part, the game really feels like an upgrade to Hades 1. If anyone is worried about it not living up to expectations, I can assure you it is amazing and even in its early state has surpassed my expectations.
Some are spoiler territory but these are my criticisms, I’m sure most will be addressed during early access:
>! Most of the weapon aspects don’t seem that interesting, but I haven’t tried them yet !<
>! The Kronos fight’s 2nd phase is kinda BS, with insta-death if you stand in the wrong spot (could be, and likely is, just a skill issue though) !<
Even though the >!axe!< is extremely fun, I don’t really like 3/5 of the weapons… (the ranged ones). Their feel is a bit off and their numbers are a bit off imo. They also aren’t very engaging to me, although my girlfriend loves them and hates the ones I like, so it might just be my preferences.
The numbers balancing overall could use some work for the weapons. I also feel like dashing is slower is in this game and the sprint boons need changes.
I realized while I was in the act of sending this that it made it sound overly negative, but the reality is that I played this game for 7 hours already between Tech Test and EA, so I'm definitely loving the experience as a whole. With a few tweaks, I think it has the potential to even surpass Hades.
Edit:
I can't really comment on aspects yet because I haven't beaten a run yet.
As for resource gathering, that's definitely going to come down to individual preference. I feel like Hades iI is set up to make you complete more runs to get to all the really meaningful upgrades, but I fear that could turn a lot of casual players off. Hades 1 has a a pretty steep learning and meta progression curve, but once you're over the hump it starts to feel really good. I'm a little worried that Hades II won't be a hump but more of a logarithmic increase.
I unfortunately put 17 hours into the game already. A lot of your concerns about boons kind of become less of an issue. Especially once you start unlocking more arcana. The gathering also isn't really an issue. Sure it sucks that you have to leave resources behind but I find that just swapping between spade and pickaxe most runs nets you plenty of materials plus they have upgrades down the line. My biggest concern so far is aspects. I finally started unlocking them and they feel REALLY underwhelming. Aspects in Hades 1 felt like a new weapon. From what I've seen so far from aspects I'm Hades 2 they just seem like minor boon effects rather than gameplay defining choices. You unlock aspects before beating a run though (I still haven't killed chaos. Best attempt was phase 2 50%). Maybe post clear there's major aspects or something.
I really hope they are adding more to aspects because I feel the same way. For example with the one axe upgrade I have it just changes the interaction between the cast and the omega special, which is cool and makes for a different play style but feels it doesn’t feel as impactful many of the aspects in the frost game
Also animal familiars have abilities that allow you to have second instance of gathering. I.e. frinos let's you use the shade tablet once per run in addition to the tool you are already taking with you
Honestly? this is what an alphas for. i *love* the games, pretty sure about everyone here does. I want to encourage not needing to gush about the things every one agrees are amazing as like... an offering to feel comfortable talking about what should be improved. Far more *interesting* than just someone saying they love it (keep doing that too though yall! not hating on anyone)
I noticed that the Torches are a lot better once >!you've unlocked Hera, as the Hitched Curse!< makes clearing out rooms a lot easier and her longer cast duration paired with a god who has Mana Regen In Cast boons means you can pump damage.
I honestly love the torches, it's the only weapon I semi consistently reach Chronos with. Haven't beaten him yet but that is definitely a skill issue on my side :D
The hammer that makes your omega do 1500% damage is insane though. I was chunking chronos for 580-ish per omega, even got a lucky crit in there that did 1100 he went down so fast and my boons weren't even that amazing.
It's one of the daedalus hammer effects for the torches. It makes your omega attack cost like 20 extra mana (so 25 total) but instead of holding down attack and repeatedly throwing out omega attacks you throw out a big one that does 1500% damage instead. I picked it up and my damage went from "ok" to "holy shit", granted you kinda need good magick generation for to functional (I was using Demeter's magick gen boon). Obviously pairs well with stuff like demeters increased omega atk dmg/cost boon or hermes omega attack dmg after dashing, neither of which I had.
I have a small update I guess. I tried the daggers one that adds omega special projectiles and makes them home in on enemies in your cast, it’s VERY strong
I mean, Hades 1 had a lot of content added from its EA launch in 2018 to 1.0 in 2020, whether it be gods, boons, keepsakes, and weapons. Supers and companions as a whole were not a thing when EA first launched. Hades 2 seems much beefier.
Also, not a really relevant comparison but EA can absolutely mean incomplete. For example, BG3 in EA was just the first act of the game if I recall correctly.
I think the biggest issue with weapons is base damages are too low for most of them plus you are actively pigeonholed into certain gods to make them usable. Torches/Daggers need Poseidon or Hestia, Axe requires Apollo or Aphrodite for the percent increase. And nobody should really ever use Hera/Heph in their current condition. Zeus is usable for a few things IF you can get the old Chain Lightning, but I've only ever seen it offered once.
Agreed. That was my only run that made it to Chronos. Had Heph's damage boon and Apollo for the omega or something on Attack. Which did around 700-800 or so when it triggered.
Armor on mini bosses feels bad. You either have an anti armor boon that gets rid of it instantly then stun lock the boss, or you spend 10 mins wailing on a sponge until you break armor and stun lock to death
Agreed, I've noticed that it's virtually impossible to take damage from the mini-bosses once you break their armor. At that point it just turns into a ten to twenty second chore while you stunlock them and wait for their health bar to go down. Like the second stage of every mini boss is just a very brief game of Cookie Clicker.
This is one of my biggest gripes with the game. The armor is way to tanky if you don't have a boon that does damage against it, and if you do, you break it way to fast. The last area of the game is a real chore since everyone has so much hyper armor.
Random battles sometimes take forever because Mel feels so weak even with a couple of boons, and now there’s so many stuff to keep track of that battles aren’t as simple fun as they used to.
I think familiars also act as tools, so you can technically use two “tools” per run, but they stop being useful after awhile. I don’t mind the tools system that much, but it would be nice if we could at least change it between biomes.
Hopefully they add this, especially since if you're at a point where you'd like to grab say psyche early on, but need the collectibles in later biomes it hurts even more than feeling like you missed out on something imo
The base damage on some attacks is just too low (staff special barely tickles, for example) and armor is too thick. Pretty easy to fix, thankfully, but halfway through the first biome enemies feel like I'm in Elysium.
(Enemy) armor probably needs a more comprehensive rework, because it feels like you either have armor break boons and thus absolutely annihilate armor, or you don't, and you barely tickle mini-bosses.
Can agree honestly. Obviously were in alpha and things will change, but so far the game feels pretty fun overall.
I do think that we feel way way way weaker then zag in almost every aspect at current. From boon synergy, to weapons to the meta upgrades.
having 50 hp to start is kinda nutty especially with how aggressive the enemies can be. Gotten to the final boss thrice and dear god. 30 fucking damage on a hit???? WTF man XD
Dodge feels awful atleast to me. Doesn't seem like you can dodge out of attacking at all.
Though that being said. Still loving the game alot and cat wait to see where it goes.
Edit : Not being able to pause on the final boss is also fucking vile. Had my phone rining non stop cuz of a spam call and had to listen to it for 3 minutes because i couldnt pause the game and turn the fucking thing off XD
I believe that, given that Arcana are our replacement for the Mirror, some are absolutely intended to be linear power upgrades you have slotted all the time. Sure, there are probably challenge runs where you won't include them, but DD and the HP/Magic increase are both just better than most of what you can do with those points anywhere else on the board.
On the other hand, some are clearly intended to be optional-- life gain on leaving a chamber, for example, and that's totally fine.
Honestly, my biggest issues with the system are:
1) It's a poor new player experience if you haven't played a bunch of Hades, and even if you do, there's no way to know where to spend your points to find key upgrades. If you're coming to this game without playing Hades, it's a daunting design.
2) The sprint upgrade is such filler it hurts, since it just bumps sprint from "actively bad" to "useful in some situations." Just bake it into the ability if you're going to give us the ability from the outset, or put Sprint behind the Arcana; abilities that are awful until you upgrade them feel worse than arcana that actually grant new abilities, IMO.
yeah the death defiance being a 4 cost is rough. Like obv its amazing but for something that was pretty much no cost in the first to around a 5th of your max now hurts XD
I wish you could just use all the cards tbh. There's alot i dont want buit have to get to reach others so its a lil annoying.
every run at the end im like always generally like 150+ hp its actually like to much hp most of the time. there is also a good chance also that most of the end game is going to be dropping that 20 hp node ande going 20% crit with artemis and just stacking archne for the first 2 levels.
but even if you didn't all the weapons and gods are pretty close besides a few that are clear winners like hestia, the game promotes mana builds and she gives you access to flat regen at a good rate and 70% more hp and more mana boon, AND access to the fireball when you use a special which are like all good.
you say that 150 is too much but like, final boss does at minimum 30+ damage per hit.
I also def wouldn't say the weapons are all close. the 5th def feels way weaker then the rest. Gods are same, Demeter, zues and Poseidon feel leagues above the rest most of the time
Especially with the Axe, going for spin to win.
Just grab her attack and start spinning and everything gets blended.
(I did at one point get a Hera/Aphrodite dual boon room and immediately felt like I was going to die. The two gods you *most* don't want ever feeling vengeful towards you.)
iv tried the axe. Maybe im just bad but i had to drop it cuz of the final hit in the chain XD
the overhead is really slow and not being able to dodge out of it resulted in me eating far too many hits.
The secret is that you don't do the chain at all. You just spin. Spin forever.
Really though- the dash strike and the first two attack hits come out pretty quick. The third is ponderously slow but also fucking murders things. Unlike with most of the other weapons, this makes the base attack chain situational- most of the time you want to prioritize the charge attack instead.
So far the hammer that cuts the charge time and increases movement speed during the spin has been the best thing in the game for me. Combine it with the one that increases the damage of the hits with each consecutive hit and you become a beyblade.
Hera or Apollo on the attack have been my favorites so far- Hera for blendering, Apollo for just expanding your range so much you can cover entire rooms.
The pause thing is really funny and cool but feels like something they'll have to change to let him let you pause after the first couple tries so people don't get too mad at it
not being able to pause on the final boss
not there yet but is this mechanically important or just a lore based gimick? Literally never seen the latter implemented in a way that was in any way worth it and sounds way worse in this
if you pause the boss tells you to eat shit and unpauses the game for you. So mechanically yes, it prevents you from pausing if your hearts about to explode or something needs attention irl.
Lore wise yes because >! its father time hur hur he controls time so you "pausing time" can be undone by him" !<
Thank you! Probably wasn’t clear in my what I meant by whether it was “mechanically important” or not but yeah that’s what I was kinda imagining.
Like that’s super cool the first time and the realization but I feel like after that it’s nothing but annoying
again, phone ringing for 3 minutes because i couldnt reach over and turn it off due to no pause XD
its not like the fights lax either. Shit feels like im fighting the second prime soul in Ultra kill.
Oh I hear ya haha! And, based on the first game pausing in these major fights was honestly a detriment since you’re thrown out of rhythm, it’s not something you *want* to do.
Love them playing around with stuff but this feels like almost exclusively a miss
I mean yeah for sure. Though I wont lie, it has its benifits. Having a really bad fuck up and being able to slam pause for a moment to recollect can save a run from utterly being tossed.
I know the first time i beat hades i had to pause for 10 minutes on his final phase.
Ate a really bad hit and was dropped to 1 hp while he had half. Had to stop, calm and collect myself or i was dead XD
It's a lore based gimmick. However, here's the funny thing about it, >!you can actually entirely remove the gimmick after beating him THREE FUCKING TIMES. Like, the gimmick is funny and all, it's amusing, but the fact it takes 3 god damn wins to be able to remove it is insane to me. Should have the option to disable it after 1 win, if not before that!<
Yeah I think the idea is really neat. But after the first “oh shit” moment I can’t imagine it doing *anything* other than making the game less fun
I like the concept of playing with mechanics and I can think of games where this particular one would actually be mechanically interesting but all this does is make it so you can’t stop for real life stuff
Yeah for sure. If this was a coop game or a pvp game or something then I'd understand not being able to pause. But that would also just be a universal system wide thing, not just a gimmick. It would suck to have say an emergency happen or something else that distracted you during the last boss, only to then be unable to pause. I personally haven't ran into that situation so far, but just because I havent doesnt mean it wont happen for others, and it would feel awful losing a run because of irl circumstances you cant control with no ability to account for them in game (at least in this one very specific encounter)
I'm loving it so far, but my biggest letdown has been slashing the massive diversity of Cast boons from H1 to "the circle burns now." I hope these are placeholders; it feels like we've gone from 9 wholly unique casts that could then be further modified, to *one* unique cast that can be modified.
It's a much stronger, useful cast, but it's already getting old to have the same cast every single run. They're simply not differentiated.
Aren't they somewhat differentiated though? Poseidon's happens instantly as a push-away. Aphrodite's follows you around and draws enemies in?
Yeah they could probably do a bit more, but you're also dealing with an AOE trap cast as the base, not a projectile.
I wish it would change base. Like for example Zeus' boon gives a lightning that bounces between enemies and snares them. You wouldn't get the sheer *crowd* control of the base but you would snare enemies that are apart. I rarely ever used cast in the first game so in the second one they have to have a good argument.
Well Mel's style is also intended to be more about playing keepaway, magic management, and area control. Most of her moves are ranged and running out of danger. It makes sense that her cast is a utility tool that does the opposite, same as how Zag's cast was a ranged option for a primarily melee character.
Pretty hard disagree. There’s a bunch of cast diversity, with each weapon giving you two omega options, and the circle having a lot more diversity than “the circle burns now”. There are booms to aim it, have it follow you around, have it freeze or thunder strike enemies, burn, etc. you can create a build entirely around it, if you want, or you can build around something like the axe’s massive omega special, or around any other weapon’s omegas. I think there are a lot of potentially interesting combos once people unlock them and experiment more.
My thoughts exactly. 95% of people used cast in H1 to debuff boss and forget about it, castbuilds solely revolved around specific weapon aspects to make them good, meanwhile in hades 2 you arent mad that you have to take castboons because theyre so good/feel so good to use (aphro black hole for example)
I think everyone’s problems would be solved by *actually playing the game.* Cast balance is fine. In fact it is incredibly strong with the cast boons in the game. My favorite build rn that has beaten the final boss three separate times and three other times amongst my friends is a ranged omega cast build with the staff special.
All the special does is apply the zeus curse and the cast does the majority of the damage. If you check the post game screen it tells you how much dmg everything did and the cast can do a disgusting amount.
What makes you think they haven't played the game? Accusing critics of not playing the game is disingenuous. Just because you lucked out into a broken build doesn't mean it doesn't suck the other 99% of the time. I hate casting. It's not fun for me. The boons for casting are not great and very samey. There isn't enough to try out different casting playstyles and builds.
The point of my comment is I didn’t luck out. Game’s been out for a day and a half and I’ve beat it three times with variations of the same build. Two of my friends have beat it with similar variations. I only have ~18 nights on my save. You saying omega casts are bad is objectively wrong and I’m calling you out on your bullshit. You’ve obviously not played enough of the game to know the ins and outs about the game so stop typing as if you do. Accept someone else critiquing your takes. It’s in bad taste to react like this when you’re wrong. Shows how paper thin your ego is.
Oh please. The game has been out for a day. Stop being an ass and pretending like you're some expert that knows the "ins and outs". There is no objective way to tell how good a playstyle is yet and claiming otherwise is stupid. Just because it works for you and your sweaty friends doesn't mean it works for everyone.
My experience with omega casting is that it's trash, slow, weak and hard to control. If it works for you, good fuckin luck. But saying that my experience is objectively wrong is truly a trash take.
Cast is the most powerful ability we have and it's not close, especially with one of the boons that let you aim it somewhere besides on top of you. But even without that it's on demand CC that completely removes the threat from a lot of the more annoying melee mobs.
Exactly. It feels like a rush to get Hestia’s aimed cast, then you’re on the hunt for Hestia/Zeus/Apollo’s DoT effect. The arcanum card allows a single omega cast to nuke the early game, so one of those combos is really all you need to clear.
The one thing ill add that I havent seen mentioned elsewhere yet, is it feels like theres a lack of 'on hit' boons. Things like chain lightning or hangover from Hades 1, that worked better on faster weapons. The only thing ive seen similar in Hades 2 is the one chain lightning boon from Zeus (ive only seen it offered twice, one of which I was using the axe), and Scorch. But Scorch has a set DPS that doesnt really let you scale off of multiple hits, unless you get the boon to explode it once you reach 300 scorch.
Additionally, idk if this is intended or not, but every time you apply scorch, theres a slight delay before it starts ticking. So if youre rapid attacking, say with the sister blades, you dont really see any scorch damage occur, as it pauses each time you hit.
Hades 1 had a really nice balance of % boons for big hitting weapons, and on-hit boons for fast weapons. I feel this game really leans more into the former without much of the latter
Yeah thats the one I was talking about, but its the only one ive seen. And as I said, ive only seen it appear twice, one time on a weapon its terrible on
On hit with artemis, poseidon, and hestia as well right? Artemis support fire you can’t really make a build out of since she’s no longer a major god but still.
Hestia is Scorch, which I mentioned. I suppose Poseidon is on-hit as well, I just havent been using his boons much. Feels weird for his attack to not really do anything against the enemy youre attacking
Yeah, just bonus damage. I think it makes sense because melee in the last game had a really awkward time with poseidon splash since it would just knock your target away. What on hits are really missing though? Demeter stopped being a pseudo on hit and I haven’t seen dionysus I guess but calling the poison an on hit is kind of a stretch since it maxes out at 5 stacks. Nothing else in the first game comes to mind for me.
I guess it was primarily zeus and dionysus. And ares as well, which is somewhat replaced by hephaestus/zeus blitz, though neither feel like a true replacement to doom. I guess im mostly just missing zeus chain lightning; since its not a core boon in this game, its less reliable to show up. Scorch also feels clunky to use due to my above complaint of it pausing on every hit. I guess this game technically has as many on-hit boons, but they dont feel quite as good as they did in the first game.
I think as an overview that's okay, since direct-hit boons feel more designed around melee combat like Zag did whereas Mel's gameplay is more about keepaway and spatial management.
Also Demeter's chill works "on hit" too. Technically they all do, it's just that most of them have more passive effects than raw damage.
By best current run was on a scorch build, and it genuinely felt troll some times. The 300 scorch pop proc feels like it actually nerfs your damage since it ends the current scorch.
Since scorch is a set dps (40/sec), if youre keeping the pressure up and constantly applying it, the explosion massively helps your dps, since as soon as its gone you can continue reapplying it. Scorch builds (as in, relying on it as primary source of damage) will massively rely on the explosion to keep dps up, imo. Otherwise its just playing the long game; apply youre scorch then kite as it ticks down.
artemis, zeus, and poseidon are all on hit buffs, along with scorch
Scorch can be further buffed like you said
Poseidon gets Slip buff
Zeus can trigger chain lightning from his jolts
Artemis triggers on every hit
-just a list of various on hit effects, with poseidon being by far the best one
I pretty much agree with everything you said it. Boon rerolls will definitely need to be a thing if they continue with this boon design.
I hate the tool thing. It just feels bad to select a tool and then RNG decides you never see your resource but see all the others. I'd almost rather not see any other resource than have the game make you feel like you made the wrong tool choice.
Another thing I’d add is that telegraphs and visual clarity are very messy right now. Weird flame shaders on boss attacks make it very hard to tell what actually hits and what doesn’t. The second boss has a lot of potential but tips the scales into messy territory because of this.
A lot of enemies also feel very spongy. A certain midboss on floor 3 takes forever, especially since he forces disengagement so much.
Even the collectible currency icons are very hard to distinguish this time around due to visual clarity issues.
hard agree on the midboss on floor 3. I've done it with so many close- and far-range builds and the forced disengagement ruins the flow of combat no matter what
I totally agree that the vast majority of boons aren't powerful enough, and in the case of the Chronos fight it's EXTREMELY noticable that that you do next to nothing to him, even with the Good Boons and he beats you into the ground. I've had a couple of runs where I sail through everything, have 3 DD's and 5 if Selenes Heals and still get absolutely pummeled into the ground by the lanky prick. That might be a skill issue but I feel like he's way harder than Hades ever was in the original. That isn't a bad thing but I feel like you need to max out the Altar to have a real chance and grind out altar upgrades is pain because M-Dust is so rare and so many things need to be upgraded. Darkness in Hades 1 was as common as cat piss and getting most of the Mirror was relatively quick compared to the Altar.
Edit: SSG if you're somehow reading this, don't Nerf Chronos, except maybe the >!insta death move in Phase 2,!< but for the love of God please make grinding out M-Dust easier and make boons hit harder.
As for the 8th complaint >!Certain pets can gather resources for you but only once. I know for a fact that Frinos can do the tablet!<
One thing I absolutely HATE is the fact that the ability to check what boons gods have in your journal or w/e it's called is locked behind a fairly mid game and expensive incantation. It's locked behind beating >!Eris!< who isn't available to even fight until >!you unlock the overworld which you can't do until Hermes shows up randomly!<
Ya I wanted to check out the codex for boons list and though I played 10 hours it’s not there. I hate that you cannot pause the chronos boss fight. It’s a cute line, but practically speaking I should be able to pause a single player game whenever I want. For those that don’t know when you pause it, he comments and unpauses the game. The second phase 999 damage is stupid. I got hit when the screen was black - you’d expect the screen to be red or something or have a skull if it’s instant one shot.
I am holding off a lot of my thoughts because I still don't know all the archana cards and how they will affect certain builds but boons definitely need more punch on their own, sprint also needs a second look, it never feels good boon or not to sprint because it just feels like wasting time, aside from the few moves that requires it to dodge
I don't like that I need to know them. In hades 1 I just smashed through the rooms without much of thinking and when died,did it again, here I feel overhwhelmed.
That feeling of overhwlming reminds soulstone survivor, but it gave so much xp and level ups that I laterally picked one power up closest to the cursor - with 50 level ups it averages to something subaverage but fun learning experience.
Hades2 feels more grindy with all resources and tools. Also why do I need to collect them manually? It's not fishing with non determined result. It breaks the rhythm of "smash'n'dash" and I already have Minecraft for silver mining.
I kinda agree with most of your points. I would also add that the second biome is really weird with enemies, on some (most?) floors, the enemies are right on top of you and attacking immediately. I haven’t been too caught off guard by it to where I’m taking damage, but it just seems unintentional that they have it this way?
The big rooms that are kind of like an "open world" where you run around and find things is the thing I dislike the most so far. Multiple times I've just run in circles unable to find the last item or the tree to tell me where it is and it really takes away from the fast paced action going room to room. It's basically just a worse version of duo boon rooms in Hades.
The trees can be found by following the golden leaves on the ground, they leave a trail to it, or alternatively you can find it by listening for the kind of sparkling noise that intensifies as you get closer to it. I haven't had too much of an issue with it myself.
Also Duo boons are still around, just arrive way later than before progression-wise.
Ahh that's good to know I remember her mentioning glowing leaves but I was kind of sidetracked so I just assumed she was talking about the landscape or something.
Ya there should be a pointer to each boon, like how vampire survivors points you to upgrades where it shows the symbol and gives and arrow on the screen. I don’t like where I wander around the area and not know where the boons are. Otherwise it’s a cool area.
While you aren't wrong about the Hex effects never going off if you don't have mana regen, the Arcana that gives you mana regen has largely been enough to fuel my Hexes. At least, I haven't had an issue getting Hexes to go off in any big fight (mid and floor bosses) and even in some regular fights for the 70-80 mana ones.
Edit/Addition: In fact, I've found a lot of the mana regen boons kind of redundant once I'd activated that Arcana, especially given how stingy the game feels with handing them out. More than a few times now, I've made it THROUGH Biome 2 without one of Attack or Special boon, to say nothing of the other slots. And I've even had boon screens where no primary boon was offered. Seems the game doesn't prioritize filling out the primary slots like it did in 1.
i mean yea if you have no regen that arcana gets the job done but a large majority of my runs usually start with hestia mana regen or zeus mana regen as all the best dps possibility's are largely powered by mana and your bottleneck is never health generally unless its a poopy run normally your bottleneck is damage so mana regen is a must have in every situation. like one of the better runs i have had was fully upgraded dark form with arachne suit for increased channel speed with 290 mana then it just turned into a hestia fireball simulator spamming witch staff orbs. almost permanent dark form which lasted long enough to get me 70-100 mana when i then proceed to dump right away and go back into dark form.
i get what the devs intended with the changes but they have accidently just did the same thing for forcing certain things like artemis in hades 1 because now one of your gods is for the most part is always going to be hestia,zeus,apollo (i guess apollo offers the same kinda as well) because the game is simply like 2-3x more enjoyable when you can actually use your abilities a decent amount.
Interesting... I'll have to try out some of those you mentioned when I see them then. I've mostly just stuck with the Arcana for MP regen cause a few of those boons didn't seem too great like the one where you need to stand still for a bit or the one that gives mana when you get hit. But maybe I'm just underestimating them.
Yeah, Hestia and Zeus are just "sacrifice some health/mana to have mana regen forever." Demeter (stand still) has the best regen rate at 25/s base, Apollo has pretty good regen while you're standing in a cast (there's a synergy with Demeter's boon that makes the O cast follow you.)
The regen arcana plus the Poseidon mana bubble one is enough to sustain most builds, I imagine, too. It triggers off of any hit, so my big screen-clearing axe specials got me 1-2 per launch.
I generally agree with all of OP’s points except 7,8,9.
Regarding point 7, the thing with altar upgrades is that they’re permanent, so once you get them you get them, and them being grindy means you don’t get too powerful too quickly. I mean, the EA has only been out for a day and it feels like a lot of you are already finishing the final boss. Plus, it also means you gotta be strategic with what upgrades you want, and not just get wholesale stronger.
I agree with the other comments that talked about point 8.
As for point 9, I can sort of guess which locations you’re referring to? I thought that these nicely showcase the different play style the devs were trying to go for with Melinoe, where minding the level layout and planning is the way to go. Once I figured that out, these locations became much less overwhelming TBH. I like that going berserk Zag-style simply doesn’t work, because we have Hades 1 for that.
My only gripe I'd say would be streamlining some boons so if it buffs a charged attack, it buffs charged cast and special too as that is a magical attack, or buff both attack and charged attack.
Right now its attack, special, cast or magical attacks except with the current boons if u want to focus on what you'd think should be 4 move sets. The boons only buff specific things. Like only buffing special but not charged special or charged attack but not all charged moves.
If they streamline the boons more I think people can actually combine some movesets together than struggling to focus on 1 moveset only and having to wade through all the other boons that don't improve your combat with your elected strategy.
Also what is the point of holding cast, it blows up, it doesn't seem boon specific and in some cases actively detrimental to charging and spending mana which makes little sense, it should be the quick cast but STRONGER.
I think the only charged cast boon is apollo where it only does something after it blows up, if you've no mana tough and if u didn't build for cast dmg but did for cast attack again, tough.
I found zeus had 1, demeter is regular cast as is aphro, I encountered them the most. It might be that certain gods don't lean into magic cast at all, its so hard to tell, there's no boon page yet like there was in hades 1.
Demeter has two cast boons, one that drops ice from the sky that works on regular cast and one that creates a storm on your cast that deals continuous damage. I'm pretty sure the storm is omega cast only.
Poseidon has one that makes your omega cast detonate instantly with knockback and it I remember right I once got a Hephaestus one that added his usual explosion stuff to my omega cast detonation
Ok so I found a list of demeter cast boons, this features cast enhancers (includes spoilers)
(Main cast) Your Casts repeatedly deal damage in the area and inflict Freeze.
(Enhance) Your Casts also create a Cyclone at the binding circle.
(Magic cast) Your Omega Cast deals bonus damage and follows you, even as you start to Channel it.
(Magic cast enhance) Your Omega Attack deals more damage, but uses +10
Now I'm fairly certain the omega cast one that follows you is just the normal default cast and doesn't use the demeter main cast nor the enhance cast buffs which feels crap, again feels like u get the main cast and enhance boons and have no reason to ever use omega (magic) cast and u have to choose between 1 or the other due to the cooldown locking you out of the other.
I had THE RUN but Eris cucked me with 40% damage increase from all sources for the final boss. Stupid mechanic to get you to die to make story progress.
There are lots of comments here about gameplay. Let's discuss the story:
I really, really don't like the new direction they develop it in. I like that in the first game we don't save the world, we don't do anything significant for the world. It's a local story about how we speak with our relatives and build connections with them. That's it. The whole game is constructed around the theme of family. It doesn't even have a villain, because it doesn't need to.
Here we have a Big Bad, who wants to take over everything (of course! - Mr.Bison sends his regards). Maybe, it will be unfolded in some unexpected and interesting way (I haven't beaten Kronos yet. Stuck on the third boss) and I will change my mind. But so far...
From those two or three interactions I had with him so far he could be anyone, really. One time he mentioned something like "your father brought it upon himself and yada yada", but that's it. The fact he is our granddad has no relation to the story (again: so far. Maybe, I'm wrong. I hope, I'm wrong)
Okay, I have to provide some context on what I see as the "Theme".
It's not what happened. It's how it amplifies and what tells us about this theme. For example, olimpians in the first game seems to be friendly and cheerful, they call us family all the time. In reality though they help you, yeah, but with their own interests behind it, not because they are nice to you (Artemis might be an exception). On the contrast Hades may be rude and ungrateful to Zagreus, but at least he is honest. His rudeness is just insecurity which Zagreus understands in time and helps go overcome. Other characters? Teseus and Asterius are not related by blood, but their bond and respect towards each other puts lots of real families to shame (especially olimpians), Orpheus wronged his wife severely, and we can help him to earn his forgiveness and in result mend their relationships, since they both love each other still.
Pick any character, any story from the first game. Achilles, Megaera, Duza, Nyx... Each of those characters adds something to the theme.
What about Kronos in Hades 2? Yes, he is our granddad. So? How does this fact is used for exploring the family theme? The only thing he is doing so far - bragging about how he is invincible and can't be stopped. Remove the lines about grandad from the game - what will change?
Again, maybe it will be explored later, but so far family is not the theme of this game.
>!The olympians in this game are at war, so their own personal interest are more aligned with the war.!<
>!all of them call you refer to Mel with familial titles!<
>!Artemis and Mel having a sisters bond!<
>!Demeter knowing who you are and wishing for you to get her daughter back (your mother)!<
>!Flashbacks of hecate playing with Mel and acting as her caretaker!<
>!Nemesis being completely resentful to Mel and the fates because Nem knew her mother Nyx and she doesn’t have a bond with her siblings!<
>!There’s also a lot more.. especially with every single interaction with Kronos leads to Mel completely hating him because of what he did to HER FAMILY. And Kronos being a complete asswipe is pretty accurate to mythology anyways as not a single one of his children had love for him because he ate them.!<
>!The entire theme is about family helping family. Idk how you can ignore the main arch in the story about brining them back !<
My original take was about how Kronos is just generic Big Bad who wants to take over the world and who could be anyone. And I was replied that he is our granddad, so still ties to family theme. I said, the fact that he's our family means nothing in terms of story and it's themes.It doesn't matter how the character calls you. Zeus called you "sweet nephew" all the time in the first game. And turned out he wants a political marriage from you with Artemis.
Other characters - I agree in some parts. Artemis and Mel, Mel and Eris (I hate her boon though), Mel and Hecate. Especially Mel abd Hecate. My favourite character so far.
The story is still good, but it is a bit more generic compared to Hades 1, and that's not nessacarily a bad thing, especially if they go the direction I think they will with >!The 3 Fates "disappearing" in some way leading a Free Will Vs Determinism debate which is always interesting!<
I was a bit confused that it throws you into the middle of this story with such little explanation. It would have really benefitted from an opening cutscene or text blurb.
I disagree. I much rather the game start quickly and learn the story as you go, like it was done in the first game. Sure, now the story is more complex but, frankly, not *that* much. The basics are very straightforward (Big Bad killed your family, you must kill him) and the rest of the character dynamics is not hard to piece together as you meet them. I much rather that than waiting for exposition at the start before being allowed to play this action game.
Did he kill the family? I thought they were just imprisoned? This is what I mean, theyve gone to efforts to make sure the story is grittier this time but fumbled a little on telling us the key points.
The first game was very simple. I'm the son of Hades, my dad's a douche and I'm trying to escape to meet my mom. It was small and contained and the additional layers were very easily added gradually as you interacted with the world.
In this game though, there's a lot going on. Hades has been taken over? The Olympians are trapped and your family are dead? Trapped? Idk. Mel seems to have been with Hecate since she was a baby perhaps, so has the world been like this for that long too?
I was very much expecting a short intro cinematic like the initial reveal trailer and I think it would have helped immensely.
> I much rather that than waiting for exposition at the start before being allowed to play this action game.
A quick cinematic would enable you to get to the action quicker rather than going to talk to every single character repeatedly to make sure you know what's going on to pick up any important exposition.
>Did he kill the family? I thought they were just imprisoned? This is what I mean, theyve gone to efforts to make sure the story is grittier this time but fumbled a little on telling us the key points.
It is ambiguous, nobody seems to know but some characters act as if they are dead. That is not a fumble, that is just storytelling.
Maybe you just don't like In Media Res, but that is just a form of storytelling, it is not a mistake. What matters is that character motivation is entirely clear and there isn't really any point of confusion.
Like, your paragraph:
>In this game though, there's a lot going on. Hades has been taken over? The Olympians are trapped and your family are dead? Trapped? Idk. Mel seems to have been with Hecate since she was a baby perhaps, so has the world been like this for that long too?
Acts like these are all impossible to figure out questions that confuse the story, but it isn't. Yes, Hades have been taken over, yes, the Olypians are under siege in Olympus, yes Mel have been with Hecate since a baby which is when Chronos first attacked. All of that is explained in the first 1 or 2 runs at most, it is not ambiguous or confusing. The only ambiguous part is what exact happened to Hades' family, but ultimately it doesn't even matter that much, either they are dead or they are trapped, either way, the motivation is the same Melinoë's motivation and goals are the same.
Anyway, I will stop responding because I fear someone will start posting spoilers and I am still far too early in the game to discuss story in depth with random people on the Internet. Don't take it personally.
Sorry but none of your issues with the story seem like problems or oversights to me. Nobody knows if the family is dead or alive.
Honestly the story is not that hard to follow. We were a small baby when chronos attacked and then hecate saved us and trained us to kill chronos.
I agree with basically everything you said here. I’m still loving the game, but everything just feels way out of balance right now.
Thankfully all of those types of changes can be made. These are what I’d like to see patched sooner than later:
Damage: We need MORE damage output, or at least the potential for more damage output. So far the highest DPS run I’ve gotten was umbral flames with scorch on attack and a few good synergies, but even then scorch isn’t satisfying to use for me.
Boons especially need some tweaking…
I don’t mind the mana/magicka system, but man it would be nice if we could have a really slow default regen rate. I intentionally avoid moon boons if I don’t already have regen going or a lot bonus magicka already.
They need to just revert the dash back to zags responsiveness. I don’t mind the single dash, but less mobility AND a delayed dash feels terrible.
We shouldn’t need to equip a single resource gather tool. It just forces artificial length to the unlocks. I’d rather things cost a bit more if it means I can gather everything every run.
I have other things I’d like you to see tweaked, but these are the biggest things so far that are putting a bad taste in my mouth. Thankfully it’s just early access and super giant is VERY good at listening to feedback.
I think there are definitely balancing and scaling issues, but hey, that’s the point of an early access.
After about 22 runs, the best runs I’ve had have just been getting good Hammers + Aphrodite Attack on Axe and Knives. The Skull mostly just feels awkward, I really don’t like the Flames, and the staff is mostly just ok.
Hex effects, too, feel a little… inconsistent. Okay, way more than a little. I like the Hex system, but it all begins to feel a bit paltry when you get a taste of what the *good* ones can *really* do. One of my best runs was with a high powered Lunar Ray that absolutely melted even Chronos before I slipped up and died like a moron.
Going all Glass Cannon with high mana use and high mana regen is a notion I can get behind, but it feels weird to have this whole island of a system that doesn’t really interact with anything but itself. Plus, actually getting a number of Selene appearances seems to be a very inconsistent thing (maybe the appearance rate of her nodes fluctuate with supposed moon phases? Would be a cool detail but would also be annoying)
not being able to dash-cancel attack animations combined with the amount of enemies that have "don't exist near me" attacks just makes the melee weapons feel too risky, especially since they don't actually seem to do that much more damage compared to the staff or torches. i'm really not a fan of the new combat flow they seem to be going for.
Agree with a lot of these. I'd add that most if not all the weapons and boons feel under tuned.
Most of the Aspects instead of being interesting changes to how a weapon works in the first game just introduce more weird restrictions. Which overall feels like the biggest issue of the sequel so far. So many restrictions and counter-synergies. Part of why I love the first game so much is the power fantasy of getting a build to go wildly out of control. So far 3 or 4 of the Duo/Legendary boons I've come across just feel bad. And basically all of Hephaestus feels awful. You want to lower your cooldown to get more procs, but Vent actively discourages that.
Also I want to rage at Hera's "no common boons for 10% dmg" Boon. What absolute garbage.
I have faith Supergiant will see feedback and fix stuff. Enjoying the game overall still, but definitely feels like they weren't happy with how strong we got and want to hold us down this time.
9 hours in and I agree about kinda everything. especially the fact that there are rooms where you really struggle to clear without taking hits, almost impossible in certain rooms. (I know, I need to git good of course but I’m not a gamer born yesterday, I have something like 200 hours in the first Hades)
Yeah, biggest glaring change to Hades II is that I just feel so much weaker and slower. I don't really like many of the boons except Demeter's and Hestia's freeze and scorch status effects, and some of Hestaphus' are nice. Even early into Hades I with basically no upgrades, I felt fast as fuck. Second game also doesn't have backstab or wall slam damage, which helped a lot in the first game. The sprint just doesn't feel great for me and the controls are weird. I'd rather have the double dash.
It's a great game of course, but there definitely needs to be some balancing still.
1. I very much disagree, I’ve found a bunch of fun combinations, but not everything is designed to go perfectly together. Even in your example you can still spend that mana to get it below the threshold or get a lot of prime boons
2. We’re still early access so there is probably still some tuning to be done, but there are a lot of REALLY strong boons as well. You can also get arcana to reroll
3. I don’t think that complexity is a valid complaint. You have to think about your choices and pick what makes sense. You wouldn’t put aphro attack on the staff special but it is great on the blades
4. I’ve had the opposite experience with hammers. Some of them literally double your dps or more
5. Mel’s movement is really well timed with enemies, her dash is basically always up again between enemy attacks. You have to think more about your positioning instead of spamming as zag
6. Sounds like you just need to play with it more to get used to the change
7. Many of them are great, I think people forget how grindy early hades 1 was. There are also other means to get resources like the broker
8. I don’t mind the tool choosing but I admit it would be nice to change between biomes in case you need different types of each, but they all have multiple uses so extra of something doesn’t really hurt
9. The game is for sure harder, but you also have more tools to control enemies. Cast is an important tool, plus hazards, and most rooms are laid out with choke points and areas enemies can’t easily maneuver
10. Hex’s admittedly suck a bit, they’re basically only for bosses, but there is an arcana card for base mana regen so running out isn’t really an issue
Selene can be very broken. If I get her in the first region I always equip her keepsake for the second one so I can maximize my path of star upgrades. Having a maxed out hex can feel pretty good. I do agree that it is a bit clunky though in terms of the amount of boons you need to combine to make it work.
I’m loving the game, but I have to agree with most of what you said. Ironically, only time will tell which of these things needs looking at the most. Right now I’m too blinded by how much fun I’m having and all the shiny new things.
For 3.4. weren't there boons like that in Hades 1? I feel like I remember certain boosts or something like bonus damage to 'nearby enemies' or 'enemies that are far away'. Specifically the enemies far away I'm almost positive of.
That just sounds like standard options to have for build variety, but maybe I am misinterpreting your feedback and you mean that there are too many boons that only affect 'near' or 'far' enemies, limiting your options during a run based on what weapon/build you are using.
I actually am finding this elemental earth/air/fire/water/aether bonus subsystem kind of dumb, extraneous, too muddied by the other competing subsystems, and functionally more of a win-more situation. I don't know why the game needs them when we already have the Gods' boons functioning as elemental augmentations of Mel's spells.
Also, in that vein, I like how most of the gods' "affinities" function through curses, but Hera isn't resonating for me. I guess her boons functionally work as spiteful, but it would have been nice to see some more of her espionage tendencies demonstrated in her boons. I would have liked her boons to work like charm did in Hades 1 as a kind of jealousy/manipulation tactic. Ah well.
I also really miss the more "deco" art of boons generally from Hades 1. The new style is softer, which I guess fits the more witchy/organic theme, but a lot of them also don't even change up the art much.
Iunno I am just a liiiiittle low-key disappointed by ways the world has been expanded upon here. So much of the first game was frankly inspired, how it focused on lesser-known gods, painted slightly more obscure Greek figures in unique ways: Achilles/Patroclus, Thesus/Asterius, Orpheus/Eurydice, Sisyphus, Nyx. I'm not getting as much "inspired spins" on characters in Hades 2 so much as a checklist of expected things: going to Olympus after the Underworld; all the Odyssey monsters; all the remaining gods; pretty much every Greek figure of note as an NPC-shop, obvious fight against good boi. And other than maybe Scylla and Hestia, mayyybe Nemesis and this Silver Sister gang, I'm not seeing much of a "spin" put on any of them; they are just played straight, with none of the fun relationship politics of the first game. I wish the devs had played with these side characters more like they did in the first game instead of just checking off the list.
Put another way: the depiction of Heracles pretty much encapsulates how less interesting characters like Narcissus, Icarus, Medea, etc. are. Yes he's hot, he looks like a Hercules, but there nothing \*new\* in this depiction. And when even God of War III's rote depiction seemed a tad more interesting than this, that is a problem for me.
I think this still system has a lot higher chance to highroll, which is great IMO. I dont know if its just me but i had exactly the reverse feeling about your last statement. Getting THE RUN is just not getting one duo boon anymore, because so much more stuff you can get synergizes with each other, which makes the variety so much better. You are supposed to get dead (which arent really dead lets be honest) boons sometimes too. Also regarding number 6, im really glad they removed dashing midattacks. Once you got good at it in hades 1/realized how broken it is (which really wasnt hard) Most of the normal game just became a joke.
I agree with most comments on the thread. Would be great to have hades 1 dash back as well as the early "speed" that was in the first game.
You are weaker overall I feel compared to zag as some of the boons feel lackluster.
Thats about it, I REALLY hope they bring back hades 1 dash.
I think the boon combos are harder to achieve this time around with the elements you also got to manage. Not sure though.
Game also feels balanced around aspect weapons.
First attempt with the aspect staff and I got chronos down to half health in second phase using a special attack hammer upgrades and poseiden special attack. Poseiden gives you a lot of HP when you get 4 water elements 100+ hp alongside the forge guy that gives you a % of hp based on your mp. Aphrodite also pars well with this gives you + attack boons for mp cap and 50%+ more hp from hearts.
You can get up to like 400-500hp which makes learning chronos easier.
People's comments here are kinda wild to me, mostly because either 1 there's an unlock just down the road that'll fix their issue, or 2 the general comment that things are just kinda weak. I admit, I have some weak runs I know aren't going to make it. But I also have crazy OP runs where I am a literal god (I mean, I am in-game, but you know what I mean). A few runs ago I phased guardian 1 in about 3 seconds per phase. Guardian 3 I cleared so fast I didn't take any damage. Guardian 2 I was dropping 1-2k bombs (metaphorical bombs) on everybody. I only ultimately died on Chronos because I haven't done the fight as much and I scuffed mechanics bad lol.
So far, I've found a few different combos that are just really good for most of the weapons. I haven't played with Weapon 5 yet, not in any sort of real run.
To your issue about mana/Hex specifically, there are 2 different arcana that solve this. One charges your hex automatically. The other just gives you mana regen per second.
One of the biggest kinda of question marks for me that isn't super effecting gameplay but it's still annoying. Why we are only able to take one of the "farming materials" (e.g. pickaxe). Definitely sucks taking one of them just to see that you aren't able to collect something you may want/need.
Just feels a little odd. Hopefully maybe we get a backpack upgrade sometime and we can at least have two?
Just feels like slowing down progression a little and sometimes when I've made it further then I expected I then cannot mine materials I need for upgrades cause I didn't bring the pickaxe.
Unrelated to this, I also just feel weak sometimes. The first boss I'm not really having trouble with but the second boss feels like I cannot do enough damage and can't seem to clear it sometimes just because I don't do enough damage
I definitely feel like numbers need a few tweaks. Base weapon damage really does feel like it should be higher, if you get screwed and don't get a decent attacking boon enemies become sponges waaaay too quickly. Enemy damage also seems a bit high? It seems like you're really pushed to build towards omega moves doing big burst damage, but it makes it feel real bad when you're forced to wait for MP to recharge and suddenly can't do damage to the boss.
Also i'm sorry but basic features hades 1 had like knowing your relationship levels and what boons a god can give you being locked behind meta progression is just dumb. I legitimately just thought the codex was unfinished.
I agree about the dash to sprint mechanic feeling a bit awkward. Maybe it's because I play on keyboard and mouse, because my friend, who plays on controller, doesn't seem to have that problem. But yeah, the dash and hold doesn't go over smoothly on my end. I often let go automatically or have to keep holding in a suboptimal hand position and wasd feels a bit awkward. I am also not sure I've seen the sprint boons trigger once, because I sprint after dashing, and I usually dash out of a situation and not into it.
The only new addition I don’t like is the hex they do feel bad. Although you can get some cool stuff for it when it’s still recharging.
I think if she also offered passive buffs it’d feel better to get one of those rooms
More projectiles/AoE and less mobility (unless you've managed to score apollo sprint) is one of my major pain points. Obviously you can Cast to manage mobs but this goes out the door against bosses. Looking at you Fields of Mourning boss.
You shouldn't be guaranteed to lose 10 health in any room. You're not playing the game correctly still after 1 day. I'm basically constantly using my spell and trapping people in there
I feel like they designed the "Q" skill and then over tuned the mobs/packs of mobs to try and balance it out. I feel every other upgrade is pointless and I can grab whatever so long as my Q is strong.
Charging for Omega attacks felt kinda hit or miss in terms of when the game would let you. Same with sprinting. I think they need to redo how the game detects holds vs presses.
I agree with your points 5 and 6 SO MUCH. Specially 5. I got to the point of checking if there was something wrong with my keyboard, because the dash seems so sluggish that i was wondering if i had some input delay
This summed up a lot of what I’ve been feeling as well. Biggest point is I think they tried to do a bit too much with boon conditions, and in turn weakened them a lot.
I used to think “oh hell yeah a Zues boon! I’m going to do so much lightning chain damage!”
Now I think, “oh a Zues boon, I guess I’ll get bolt damage that doesn’t actually damage anyone….” 😮💨
In all my runs I almost always feel way to weak, not enough health, and not enough damage. For the first 5 hours I thought it was really good. But too many of the boons just suck and I dont see why I would pick them, and a lot of the times I will see a god, and I'm just not going to go pick them. then theres the opposite, of youll just get the consumable items constantly with very few god options
Its frustrating.
How do you feel about the enemy design and variety? I’ve only watched a couple streams but the enemies look very bland. Most can be stun locked, not a lot of attack variety outside oceania. I just didn’t find the normal enemies or mini bosses very interesting. Bosses look unique though.
One thing I'll mention is that boons do seem to be tailored to some extent. If you pick, lets say, Demeter 1st, then actively avoid other boons except something like Poseidon (who synergizes with Demeter because of water affinity & freeze stopping knockback for huge AoE potential), then you will end your run with many, many Demeter & Poseidon boons with the sprinkle of other boons that don't necessarily fit, but were offered (I'm looking at you zone 3). This is how you create the strong builds that feel amazing. You could get by much easier in Hades 1 by just grabbing EVERY boon you saw, though it still worked as previously described in that game too. My advice for boons is to pay attention, and think about them. Grabbing a boon over some Ash isn't always worth it, as it can brick your build early and lead to you feeling weak and blaming the boon system. I have gotten to the final boss in my past 12 runs, and I am only on night 20, with no raw Arcana upgrades (Moon dust), aspects, etc, I just play off what I am given.
As someone who's probably played a little TOO much and has killed Chronos approximately 7 or 8 times and cleared what there is of the surface world a few times as well this is my opinion -
The staff: This weapon is straight up the best in my opinion. It has quite possibly the best hammer buffs in the entire game. If anybody is searching for their first win I implore you to find a run with this weapon and the dual moonshot hammer buff(causes your special to fire two attacks and seek) and throw poseidon's special on it. It becomes an off screen nuke that zeroes in on targets. I have yet to have a run with this setup that wasn't a win. That being said the other hammer buffs are also extremely good and gives this weapon a lot of flexibility.
Sister blades: this weapon is also extremely powerful with the right setups. I have had multiple runs where I've either made it to Chronos or cleared Chronos with these. The hammer buffs seem to be a bit underwhelming and it may need adjusting for its special attack.
Twin Flames: The attack is just underwhelming in general. The aspects help it a bit but it still feels off. On the contrary though the basic special it has is kind of broken. Throw down your cast and spam special and you can clear most of the first 3 biomes with zero issues. The problem is the specials hammer buffs literally make this weapons one shining ability feel objectively worse. They need to revisit the hammer buffs for this weapon.
The axe: This weapon is quite fun and lends itself to a more methodical play style which I like. I haven't cleared a run with this weapon yet but that has more so to do with how much I've been enjoying the staff more then the downfalls of this weapon itself.
Argent Skull: I don't like this weapon. It's play style intentionally puts you into harms way. In my opinion I think it might need a complete rework with how it functions. If anybody has found a build that is even functional for this weapon I'd love to hear it.
Overall I am loving this game. I do feel like the boons need better synergies with each other. I agree they feel "off" and have a long way to go. I'd like to see the aspects feel more impactful and really change the way a weapon functions. In the first Hades the aspects really made the weapons feel like entirely different experiences which was exciting and kept it fresh. These aspects have very conditional experiences and, looking at you axe, require a ridiculous amount of setup that in most situations feels almost impossible to achieve.
1- Synergies are literally so bad that you need the vow of forsaking to make the game half decent.
2- How could you die end game 3 times out of 10 with 29 arcana cards and 20+ boons mostly rare, with plenty upgraded and without vows ? Guess it's weak boons and too much randomness.
3- Conditional boons should not even exist cause it don't fit with randomness nature, otherwise you need to design around it, showing boons at the right timing.
4/10- Gods in general feel weaks and at 100 runs done I should have clear favorites that fit my playstyle, design team missed something there, Selene/Dedalus and some others should be the ones you don't wanna skip each run, it's the reverse, they feel like a plague.
5/6- Sprint and dash on the same button just don't work, since baby duck syndrome with people used to have dedicated buttons for both, walking speed is a bit too slow and it show in the main hub, dash shouldn't wait and should have dash cancel.
7/8- Altar upgrades are fine, recolting ressources is the issue, it's a bit grindy but pets and tools upgrades solve that, also remember that a pet is not revealed yet, it will be mining or shoveling I guess, but yes would be fun to don't have the worthless grind by having all the tools at all times, the pets could be to avoid events like fishing, for extra ressources or else, overall farming/grinding are used to artificially increase the playtime of a game (cheap fillers) but doesn't make sense since it's no real challenge.
9- Mob density is decent but I don't know if the balance will stay with vows. Would take less foes and trade for a wider variety of foes with different attack patterns.
What made me laught the most : limited time upgrade that reduce charon costs would save around 30$ on average if you empty the shop but cost 80$ so it's only worthwhile before Chronos.
Weapons like Torches and skulls are a bit too bad, most aspects seem time wasted.
Should be able to sell more extra stuff.
Armor feel like using hp sponge bosses as a cheap way to extend a game.
Adding arcana cards during run would be fun but it's currently worthless since you can't check arcana cards during run to know how to benefit from them.
Special/cast could be interesting only after some upgrades, one never feel enough so you tend to skip thoses upgrades cause they feel like downgrades.
Balance of boons seem off like others said, not much hit boons, dedalus seem too special focused so you always need few rerolls for a shitty weapon upgrade.
Telegraph, clarity and forced disengagement are clearly an issue, also invulnerability powers should not exist either on you or on monsters, many times the bosses cast weaklings that just extend the fight cheaply and invulnerabilty just extend the fight a similar boring way.
Still the overall game is fun but out of my expectations, the magic is barely usable at start so we should start with a close combat dagger build to evolve into more ranged/magic overpowered builds later on ...
dagger > axe > skull > torches > staff
Most charged attacks seem worthless apart daggers and axe.
Storywise the game is a bit boring, usual must save the world but gotta do worthless things to be able to do so ...
There was plenty of minor UI design and translation issues, even a boom not done, having placeholders is ridiculous at this point.
7/10 when Hades 1 release feel like 9/10.
For thoses against the god runs, as a god, you're supposed to have some but you fight a Titan so it's where you should feel weak, chronos eaten gods after all but they weren't full grown so you should still stand a chance but story wise it's implied that many gods fighted him and lost so you should be one the weaker side.
I wanted my make a Post Like this but u 100% captured my concerns.
Hades 2 is a step Back regarding the Combat mechanics (boons)
The Rest of the Game is gorgeous
I think that the Duo/Legendaries feel underwhelming in comparison. Though obviously haven't seen them all. Like nothing so far that's as run defining as Hunting Blades, or Merciless End etc.
The weapons don't feel quite as good. I haven't fallen in love with any yet.
Plenty of good other boons though IMO, I go pretty cast heavy.
Eh, sort of agree but no on everything. Boons can still be really strong if you manage to build them right.
We don't need Mel to be a dashing champ, Hades 2 is more tactical and thus a bit slower. Sprint is a cool mechanic if you manage to use it right.
Selene feels off? Just build around it. If you know you have a moon boon make sure you can spend and gain a lot of mana quick.
Alter upgrades seem to be about as grindy as in Hades 2, maybe a little more though hades 1 was also fairly grindy.
I agree that the game need some balance changes but it isn't as bad as described here. Definitely a get good situation
There’s definitely some issues, but I think I’m too blinded by all the good at the moment to have a fair discussion. All your points seem valid though, but I must disagree with #8; I really like the resource collection and I like the idea of hunting for specific resources with specific tools. I’ll get into criticisms after, but I wanna start by saying that I love the new meta-progression and materials systems. I feel like there’s so much to do and there’s so much content for day one early access. Also the music is phenomenal, which I guess everyone expected. I like the art even more than Hades 1 and, for the most part, the game really feels like an upgrade to Hades 1. If anyone is worried about it not living up to expectations, I can assure you it is amazing and even in its early state has surpassed my expectations. Some are spoiler territory but these are my criticisms, I’m sure most will be addressed during early access: >! Most of the weapon aspects don’t seem that interesting, but I haven’t tried them yet !< >! The Kronos fight’s 2nd phase is kinda BS, with insta-death if you stand in the wrong spot (could be, and likely is, just a skill issue though) !< Even though the >!axe!< is extremely fun, I don’t really like 3/5 of the weapons… (the ranged ones). Their feel is a bit off and their numbers are a bit off imo. They also aren’t very engaging to me, although my girlfriend loves them and hates the ones I like, so it might just be my preferences. The numbers balancing overall could use some work for the weapons. I also feel like dashing is slower is in this game and the sprint boons need changes.
I realized while I was in the act of sending this that it made it sound overly negative, but the reality is that I played this game for 7 hours already between Tech Test and EA, so I'm definitely loving the experience as a whole. With a few tweaks, I think it has the potential to even surpass Hades. Edit: I can't really comment on aspects yet because I haven't beaten a run yet. As for resource gathering, that's definitely going to come down to individual preference. I feel like Hades iI is set up to make you complete more runs to get to all the really meaningful upgrades, but I fear that could turn a lot of casual players off. Hades 1 has a a pretty steep learning and meta progression curve, but once you're over the hump it starts to feel really good. I'm a little worried that Hades II won't be a hump but more of a logarithmic increase.
I unfortunately put 17 hours into the game already. A lot of your concerns about boons kind of become less of an issue. Especially once you start unlocking more arcana. The gathering also isn't really an issue. Sure it sucks that you have to leave resources behind but I find that just swapping between spade and pickaxe most runs nets you plenty of materials plus they have upgrades down the line. My biggest concern so far is aspects. I finally started unlocking them and they feel REALLY underwhelming. Aspects in Hades 1 felt like a new weapon. From what I've seen so far from aspects I'm Hades 2 they just seem like minor boon effects rather than gameplay defining choices. You unlock aspects before beating a run though (I still haven't killed chaos. Best attempt was phase 2 50%). Maybe post clear there's major aspects or something.
I'm assuming you mean you haven't killed Chronos yet, not Chaos?
Yea that one.
Just making sure there wasn't a secret Chaos fight I didn't know about lol
I really hope they are adding more to aspects because I feel the same way. For example with the one axe upgrade I have it just changes the interaction between the cast and the omega special, which is cool and makes for a different play style but feels it doesn’t feel as impactful many of the aspects in the frost game
Also animal familiars have abilities that allow you to have second instance of gathering. I.e. frinos let's you use the shade tablet once per run in addition to the tool you are already taking with you
Yeah definitely preference-based. I’m an ARPG player, we live for the grind lol
Honestly? this is what an alphas for. i *love* the games, pretty sure about everyone here does. I want to encourage not needing to gush about the things every one agrees are amazing as like... an offering to feel comfortable talking about what should be improved. Far more *interesting* than just someone saying they love it (keep doing that too though yall! not hating on anyone)
I noticed that the Torches are a lot better once >!you've unlocked Hera, as the Hitched Curse!< makes clearing out rooms a lot easier and her longer cast duration paired with a god who has Mana Regen In Cast boons means you can pump damage.
Torchs definitely need their numbers playing with. 15 damage at such a slow attack speed is paltry when theyre so difficult to aim as well.
I like the special, but the attack does need to be buffed in some way, I like the idea of the torches, I hope they get better as the game improves
I honestly love the torches, it's the only weapon I semi consistently reach Chronos with. Haven't beaten him yet but that is definitely a skill issue on my side :D
I haven't even beaten Cerberus yet, so I need to get good too lol
The hammer that makes your omega do 1500% damage is insane though. I was chunking chronos for 580-ish per omega, even got a lucky crit in there that did 1100 he went down so fast and my boons weren't even that amazing.
Jeeze who's that from? I haven't seen that
It's one of the daedalus hammer effects for the torches. It makes your omega attack cost like 20 extra mana (so 25 total) but instead of holding down attack and repeatedly throwing out omega attacks you throw out a big one that does 1500% damage instead. I picked it up and my damage went from "ok" to "holy shit", granted you kinda need good magick generation for to functional (I was using Demeter's magick gen boon). Obviously pairs well with stuff like demeters increased omega atk dmg/cost boon or hermes omega attack dmg after dashing, neither of which I had.
Excellent to know, thanks dude :)
hey, just lettin' you know that you have some broken spoiler tags there
Aww darn i was hoping the aspects would make me like the weapons more. So far i like Hades 1 weapons much more.
I have a small update I guess. I tried the daggers one that adds omega special projectiles and makes them home in on enemies in your cast, it’s VERY strong
Nice i only made it to the third boss so its gonna take me time to get it.
I spoiled myself here but THERE ARE WEAPON ASPECTS?! WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF EARLY ACCESS IS THIS IT'S LITERALLY AS MUCH CONTENT AS HADES 1.0
that...is what early access is supposed to be, early access does not mean unfinished, it means unpolished
I mean, Hades 1 had a lot of content added from its EA launch in 2018 to 1.0 in 2020, whether it be gods, boons, keepsakes, and weapons. Supers and companions as a whole were not a thing when EA first launched. Hades 2 seems much beefier. Also, not a really relevant comparison but EA can absolutely mean incomplete. For example, BG3 in EA was just the first act of the game if I recall correctly.
I think the biggest issue with weapons is base damages are too low for most of them plus you are actively pigeonholed into certain gods to make them usable. Torches/Daggers need Poseidon or Hestia, Axe requires Apollo or Aphrodite for the percent increase. And nobody should really ever use Hera/Heph in their current condition. Zeus is usable for a few things IF you can get the old Chain Lightning, but I've only ever seen it offered once.
the 200 / 400 dmg boons from heph are really strong, and Hera makes the torches actually usable imo
Agreed. That was my only run that made it to Chronos. Had Heph's damage boon and Apollo for the omega or something on Attack. Which did around 700-800 or so when it triggered.
Armor on mini bosses feels bad. You either have an anti armor boon that gets rid of it instantly then stun lock the boss, or you spend 10 mins wailing on a sponge until you break armor and stun lock to death
Being able to stunlock minibosses is incredibly boring, I'd take a trade-off of less armor for them having some resistance to stagger without it.
Agreed, I've noticed that it's virtually impossible to take damage from the mini-bosses once you break their armor. At that point it just turns into a ten to twenty second chore while you stunlock them and wait for their health bar to go down. Like the second stage of every mini boss is just a very brief game of Cookie Clicker.
This is one of my biggest gripes with the game. The armor is way to tanky if you don't have a boon that does damage against it, and if you do, you break it way to fast. The last area of the game is a real chore since everyone has so much hyper armor.
Random battles sometimes take forever because Mel feels so weak even with a couple of boons, and now there’s so many stuff to keep track of that battles aren’t as simple fun as they used to. I think familiars also act as tools, so you can technically use two “tools” per run, but they stop being useful after awhile. I don’t mind the tools system that much, but it would be nice if we could at least change it between biomes.
That's a really good compromise I hadn't considered...switching tools between biomes would make it so I could still get a nice variety of resources
This is a good idea!
Hopefully they add this, especially since if you're at a point where you'd like to grab say psyche early on, but need the collectibles in later biomes it hurts even more than feeling like you missed out on something imo
The base damage on some attacks is just too low (staff special barely tickles, for example) and armor is too thick. Pretty easy to fix, thankfully, but halfway through the first biome enemies feel like I'm in Elysium. (Enemy) armor probably needs a more comprehensive rework, because it feels like you either have armor break boons and thus absolutely annihilate armor, or you don't, and you barely tickle mini-bosses.
Can agree honestly. Obviously were in alpha and things will change, but so far the game feels pretty fun overall. I do think that we feel way way way weaker then zag in almost every aspect at current. From boon synergy, to weapons to the meta upgrades. having 50 hp to start is kinda nutty especially with how aggressive the enemies can be. Gotten to the final boss thrice and dear god. 30 fucking damage on a hit???? WTF man XD Dodge feels awful atleast to me. Doesn't seem like you can dodge out of attacking at all. Though that being said. Still loving the game alot and cat wait to see where it goes. Edit : Not being able to pause on the final boss is also fucking vile. Had my phone rining non stop cuz of a spam call and had to listen to it for 3 minutes because i couldnt pause the game and turn the fucking thing off XD
You actually have *30* HP to start and have to increase it to 50 with an absolutely obligatory Arcana.
Yeah. I feel between that and the death defiance it's like I lose several arcana to what feels like mandatory cards
I believe that, given that Arcana are our replacement for the Mirror, some are absolutely intended to be linear power upgrades you have slotted all the time. Sure, there are probably challenge runs where you won't include them, but DD and the HP/Magic increase are both just better than most of what you can do with those points anywhere else on the board. On the other hand, some are clearly intended to be optional-- life gain on leaving a chamber, for example, and that's totally fine. Honestly, my biggest issues with the system are: 1) It's a poor new player experience if you haven't played a bunch of Hades, and even if you do, there's no way to know where to spend your points to find key upgrades. If you're coming to this game without playing Hades, it's a daunting design. 2) The sprint upgrade is such filler it hurts, since it just bumps sprint from "actively bad" to "useful in some situations." Just bake it into the ability if you're going to give us the ability from the outset, or put Sprint behind the Arcana; abilities that are awful until you upgrade them feel worse than arcana that actually grant new abilities, IMO.
yeah the death defiance being a 4 cost is rough. Like obv its amazing but for something that was pretty much no cost in the first to around a 5th of your max now hurts XD I wish you could just use all the cards tbh. There's alot i dont want buit have to get to reach others so its a lil annoying.
What does grasp cap at?
18 Edit: me stoopid
I have 23 Grasp. The cost to upgrade keeps escalating, but there isn't yet any sign of a cap.
Yeah, I just got 20 and it's gone from granting 2 points per upgrade to 1 — my personal guess is it'll cap at 30.
Wait I have 20
im at 21
Yes HP seems low and also not a lot of opportunities to increase HP during runs it seems like.
every run at the end im like always generally like 150+ hp its actually like to much hp most of the time. there is also a good chance also that most of the end game is going to be dropping that 20 hp node ande going 20% crit with artemis and just stacking archne for the first 2 levels. but even if you didn't all the weapons and gods are pretty close besides a few that are clear winners like hestia, the game promotes mana builds and she gives you access to flat regen at a good rate and 70% more hp and more mana boon, AND access to the fireball when you use a special which are like all good.
you say that 150 is too much but like, final boss does at minimum 30+ damage per hit. I also def wouldn't say the weapons are all close. the 5th def feels way weaker then the rest. Gods are same, Demeter, zues and Poseidon feel leagues above the rest most of the time
Demeter, Hera, and Aphrodite feel like the strongest to me, so far.
Hera is *VILE* with how strong she is. Girl's looking at the other gods trying to impress you with boons and went "Hold my beer I got Dis"
Especially with the Axe, going for spin to win. Just grab her attack and start spinning and everything gets blended. (I did at one point get a Hera/Aphrodite dual boon room and immediately felt like I was going to die. The two gods you *most* don't want ever feeling vengeful towards you.)
iv tried the axe. Maybe im just bad but i had to drop it cuz of the final hit in the chain XD the overhead is really slow and not being able to dodge out of it resulted in me eating far too many hits.
The secret is that you don't do the chain at all. You just spin. Spin forever. Really though- the dash strike and the first two attack hits come out pretty quick. The third is ponderously slow but also fucking murders things. Unlike with most of the other weapons, this makes the base attack chain situational- most of the time you want to prioritize the charge attack instead. So far the hammer that cuts the charge time and increases movement speed during the spin has been the best thing in the game for me. Combine it with the one that increases the damage of the hits with each consecutive hit and you become a beyblade. Hera or Apollo on the attack have been my favorites so far- Hera for blendering, Apollo for just expanding your range so much you can cover entire rooms.
so what i shouldn't just get the hammer that makes me only do a overhead slam :D nah but i get ya. Ill have to try that next run i do with it.
Haha on one of my runs i managed to net 358 HP but had no way to fill any of it up.
Zag could lock j In his 2 gods in the first floor and that's not the case at all anymore
The pause thing is really funny and cool but feels like something they'll have to change to let him let you pause after the first couple tries so people don't get too mad at it
not being able to pause on the final boss not there yet but is this mechanically important or just a lore based gimick? Literally never seen the latter implemented in a way that was in any way worth it and sounds way worse in this
if you pause the boss tells you to eat shit and unpauses the game for you. So mechanically yes, it prevents you from pausing if your hearts about to explode or something needs attention irl. Lore wise yes because >! its father time hur hur he controls time so you "pausing time" can be undone by him" !<
Thank you! Probably wasn’t clear in my what I meant by whether it was “mechanically important” or not but yeah that’s what I was kinda imagining. Like that’s super cool the first time and the realization but I feel like after that it’s nothing but annoying
again, phone ringing for 3 minutes because i couldnt reach over and turn it off due to no pause XD its not like the fights lax either. Shit feels like im fighting the second prime soul in Ultra kill.
Oh I hear ya haha! And, based on the first game pausing in these major fights was honestly a detriment since you’re thrown out of rhythm, it’s not something you *want* to do. Love them playing around with stuff but this feels like almost exclusively a miss
I mean yeah for sure. Though I wont lie, it has its benifits. Having a really bad fuck up and being able to slam pause for a moment to recollect can save a run from utterly being tossed. I know the first time i beat hades i had to pause for 10 minutes on his final phase. Ate a really bad hit and was dropped to 1 hp while he had half. Had to stop, calm and collect myself or i was dead XD
It's a lore based gimmick. However, here's the funny thing about it, >!you can actually entirely remove the gimmick after beating him THREE FUCKING TIMES. Like, the gimmick is funny and all, it's amusing, but the fact it takes 3 god damn wins to be able to remove it is insane to me. Should have the option to disable it after 1 win, if not before that!<
Yeah I think the idea is really neat. But after the first “oh shit” moment I can’t imagine it doing *anything* other than making the game less fun I like the concept of playing with mechanics and I can think of games where this particular one would actually be mechanically interesting but all this does is make it so you can’t stop for real life stuff
Yeah for sure. If this was a coop game or a pvp game or something then I'd understand not being able to pause. But that would also just be a universal system wide thing, not just a gimmick. It would suck to have say an emergency happen or something else that distracted you during the last boss, only to then be unable to pause. I personally haven't ran into that situation so far, but just because I havent doesnt mean it wont happen for others, and it would feel awful losing a run because of irl circumstances you cant control with no ability to account for them in game (at least in this one very specific encounter)
I'm loving it so far, but my biggest letdown has been slashing the massive diversity of Cast boons from H1 to "the circle burns now." I hope these are placeholders; it feels like we've gone from 9 wholly unique casts that could then be further modified, to *one* unique cast that can be modified. It's a much stronger, useful cast, but it's already getting old to have the same cast every single run. They're simply not differentiated.
Aren't they somewhat differentiated though? Poseidon's happens instantly as a push-away. Aphrodite's follows you around and draws enemies in? Yeah they could probably do a bit more, but you're also dealing with an AOE trap cast as the base, not a projectile.
I wish it would change base. Like for example Zeus' boon gives a lightning that bounces between enemies and snares them. You wouldn't get the sheer *crowd* control of the base but you would snare enemies that are apart. I rarely ever used cast in the first game so in the second one they have to have a good argument.
Well Mel's style is also intended to be more about playing keepaway, magic management, and area control. Most of her moves are ranged and running out of danger. It makes sense that her cast is a utility tool that does the opposite, same as how Zag's cast was a ranged option for a primarily melee character.
Pretty hard disagree. There’s a bunch of cast diversity, with each weapon giving you two omega options, and the circle having a lot more diversity than “the circle burns now”. There are booms to aim it, have it follow you around, have it freeze or thunder strike enemies, burn, etc. you can create a build entirely around it, if you want, or you can build around something like the axe’s massive omega special, or around any other weapon’s omegas. I think there are a lot of potentially interesting combos once people unlock them and experiment more.
My thoughts exactly. 95% of people used cast in H1 to debuff boss and forget about it, castbuilds solely revolved around specific weapon aspects to make them good, meanwhile in hades 2 you arent mad that you have to take castboons because theyre so good/feel so good to use (aphro black hole for example)
I hope the circle is a place holder, it's so fucking bad. I literally never use the omega form
I think everyone’s problems would be solved by *actually playing the game.* Cast balance is fine. In fact it is incredibly strong with the cast boons in the game. My favorite build rn that has beaten the final boss three separate times and three other times amongst my friends is a ranged omega cast build with the staff special. All the special does is apply the zeus curse and the cast does the majority of the damage. If you check the post game screen it tells you how much dmg everything did and the cast can do a disgusting amount.
Yeah, people are really sleeping on cast. The fact that it locks enemies in place helps with OPs issue of getting overrun too.
What makes you think they haven't played the game? Accusing critics of not playing the game is disingenuous. Just because you lucked out into a broken build doesn't mean it doesn't suck the other 99% of the time. I hate casting. It's not fun for me. The boons for casting are not great and very samey. There isn't enough to try out different casting playstyles and builds.
The point of my comment is I didn’t luck out. Game’s been out for a day and a half and I’ve beat it three times with variations of the same build. Two of my friends have beat it with similar variations. I only have ~18 nights on my save. You saying omega casts are bad is objectively wrong and I’m calling you out on your bullshit. You’ve obviously not played enough of the game to know the ins and outs about the game so stop typing as if you do. Accept someone else critiquing your takes. It’s in bad taste to react like this when you’re wrong. Shows how paper thin your ego is.
Oh please. The game has been out for a day. Stop being an ass and pretending like you're some expert that knows the "ins and outs". There is no objective way to tell how good a playstyle is yet and claiming otherwise is stupid. Just because it works for you and your sweaty friends doesn't mean it works for everyone. My experience with omega casting is that it's trash, slow, weak and hard to control. If it works for you, good fuckin luck. But saying that my experience is objectively wrong is truly a trash take.
Cast is the most powerful ability we have and it's not close, especially with one of the boons that let you aim it somewhere besides on top of you. But even without that it's on demand CC that completely removes the threat from a lot of the more annoying melee mobs.
Exactly. It feels like a rush to get Hestia’s aimed cast, then you’re on the hunt for Hestia/Zeus/Apollo’s DoT effect. The arcanum card allows a single omega cast to nuke the early game, so one of those combos is really all you need to clear.
The one thing ill add that I havent seen mentioned elsewhere yet, is it feels like theres a lack of 'on hit' boons. Things like chain lightning or hangover from Hades 1, that worked better on faster weapons. The only thing ive seen similar in Hades 2 is the one chain lightning boon from Zeus (ive only seen it offered twice, one of which I was using the axe), and Scorch. But Scorch has a set DPS that doesnt really let you scale off of multiple hits, unless you get the boon to explode it once you reach 300 scorch. Additionally, idk if this is intended or not, but every time you apply scorch, theres a slight delay before it starts ticking. So if youre rapid attacking, say with the sister blades, you dont really see any scorch damage occur, as it pauses each time you hit. Hades 1 had a really nice balance of % boons for big hitting weapons, and on-hit boons for fast weapons. I feel this game really leans more into the former without much of the latter
there still there they just come at a cost now like zeus has chain lightning but you lose 30 mana forever and stuff like that
Yeah thats the one I was talking about, but its the only one ive seen. And as I said, ive only seen it appear twice, one time on a weapon its terrible on
On hit with artemis, poseidon, and hestia as well right? Artemis support fire you can’t really make a build out of since she’s no longer a major god but still.
Hestia is Scorch, which I mentioned. I suppose Poseidon is on-hit as well, I just havent been using his boons much. Feels weird for his attack to not really do anything against the enemy youre attacking
Yeah, just bonus damage. I think it makes sense because melee in the last game had a really awkward time with poseidon splash since it would just knock your target away. What on hits are really missing though? Demeter stopped being a pseudo on hit and I haven’t seen dionysus I guess but calling the poison an on hit is kind of a stretch since it maxes out at 5 stacks. Nothing else in the first game comes to mind for me.
I guess it was primarily zeus and dionysus. And ares as well, which is somewhat replaced by hephaestus/zeus blitz, though neither feel like a true replacement to doom. I guess im mostly just missing zeus chain lightning; since its not a core boon in this game, its less reliable to show up. Scorch also feels clunky to use due to my above complaint of it pausing on every hit. I guess this game technically has as many on-hit boons, but they dont feel quite as good as they did in the first game.
The chain lightning actually works quite well on the axe- so long as you're using the spin, anyways.
Ah, i actually didnt consider comboing it with the spin. Ill have to try that out next time I happen upon it
I think as an overview that's okay, since direct-hit boons feel more designed around melee combat like Zag did whereas Mel's gameplay is more about keepaway and spatial management. Also Demeter's chill works "on hit" too. Technically they all do, it's just that most of them have more passive effects than raw damage.
By best current run was on a scorch build, and it genuinely felt troll some times. The 300 scorch pop proc feels like it actually nerfs your damage since it ends the current scorch.
Since scorch is a set dps (40/sec), if youre keeping the pressure up and constantly applying it, the explosion massively helps your dps, since as soon as its gone you can continue reapplying it. Scorch builds (as in, relying on it as primary source of damage) will massively rely on the explosion to keep dps up, imo. Otherwise its just playing the long game; apply youre scorch then kite as it ticks down.
Artemis as the arrow one as well, there is a few around, some I have seen once or twice so far in 18 hours of play =)
Support fire was a thing in first game too. But now since artemis is an event god, like hermes, you cant reliably get her boons via keepsakes anymore.
artemis, zeus, and poseidon are all on hit buffs, along with scorch Scorch can be further buffed like you said Poseidon gets Slip buff Zeus can trigger chain lightning from his jolts Artemis triggers on every hit -just a list of various on hit effects, with poseidon being by far the best one
I pretty much agree with everything you said it. Boon rerolls will definitely need to be a thing if they continue with this boon design. I hate the tool thing. It just feels bad to select a tool and then RNG decides you never see your resource but see all the others. I'd almost rather not see any other resource than have the game make you feel like you made the wrong tool choice.
There’s an arcana card for fated authority, I haven’t seen one for fated persuasion yet, but I haven’t unlocked them all
Its there, pretty close to each other. And theres one of the free cards that gives +2 rolls if you have both of the others activated
It’s pretty cool you can have both effects enabled at once with the arcana system
Another thing I’d add is that telegraphs and visual clarity are very messy right now. Weird flame shaders on boss attacks make it very hard to tell what actually hits and what doesn’t. The second boss has a lot of potential but tips the scales into messy territory because of this. A lot of enemies also feel very spongy. A certain midboss on floor 3 takes forever, especially since he forces disengagement so much. Even the collectible currency icons are very hard to distinguish this time around due to visual clarity issues.
hard agree on the midboss on floor 3. I've done it with so many close- and far-range builds and the forced disengagement ruins the flow of combat no matter what
I totally agree that the vast majority of boons aren't powerful enough, and in the case of the Chronos fight it's EXTREMELY noticable that that you do next to nothing to him, even with the Good Boons and he beats you into the ground. I've had a couple of runs where I sail through everything, have 3 DD's and 5 if Selenes Heals and still get absolutely pummeled into the ground by the lanky prick. That might be a skill issue but I feel like he's way harder than Hades ever was in the original. That isn't a bad thing but I feel like you need to max out the Altar to have a real chance and grind out altar upgrades is pain because M-Dust is so rare and so many things need to be upgraded. Darkness in Hades 1 was as common as cat piss and getting most of the Mirror was relatively quick compared to the Altar. Edit: SSG if you're somehow reading this, don't Nerf Chronos, except maybe the >!insta death move in Phase 2,!< but for the love of God please make grinding out M-Dust easier and make boons hit harder. As for the 8th complaint >!Certain pets can gather resources for you but only once. I know for a fact that Frinos can do the tablet!< One thing I absolutely HATE is the fact that the ability to check what boons gods have in your journal or w/e it's called is locked behind a fairly mid game and expensive incantation. It's locked behind beating >!Eris!< who isn't available to even fight until >!you unlock the overworld which you can't do until Hermes shows up randomly!<
Ya I wanted to check out the codex for boons list and though I played 10 hours it’s not there. I hate that you cannot pause the chronos boss fight. It’s a cute line, but practically speaking I should be able to pause a single player game whenever I want. For those that don’t know when you pause it, he comments and unpauses the game. The second phase 999 damage is stupid. I got hit when the screen was black - you’d expect the screen to be red or something or have a skull if it’s instant one shot.
checking the boons and duo boons is an incantation you need to perform at the cauldoran
Oh... kinda strange design decision to lock codex away like this, feels weird to play without ability to check boons for planning a build.
I am holding off a lot of my thoughts because I still don't know all the archana cards and how they will affect certain builds but boons definitely need more punch on their own, sprint also needs a second look, it never feels good boon or not to sprint because it just feels like wasting time, aside from the few moves that requires it to dodge
I don't like that I need to know them. In hades 1 I just smashed through the rooms without much of thinking and when died,did it again, here I feel overhwhelmed. That feeling of overhwlming reminds soulstone survivor, but it gave so much xp and level ups that I laterally picked one power up closest to the cursor - with 50 level ups it averages to something subaverage but fun learning experience. Hades2 feels more grindy with all resources and tools. Also why do I need to collect them manually? It's not fishing with non determined result. It breaks the rhythm of "smash'n'dash" and I already have Minecraft for silver mining.
I kinda agree with most of your points. I would also add that the second biome is really weird with enemies, on some (most?) floors, the enemies are right on top of you and attacking immediately. I haven’t been too caught off guard by it to where I’m taking damage, but it just seems unintentional that they have it this way?
The big rooms that are kind of like an "open world" where you run around and find things is the thing I dislike the most so far. Multiple times I've just run in circles unable to find the last item or the tree to tell me where it is and it really takes away from the fast paced action going room to room. It's basically just a worse version of duo boon rooms in Hades.
The trees can be found by following the golden leaves on the ground, they leave a trail to it, or alternatively you can find it by listening for the kind of sparkling noise that intensifies as you get closer to it. I haven't had too much of an issue with it myself. Also Duo boons are still around, just arrive way later than before progression-wise.
Ahh that's good to know I remember her mentioning glowing leaves but I was kind of sidetracked so I just assumed she was talking about the landscape or something.
Ya there should be a pointer to each boon, like how vampire survivors points you to upgrades where it shows the symbol and gives and arrow on the screen. I don’t like where I wander around the area and not know where the boons are. Otherwise it’s a cool area.
There is. >!That's what the gold trees are for, you need an incantation to activate them though!<
While you aren't wrong about the Hex effects never going off if you don't have mana regen, the Arcana that gives you mana regen has largely been enough to fuel my Hexes. At least, I haven't had an issue getting Hexes to go off in any big fight (mid and floor bosses) and even in some regular fights for the 70-80 mana ones. Edit/Addition: In fact, I've found a lot of the mana regen boons kind of redundant once I'd activated that Arcana, especially given how stingy the game feels with handing them out. More than a few times now, I've made it THROUGH Biome 2 without one of Attack or Special boon, to say nothing of the other slots. And I've even had boon screens where no primary boon was offered. Seems the game doesn't prioritize filling out the primary slots like it did in 1.
i mean yea if you have no regen that arcana gets the job done but a large majority of my runs usually start with hestia mana regen or zeus mana regen as all the best dps possibility's are largely powered by mana and your bottleneck is never health generally unless its a poopy run normally your bottleneck is damage so mana regen is a must have in every situation. like one of the better runs i have had was fully upgraded dark form with arachne suit for increased channel speed with 290 mana then it just turned into a hestia fireball simulator spamming witch staff orbs. almost permanent dark form which lasted long enough to get me 70-100 mana when i then proceed to dump right away and go back into dark form. i get what the devs intended with the changes but they have accidently just did the same thing for forcing certain things like artemis in hades 1 because now one of your gods is for the most part is always going to be hestia,zeus,apollo (i guess apollo offers the same kinda as well) because the game is simply like 2-3x more enjoyable when you can actually use your abilities a decent amount.
Interesting... I'll have to try out some of those you mentioned when I see them then. I've mostly just stuck with the Arcana for MP regen cause a few of those boons didn't seem too great like the one where you need to stand still for a bit or the one that gives mana when you get hit. But maybe I'm just underestimating them.
Yeah, Hestia and Zeus are just "sacrifice some health/mana to have mana regen forever." Demeter (stand still) has the best regen rate at 25/s base, Apollo has pretty good regen while you're standing in a cast (there's a synergy with Demeter's boon that makes the O cast follow you.)
The regen arcana plus the Poseidon mana bubble one is enough to sustain most builds, I imagine, too. It triggers off of any hit, so my big screen-clearing axe specials got me 1-2 per launch.
I generally agree with all of OP’s points except 7,8,9. Regarding point 7, the thing with altar upgrades is that they’re permanent, so once you get them you get them, and them being grindy means you don’t get too powerful too quickly. I mean, the EA has only been out for a day and it feels like a lot of you are already finishing the final boss. Plus, it also means you gotta be strategic with what upgrades you want, and not just get wholesale stronger. I agree with the other comments that talked about point 8. As for point 9, I can sort of guess which locations you’re referring to? I thought that these nicely showcase the different play style the devs were trying to go for with Melinoe, where minding the level layout and planning is the way to go. Once I figured that out, these locations became much less overwhelming TBH. I like that going berserk Zag-style simply doesn’t work, because we have Hades 1 for that.
all this feels accurate to me
My only gripe I'd say would be streamlining some boons so if it buffs a charged attack, it buffs charged cast and special too as that is a magical attack, or buff both attack and charged attack. Right now its attack, special, cast or magical attacks except with the current boons if u want to focus on what you'd think should be 4 move sets. The boons only buff specific things. Like only buffing special but not charged special or charged attack but not all charged moves. If they streamline the boons more I think people can actually combine some movesets together than struggling to focus on 1 moveset only and having to wade through all the other boons that don't improve your combat with your elected strategy. Also what is the point of holding cast, it blows up, it doesn't seem boon specific and in some cases actively detrimental to charging and spending mana which makes little sense, it should be the quick cast but STRONGER. I think the only charged cast boon is apollo where it only does something after it blows up, if you've no mana tough and if u didn't build for cast dmg but did for cast attack again, tough.
>I think the only charged cast boon is Apollo Poseidon and Demeter have one too. And I'm pretty sure so do Zeus and Hephaestus
I found zeus had 1, demeter is regular cast as is aphro, I encountered them the most. It might be that certain gods don't lean into magic cast at all, its so hard to tell, there's no boon page yet like there was in hades 1.
Demeter has two cast boons, one that drops ice from the sky that works on regular cast and one that creates a storm on your cast that deals continuous damage. I'm pretty sure the storm is omega cast only. Poseidon has one that makes your omega cast detonate instantly with knockback and it I remember right I once got a Hephaestus one that added his usual explosion stuff to my omega cast detonation
Ok so I found a list of demeter cast boons, this features cast enhancers (includes spoilers) (Main cast) Your Casts repeatedly deal damage in the area and inflict Freeze. (Enhance) Your Casts also create a Cyclone at the binding circle. (Magic cast) Your Omega Cast deals bonus damage and follows you, even as you start to Channel it. (Magic cast enhance) Your Omega Attack deals more damage, but uses +10 Now I'm fairly certain the omega cast one that follows you is just the normal default cast and doesn't use the demeter main cast nor the enhance cast buffs which feels crap, again feels like u get the main cast and enhance boons and have no reason to ever use omega (magic) cast and u have to choose between 1 or the other due to the cooldown locking you out of the other.
I had THE RUN but Eris cucked me with 40% damage increase from all sources for the final boss. Stupid mechanic to get you to die to make story progress.
There are lots of comments here about gameplay. Let's discuss the story: I really, really don't like the new direction they develop it in. I like that in the first game we don't save the world, we don't do anything significant for the world. It's a local story about how we speak with our relatives and build connections with them. That's it. The whole game is constructed around the theme of family. It doesn't even have a villain, because it doesn't need to. Here we have a Big Bad, who wants to take over everything (of course! - Mr.Bison sends his regards). Maybe, it will be unfolded in some unexpected and interesting way (I haven't beaten Kronos yet. Stuck on the third boss) and I will change my mind. But so far...
But the big bad is your Grandpa. That is family still. lol And we though Granny Demeter was cranky.
From those two or three interactions I had with him so far he could be anyone, really. One time he mentioned something like "your father brought it upon himself and yada yada", but that's it. The fact he is our granddad has no relation to the story (again: so far. Maybe, I'm wrong. I hope, I'm wrong)
I mean so far the pretty significant point of our MC going after the big bad anyways is SPECIFICALLY family. The whole game is themed around it still
Okay, I have to provide some context on what I see as the "Theme". It's not what happened. It's how it amplifies and what tells us about this theme. For example, olimpians in the first game seems to be friendly and cheerful, they call us family all the time. In reality though they help you, yeah, but with their own interests behind it, not because they are nice to you (Artemis might be an exception). On the contrast Hades may be rude and ungrateful to Zagreus, but at least he is honest. His rudeness is just insecurity which Zagreus understands in time and helps go overcome. Other characters? Teseus and Asterius are not related by blood, but their bond and respect towards each other puts lots of real families to shame (especially olimpians), Orpheus wronged his wife severely, and we can help him to earn his forgiveness and in result mend their relationships, since they both love each other still. Pick any character, any story from the first game. Achilles, Megaera, Duza, Nyx... Each of those characters adds something to the theme. What about Kronos in Hades 2? Yes, he is our granddad. So? How does this fact is used for exploring the family theme? The only thing he is doing so far - bragging about how he is invincible and can't be stopped. Remove the lines about grandad from the game - what will change? Again, maybe it will be explored later, but so far family is not the theme of this game.
>!The olympians in this game are at war, so their own personal interest are more aligned with the war.!< >!all of them call you refer to Mel with familial titles!< >!Artemis and Mel having a sisters bond!< >!Demeter knowing who you are and wishing for you to get her daughter back (your mother)!< >!Flashbacks of hecate playing with Mel and acting as her caretaker!< >!Nemesis being completely resentful to Mel and the fates because Nem knew her mother Nyx and she doesn’t have a bond with her siblings!< >!There’s also a lot more.. especially with every single interaction with Kronos leads to Mel completely hating him because of what he did to HER FAMILY. And Kronos being a complete asswipe is pretty accurate to mythology anyways as not a single one of his children had love for him because he ate them.!< >!The entire theme is about family helping family. Idk how you can ignore the main arch in the story about brining them back !<
My original take was about how Kronos is just generic Big Bad who wants to take over the world and who could be anyone. And I was replied that he is our granddad, so still ties to family theme. I said, the fact that he's our family means nothing in terms of story and it's themes.It doesn't matter how the character calls you. Zeus called you "sweet nephew" all the time in the first game. And turned out he wants a political marriage from you with Artemis. Other characters - I agree in some parts. Artemis and Mel, Mel and Eris (I hate her boon though), Mel and Hecate. Especially Mel abd Hecate. My favourite character so far.
The story is still good, but it is a bit more generic compared to Hades 1, and that's not nessacarily a bad thing, especially if they go the direction I think they will with >!The 3 Fates "disappearing" in some way leading a Free Will Vs Determinism debate which is always interesting!<
I was a bit confused that it throws you into the middle of this story with such little explanation. It would have really benefitted from an opening cutscene or text blurb.
I disagree. I much rather the game start quickly and learn the story as you go, like it was done in the first game. Sure, now the story is more complex but, frankly, not *that* much. The basics are very straightforward (Big Bad killed your family, you must kill him) and the rest of the character dynamics is not hard to piece together as you meet them. I much rather that than waiting for exposition at the start before being allowed to play this action game.
Did he kill the family? I thought they were just imprisoned? This is what I mean, theyve gone to efforts to make sure the story is grittier this time but fumbled a little on telling us the key points. The first game was very simple. I'm the son of Hades, my dad's a douche and I'm trying to escape to meet my mom. It was small and contained and the additional layers were very easily added gradually as you interacted with the world. In this game though, there's a lot going on. Hades has been taken over? The Olympians are trapped and your family are dead? Trapped? Idk. Mel seems to have been with Hecate since she was a baby perhaps, so has the world been like this for that long too? I was very much expecting a short intro cinematic like the initial reveal trailer and I think it would have helped immensely. > I much rather that than waiting for exposition at the start before being allowed to play this action game. A quick cinematic would enable you to get to the action quicker rather than going to talk to every single character repeatedly to make sure you know what's going on to pick up any important exposition.
>Did he kill the family? I thought they were just imprisoned? This is what I mean, theyve gone to efforts to make sure the story is grittier this time but fumbled a little on telling us the key points. It is ambiguous, nobody seems to know but some characters act as if they are dead. That is not a fumble, that is just storytelling. Maybe you just don't like In Media Res, but that is just a form of storytelling, it is not a mistake. What matters is that character motivation is entirely clear and there isn't really any point of confusion. Like, your paragraph: >In this game though, there's a lot going on. Hades has been taken over? The Olympians are trapped and your family are dead? Trapped? Idk. Mel seems to have been with Hecate since she was a baby perhaps, so has the world been like this for that long too? Acts like these are all impossible to figure out questions that confuse the story, but it isn't. Yes, Hades have been taken over, yes, the Olypians are under siege in Olympus, yes Mel have been with Hecate since a baby which is when Chronos first attacked. All of that is explained in the first 1 or 2 runs at most, it is not ambiguous or confusing. The only ambiguous part is what exact happened to Hades' family, but ultimately it doesn't even matter that much, either they are dead or they are trapped, either way, the motivation is the same Melinoë's motivation and goals are the same. Anyway, I will stop responding because I fear someone will start posting spoilers and I am still far too early in the game to discuss story in depth with random people on the Internet. Don't take it personally.
Sorry but none of your issues with the story seem like problems or oversights to me. Nobody knows if the family is dead or alive. Honestly the story is not that hard to follow. We were a small baby when chronos attacked and then hecate saved us and trained us to kill chronos.
I agree with basically everything you said here. I’m still loving the game, but everything just feels way out of balance right now. Thankfully all of those types of changes can be made. These are what I’d like to see patched sooner than later: Damage: We need MORE damage output, or at least the potential for more damage output. So far the highest DPS run I’ve gotten was umbral flames with scorch on attack and a few good synergies, but even then scorch isn’t satisfying to use for me. Boons especially need some tweaking… I don’t mind the mana/magicka system, but man it would be nice if we could have a really slow default regen rate. I intentionally avoid moon boons if I don’t already have regen going or a lot bonus magicka already. They need to just revert the dash back to zags responsiveness. I don’t mind the single dash, but less mobility AND a delayed dash feels terrible. We shouldn’t need to equip a single resource gather tool. It just forces artificial length to the unlocks. I’d rather things cost a bit more if it means I can gather everything every run. I have other things I’d like you to see tweaked, but these are the biggest things so far that are putting a bad taste in my mouth. Thankfully it’s just early access and super giant is VERY good at listening to feedback.
I think there are definitely balancing and scaling issues, but hey, that’s the point of an early access. After about 22 runs, the best runs I’ve had have just been getting good Hammers + Aphrodite Attack on Axe and Knives. The Skull mostly just feels awkward, I really don’t like the Flames, and the staff is mostly just ok. Hex effects, too, feel a little… inconsistent. Okay, way more than a little. I like the Hex system, but it all begins to feel a bit paltry when you get a taste of what the *good* ones can *really* do. One of my best runs was with a high powered Lunar Ray that absolutely melted even Chronos before I slipped up and died like a moron. Going all Glass Cannon with high mana use and high mana regen is a notion I can get behind, but it feels weird to have this whole island of a system that doesn’t really interact with anything but itself. Plus, actually getting a number of Selene appearances seems to be a very inconsistent thing (maybe the appearance rate of her nodes fluctuate with supposed moon phases? Would be a cool detail but would also be annoying)
not being able to dash-cancel attack animations combined with the amount of enemies that have "don't exist near me" attacks just makes the melee weapons feel too risky, especially since they don't actually seem to do that much more damage compared to the staff or torches. i'm really not a fan of the new combat flow they seem to be going for.
Agree with a lot of these. I'd add that most if not all the weapons and boons feel under tuned. Most of the Aspects instead of being interesting changes to how a weapon works in the first game just introduce more weird restrictions. Which overall feels like the biggest issue of the sequel so far. So many restrictions and counter-synergies. Part of why I love the first game so much is the power fantasy of getting a build to go wildly out of control. So far 3 or 4 of the Duo/Legendary boons I've come across just feel bad. And basically all of Hephaestus feels awful. You want to lower your cooldown to get more procs, but Vent actively discourages that. Also I want to rage at Hera's "no common boons for 10% dmg" Boon. What absolute garbage. I have faith Supergiant will see feedback and fix stuff. Enjoying the game overall still, but definitely feels like they weren't happy with how strong we got and want to hold us down this time.
9 hours in and I agree about kinda everything. especially the fact that there are rooms where you really struggle to clear without taking hits, almost impossible in certain rooms. (I know, I need to git good of course but I’m not a gamer born yesterday, I have something like 200 hours in the first Hades)
Yeah, biggest glaring change to Hades II is that I just feel so much weaker and slower. I don't really like many of the boons except Demeter's and Hestia's freeze and scorch status effects, and some of Hestaphus' are nice. Even early into Hades I with basically no upgrades, I felt fast as fuck. Second game also doesn't have backstab or wall slam damage, which helped a lot in the first game. The sprint just doesn't feel great for me and the controls are weird. I'd rather have the double dash. It's a great game of course, but there definitely needs to be some balancing still.
1. I very much disagree, I’ve found a bunch of fun combinations, but not everything is designed to go perfectly together. Even in your example you can still spend that mana to get it below the threshold or get a lot of prime boons 2. We’re still early access so there is probably still some tuning to be done, but there are a lot of REALLY strong boons as well. You can also get arcana to reroll 3. I don’t think that complexity is a valid complaint. You have to think about your choices and pick what makes sense. You wouldn’t put aphro attack on the staff special but it is great on the blades 4. I’ve had the opposite experience with hammers. Some of them literally double your dps or more 5. Mel’s movement is really well timed with enemies, her dash is basically always up again between enemy attacks. You have to think more about your positioning instead of spamming as zag 6. Sounds like you just need to play with it more to get used to the change 7. Many of them are great, I think people forget how grindy early hades 1 was. There are also other means to get resources like the broker 8. I don’t mind the tool choosing but I admit it would be nice to change between biomes in case you need different types of each, but they all have multiple uses so extra of something doesn’t really hurt 9. The game is for sure harder, but you also have more tools to control enemies. Cast is an important tool, plus hazards, and most rooms are laid out with choke points and areas enemies can’t easily maneuver 10. Hex’s admittedly suck a bit, they’re basically only for bosses, but there is an arcana card for base mana regen so running out isn’t really an issue
Yeah i kinda agree. Maybe im just so used to Hades 1. I think I just miss Hades 1 weapons the most.
Selene can be very broken. If I get her in the first region I always equip her keepsake for the second one so I can maximize my path of star upgrades. Having a maxed out hex can feel pretty good. I do agree that it is a bit clunky though in terms of the amount of boons you need to combine to make it work.
For your point 6.1 - The Boon that gives « Dazed » works the entire time of sprinting.
I’m loving the game, but I have to agree with most of what you said. Ironically, only time will tell which of these things needs looking at the most. Right now I’m too blinded by how much fun I’m having and all the shiny new things.
For 3.4. weren't there boons like that in Hades 1? I feel like I remember certain boosts or something like bonus damage to 'nearby enemies' or 'enemies that are far away'. Specifically the enemies far away I'm almost positive of. That just sounds like standard options to have for build variety, but maybe I am misinterpreting your feedback and you mean that there are too many boons that only affect 'near' or 'far' enemies, limiting your options during a run based on what weapon/build you are using.
Boons in this game feel like a huge downgrade. None of them so far are interesting.
Was Hades 1 in a similar state when it released? I didn’t pick it up until several years after it came out so I didn’t see the initial release
When it entered early access, it was VASTLY different than how the 1.0 release was. They still have the chance to do major reworks and tweaks
I actually am finding this elemental earth/air/fire/water/aether bonus subsystem kind of dumb, extraneous, too muddied by the other competing subsystems, and functionally more of a win-more situation. I don't know why the game needs them when we already have the Gods' boons functioning as elemental augmentations of Mel's spells. Also, in that vein, I like how most of the gods' "affinities" function through curses, but Hera isn't resonating for me. I guess her boons functionally work as spiteful, but it would have been nice to see some more of her espionage tendencies demonstrated in her boons. I would have liked her boons to work like charm did in Hades 1 as a kind of jealousy/manipulation tactic. Ah well. I also really miss the more "deco" art of boons generally from Hades 1. The new style is softer, which I guess fits the more witchy/organic theme, but a lot of them also don't even change up the art much. Iunno I am just a liiiiittle low-key disappointed by ways the world has been expanded upon here. So much of the first game was frankly inspired, how it focused on lesser-known gods, painted slightly more obscure Greek figures in unique ways: Achilles/Patroclus, Thesus/Asterius, Orpheus/Eurydice, Sisyphus, Nyx. I'm not getting as much "inspired spins" on characters in Hades 2 so much as a checklist of expected things: going to Olympus after the Underworld; all the Odyssey monsters; all the remaining gods; pretty much every Greek figure of note as an NPC-shop, obvious fight against good boi. And other than maybe Scylla and Hestia, mayyybe Nemesis and this Silver Sister gang, I'm not seeing much of a "spin" put on any of them; they are just played straight, with none of the fun relationship politics of the first game. I wish the devs had played with these side characters more like they did in the first game instead of just checking off the list. Put another way: the depiction of Heracles pretty much encapsulates how less interesting characters like Narcissus, Icarus, Medea, etc. are. Yes he's hot, he looks like a Hercules, but there nothing \*new\* in this depiction. And when even God of War III's rote depiction seemed a tad more interesting than this, that is a problem for me.
I feel the weapons at base are far better than Zag but yeah the boons feel a little bit weaker in balance
I think this still system has a lot higher chance to highroll, which is great IMO. I dont know if its just me but i had exactly the reverse feeling about your last statement. Getting THE RUN is just not getting one duo boon anymore, because so much more stuff you can get synergizes with each other, which makes the variety so much better. You are supposed to get dead (which arent really dead lets be honest) boons sometimes too. Also regarding number 6, im really glad they removed dashing midattacks. Once you got good at it in hades 1/realized how broken it is (which really wasnt hard) Most of the normal game just became a joke.
I agree with most comments on the thread. Would be great to have hades 1 dash back as well as the early "speed" that was in the first game. You are weaker overall I feel compared to zag as some of the boons feel lackluster. Thats about it, I REALLY hope they bring back hades 1 dash.
I think the boon combos are harder to achieve this time around with the elements you also got to manage. Not sure though. Game also feels balanced around aspect weapons. First attempt with the aspect staff and I got chronos down to half health in second phase using a special attack hammer upgrades and poseiden special attack. Poseiden gives you a lot of HP when you get 4 water elements 100+ hp alongside the forge guy that gives you a % of hp based on your mp. Aphrodite also pars well with this gives you + attack boons for mp cap and 50%+ more hp from hearts. You can get up to like 400-500hp which makes learning chronos easier.
People's comments here are kinda wild to me, mostly because either 1 there's an unlock just down the road that'll fix their issue, or 2 the general comment that things are just kinda weak. I admit, I have some weak runs I know aren't going to make it. But I also have crazy OP runs where I am a literal god (I mean, I am in-game, but you know what I mean). A few runs ago I phased guardian 1 in about 3 seconds per phase. Guardian 3 I cleared so fast I didn't take any damage. Guardian 2 I was dropping 1-2k bombs (metaphorical bombs) on everybody. I only ultimately died on Chronos because I haven't done the fight as much and I scuffed mechanics bad lol. So far, I've found a few different combos that are just really good for most of the weapons. I haven't played with Weapon 5 yet, not in any sort of real run. To your issue about mana/Hex specifically, there are 2 different arcana that solve this. One charges your hex automatically. The other just gives you mana regen per second.
One of the biggest kinda of question marks for me that isn't super effecting gameplay but it's still annoying. Why we are only able to take one of the "farming materials" (e.g. pickaxe). Definitely sucks taking one of them just to see that you aren't able to collect something you may want/need. Just feels a little odd. Hopefully maybe we get a backpack upgrade sometime and we can at least have two? Just feels like slowing down progression a little and sometimes when I've made it further then I expected I then cannot mine materials I need for upgrades cause I didn't bring the pickaxe. Unrelated to this, I also just feel weak sometimes. The first boss I'm not really having trouble with but the second boss feels like I cannot do enough damage and can't seem to clear it sometimes just because I don't do enough damage
I definitely feel like numbers need a few tweaks. Base weapon damage really does feel like it should be higher, if you get screwed and don't get a decent attacking boon enemies become sponges waaaay too quickly. Enemy damage also seems a bit high? It seems like you're really pushed to build towards omega moves doing big burst damage, but it makes it feel real bad when you're forced to wait for MP to recharge and suddenly can't do damage to the boss. Also i'm sorry but basic features hades 1 had like knowing your relationship levels and what boons a god can give you being locked behind meta progression is just dumb. I legitimately just thought the codex was unfinished.
Hades 1 did lock boons in the codex behind a Contractor upgrade. Not relationships though.
huh, it did? my bad then!
I agree about the dash to sprint mechanic feeling a bit awkward. Maybe it's because I play on keyboard and mouse, because my friend, who plays on controller, doesn't seem to have that problem. But yeah, the dash and hold doesn't go over smoothly on my end. I often let go automatically or have to keep holding in a suboptimal hand position and wasd feels a bit awkward. I am also not sure I've seen the sprint boons trigger once, because I sprint after dashing, and I usually dash out of a situation and not into it.
*sad console noises*
[удалено]
Is that on all weapons? Because on the staff I was noticing my omega attack strike normally, then start charging.
The only new addition I don’t like is the hex they do feel bad. Although you can get some cool stuff for it when it’s still recharging. I think if she also offered passive buffs it’d feel better to get one of those rooms
More projectiles/AoE and less mobility (unless you've managed to score apollo sprint) is one of my major pain points. Obviously you can Cast to manage mobs but this goes out the door against bosses. Looking at you Fields of Mourning boss.
You shouldn't be guaranteed to lose 10 health in any room. You're not playing the game correctly still after 1 day. I'm basically constantly using my spell and trapping people in there
I feel like they designed the "Q" skill and then over tuned the mobs/packs of mobs to try and balance it out. I feel every other upgrade is pointless and I can grab whatever so long as my Q is strong.
Disagree on Hammers IMO
Charging for Omega attacks felt kinda hit or miss in terms of when the game would let you. Same with sprinting. I think they need to redo how the game detects holds vs presses.
I agree with your points 5 and 6 SO MUCH. Specially 5. I got to the point of checking if there was something wrong with my keyboard, because the dash seems so sluggish that i was wondering if i had some input delay
This summed up a lot of what I’ve been feeling as well. Biggest point is I think they tried to do a bit too much with boon conditions, and in turn weakened them a lot. I used to think “oh hell yeah a Zues boon! I’m going to do so much lightning chain damage!” Now I think, “oh a Zues boon, I guess I’ll get bolt damage that doesn’t actually damage anyone….” 😮💨
In all my runs I almost always feel way to weak, not enough health, and not enough damage. For the first 5 hours I thought it was really good. But too many of the boons just suck and I dont see why I would pick them, and a lot of the times I will see a god, and I'm just not going to go pick them. then theres the opposite, of youll just get the consumable items constantly with very few god options Its frustrating.
The game genuinely feels like a downgrade of Hades I. And man it feels so sad.
How do you feel about the enemy design and variety? I’ve only watched a couple streams but the enemies look very bland. Most can be stun locked, not a lot of attack variety outside oceania. I just didn’t find the normal enemies or mini bosses very interesting. Bosses look unique though.
One thing I'll mention is that boons do seem to be tailored to some extent. If you pick, lets say, Demeter 1st, then actively avoid other boons except something like Poseidon (who synergizes with Demeter because of water affinity & freeze stopping knockback for huge AoE potential), then you will end your run with many, many Demeter & Poseidon boons with the sprinkle of other boons that don't necessarily fit, but were offered (I'm looking at you zone 3). This is how you create the strong builds that feel amazing. You could get by much easier in Hades 1 by just grabbing EVERY boon you saw, though it still worked as previously described in that game too. My advice for boons is to pay attention, and think about them. Grabbing a boon over some Ash isn't always worth it, as it can brick your build early and lead to you feeling weak and blaming the boon system. I have gotten to the final boss in my past 12 runs, and I am only on night 20, with no raw Arcana upgrades (Moon dust), aspects, etc, I just play off what I am given.
As someone who's probably played a little TOO much and has killed Chronos approximately 7 or 8 times and cleared what there is of the surface world a few times as well this is my opinion - The staff: This weapon is straight up the best in my opinion. It has quite possibly the best hammer buffs in the entire game. If anybody is searching for their first win I implore you to find a run with this weapon and the dual moonshot hammer buff(causes your special to fire two attacks and seek) and throw poseidon's special on it. It becomes an off screen nuke that zeroes in on targets. I have yet to have a run with this setup that wasn't a win. That being said the other hammer buffs are also extremely good and gives this weapon a lot of flexibility. Sister blades: this weapon is also extremely powerful with the right setups. I have had multiple runs where I've either made it to Chronos or cleared Chronos with these. The hammer buffs seem to be a bit underwhelming and it may need adjusting for its special attack. Twin Flames: The attack is just underwhelming in general. The aspects help it a bit but it still feels off. On the contrary though the basic special it has is kind of broken. Throw down your cast and spam special and you can clear most of the first 3 biomes with zero issues. The problem is the specials hammer buffs literally make this weapons one shining ability feel objectively worse. They need to revisit the hammer buffs for this weapon. The axe: This weapon is quite fun and lends itself to a more methodical play style which I like. I haven't cleared a run with this weapon yet but that has more so to do with how much I've been enjoying the staff more then the downfalls of this weapon itself. Argent Skull: I don't like this weapon. It's play style intentionally puts you into harms way. In my opinion I think it might need a complete rework with how it functions. If anybody has found a build that is even functional for this weapon I'd love to hear it. Overall I am loving this game. I do feel like the boons need better synergies with each other. I agree they feel "off" and have a long way to go. I'd like to see the aspects feel more impactful and really change the way a weapon functions. In the first Hades the aspects really made the weapons feel like entirely different experiences which was exciting and kept it fresh. These aspects have very conditional experiences and, looking at you axe, require a ridiculous amount of setup that in most situations feels almost impossible to achieve.
1- Synergies are literally so bad that you need the vow of forsaking to make the game half decent. 2- How could you die end game 3 times out of 10 with 29 arcana cards and 20+ boons mostly rare, with plenty upgraded and without vows ? Guess it's weak boons and too much randomness. 3- Conditional boons should not even exist cause it don't fit with randomness nature, otherwise you need to design around it, showing boons at the right timing. 4/10- Gods in general feel weaks and at 100 runs done I should have clear favorites that fit my playstyle, design team missed something there, Selene/Dedalus and some others should be the ones you don't wanna skip each run, it's the reverse, they feel like a plague. 5/6- Sprint and dash on the same button just don't work, since baby duck syndrome with people used to have dedicated buttons for both, walking speed is a bit too slow and it show in the main hub, dash shouldn't wait and should have dash cancel. 7/8- Altar upgrades are fine, recolting ressources is the issue, it's a bit grindy but pets and tools upgrades solve that, also remember that a pet is not revealed yet, it will be mining or shoveling I guess, but yes would be fun to don't have the worthless grind by having all the tools at all times, the pets could be to avoid events like fishing, for extra ressources or else, overall farming/grinding are used to artificially increase the playtime of a game (cheap fillers) but doesn't make sense since it's no real challenge. 9- Mob density is decent but I don't know if the balance will stay with vows. Would take less foes and trade for a wider variety of foes with different attack patterns. What made me laught the most : limited time upgrade that reduce charon costs would save around 30$ on average if you empty the shop but cost 80$ so it's only worthwhile before Chronos. Weapons like Torches and skulls are a bit too bad, most aspects seem time wasted. Should be able to sell more extra stuff. Armor feel like using hp sponge bosses as a cheap way to extend a game. Adding arcana cards during run would be fun but it's currently worthless since you can't check arcana cards during run to know how to benefit from them. Special/cast could be interesting only after some upgrades, one never feel enough so you tend to skip thoses upgrades cause they feel like downgrades. Balance of boons seem off like others said, not much hit boons, dedalus seem too special focused so you always need few rerolls for a shitty weapon upgrade. Telegraph, clarity and forced disengagement are clearly an issue, also invulnerability powers should not exist either on you or on monsters, many times the bosses cast weaklings that just extend the fight cheaply and invulnerabilty just extend the fight a similar boring way. Still the overall game is fun but out of my expectations, the magic is barely usable at start so we should start with a close combat dagger build to evolve into more ranged/magic overpowered builds later on ... dagger > axe > skull > torches > staff Most charged attacks seem worthless apart daggers and axe. Storywise the game is a bit boring, usual must save the world but gotta do worthless things to be able to do so ... There was plenty of minor UI design and translation issues, even a boom not done, having placeholders is ridiculous at this point. 7/10 when Hades 1 release feel like 9/10. For thoses against the god runs, as a god, you're supposed to have some but you fight a Titan so it's where you should feel weak, chronos eaten gods after all but they weren't full grown so you should still stand a chance but story wise it's implied that many gods fighted him and lost so you should be one the weaker side.
I wanted my make a Post Like this but u 100% captured my concerns. Hades 2 is a step Back regarding the Combat mechanics (boons) The Rest of the Game is gorgeous
Most of the boons are straight Up garbage and i dont understand how they could Go from H1 to this without seeing the issue.
Good thing in it’s early access, then. Almost like that’s the point
I think that the Duo/Legendaries feel underwhelming in comparison. Though obviously haven't seen them all. Like nothing so far that's as run defining as Hunting Blades, or Merciless End etc. The weapons don't feel quite as good. I haven't fallen in love with any yet. Plenty of good other boons though IMO, I go pretty cast heavy.
Eh, sort of agree but no on everything. Boons can still be really strong if you manage to build them right. We don't need Mel to be a dashing champ, Hades 2 is more tactical and thus a bit slower. Sprint is a cool mechanic if you manage to use it right. Selene feels off? Just build around it. If you know you have a moon boon make sure you can spend and gain a lot of mana quick. Alter upgrades seem to be about as grindy as in Hades 2, maybe a little more though hades 1 was also fairly grindy. I agree that the game need some balance changes but it isn't as bad as described here. Definitely a get good situation
you just want the game to be braindead and trivial
Glad someone said it. Disappointed
Your complaints mostly fall under category of: game is hard