Luckiest Tooth

As promised, a follow-up to my initial post on Hades 2!

 

I'm loving this game. I went ahead and got all the achievements for it. I almost never do that, even for games I love; with Hades, by the time I hit the epilogue I had fewer than ten achievements left to go, and I was still enjoying playing it, so I went ahead and powered through the last set. I could play the game forever, but I think this is a great pause point to set it back up on the shelf.

MINI SPOILERS

As with the original Hades, I gradually amped up the difficulty as I was pursuing Nightmares (the new Titan Blood) to fully upgrade my weapons (which I was upgrading so I could take on more Fear and earn more Nightmares...) My memory of Hades 1 is slightly fuzzy, but I feel like Hades 2 is a bit more generous with Nightmare and you don't need to run as high of difficulty for as many runs as you did for the first game. Thanks to the Bone economy and Charon's Ledger, you can earn a fair amount of Nightmare through standard runs, and many Prophecies give a good amount. My Grave Thirst was pretty uneven, but I think I hit something like 16-20 Fear on a few aspects, and just 4 Fear on others, by the time I essentially had all the Nightmare I needed for weapon upgrades.

 

 

After I hit that point, I switched over to focusing on my remaining achievements. One of the longer ones was "Bearing Dark Gifts", which requires beating a run with every weapon aspect. Once Grave Thirst came up on a weapon I needed, I would generally do a 0-Fear run with that weapon. I would pick Underworld or Overworld based on which one had the most outstanding NPC missions or other prophecies at the time. If I had clears on all of a given Grave Thirst weapon, I would switch to Chaos Trials: either the Grave Thirst weapon for an uncleared trial to get Stardust, or one of the Chaos Below ones for those achievements.

 

 

Before diving into stories and characters, some closing mechanical thoughts:

 

 

My favorite weapon type: Probably the torches.

Favorite staff: Circe (take the ferret, try for a full Omega Cast build, ideally with Apollo and Demeter)

 

 

Favorite daggers: Artemis

 

 

Favorite torches: Moros

Favorite axe: Charon

Favorite skull: Medea

Favorite coat: Nyx

Default arcana loadout: Sorceress, Wayward Son, Huntress, Eternity, Moon, Furies, Persistence, Messenger, Swift Runner, Death, Centaur, Origination, Boatman, Divinity. Lovers if I'm playing with Rivals, otherwise Artificer.

 

 

Favorite region 1 keepsake: Jeweled Pom

Favorite region 2 keepsake: Either Aromatic Phial or Calling Card

 

 

Favorite region 3 keepsake: Aromatic Phial or Calling Card or Fig Leaf

 

 

Favorite region 4 keepsake: Knuckle Bones or Luckier Tooth or maybe Blackened Fleece 

 

 

Favorite route: They're both great, I might give the edge to the Surface.

 

 

Favorite biome: Olympus

Favorite arena: Either Eris or rivaled Scylla 

 

 

Favorite status curse: Freeze

Favorite Olympian deity (personality): Hestia 

Favorite Olympian deity (boons): Hard to pick one; Apollo, Demeter and Hera are always great choices 

Favorite cast: Rapture Ring

Favorite rush: Nexus

Favorite gain: Any of Born, Lucid or Flood

(Not listing favorite Attack or Special as they are so weapon-dependent. Passion is great on slow melee weapons, Flame is great on fast weapons, Ice always comes in handy...) 

Favorite duo boon: Sun Worshiper

Favorite legendary boon: Sanguinary Savor (assuming Wounds on my main attack, otherwise Shocking Loss) 

Favorite NPC: Dionysus

Favorite NPC offering: Howling Soul 

 

 

Favorite ally: Artemis

 

 

Favorite guardian: Eris

 

 

Least favorite guardian: Rivaled Polyphemus if playing melee, otherwise Rivaled Hecate 

Favorite Vow: Time 2

Favorite romance: Eris

 

 

Favorite song: So hard to pick one! Maybe Song of the Deep?

 

 

Favorite Crossroads outing: Hot springs, but they're all pretty fun 

Favorite Crossroads activity: Gardening

 

 

Favorite upgrades: Chibi figurines

A few more details on progress:

Overall, the number of runs ("nights") I had roughly matched the number of hours of playtime in Steam. I think this makes sense - a given run is almost always less than an hour, but there's plenty to do in the Crossroads between runs.

I think I first beat Chronos probably somewhere around 15 hours into the game, hit the main ending around 60 hours in, reached the epilogue around 100 hours, and hit 100% Steam achievements at 116 hours. I wasn't gunning for any of those in particular - I wasn't focusing on the epilogue, for example, just progressing towards it when it was convenient to do so.

 

 

There's still a bit more left to do if I wanted. I haven't deepened my trust with Circe or Icarus. I have two weapons that are at Level 4 instead of 5. I have maybe 5 or so Minor Prophecies left to go: I'm missing one Chaos boon, one Dionysus boon, several Duo Boons, probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting. Slightly more than half my Keepsakes are maxed out, but I haven't done that for most of the Olympian ones, or a few like the White Antler that carry extra risks.

 

 

The third-to-the-last achievement I got, and the one I was most concerned about, was Great Chaos Below, which requires a full clear of an Underworld run with a randomly-assigned weapon, randomly-assigned Arcana, 20 points of randomly-assigned Fear, a randomly-assigned Familiar, and a random Keepsake at the start of every region. I'd failed it a few times, then finally succeeded on my third. I started with Death, then lost all 3 Death Defiances in the Rivaled Hecate fight. I rebought a Defiance in the Erebus exit well, then last that in the Rivaled Scylla battle. I was randomly assigned the Hephastus keepsake heading into the Mourning Fields, and lucked out with a nice 75 Armor boon, which let me regenerate health and make it through the Cerberus fight on my one life. Then in Tartarus I got Athena's Gorgon Amulet - suddenly, having no extra lives was a good thing! I got an Epic boon from her to become immune to damage for 2 seconds after getting hit, recharging every 9 seconds. I had nearly full health by this point. I also had the Strength arcana, which had seemed like a waste at the start of the run, but it came in handy here. In Hades' chamber, I was offered Darkness, which I usually take; but it seemed redundant with the Athena boon, so instead I opted for boosted damage from the number of times I'd used Death Defiance this night, which translated to a sweet 40% universal damage boost. I was very nervous heading into the Chronos fight, as a single bad step in the second phase could one-shot me; but my loadout ended up seeing me through. 

 

 

The last actual achievement I needed to get was "Voice and Vanity", resolving the Echo and Narcissus quest. Like everything else in the game, it mostly comes down to RNG: how often do you see the NPC chamber, and is there another doorway that's too tempting to pass up? This one required a lot more visits than I was expecting, and I kept getting Echo visits without any content while waiting for the Narcissus ones to catch up. It eventually fired, though, and it felt very satisfying to see the back-to-back grants for this one and the "All Other Achievements" achievement.

 

 

Some light-spoilery thoughts:

I like Melinoe, but she's a lot less interesting than Zagreous from the first game. Zac was defiant and sarcastic, with some deep emotional hurt that he channels through snark. He's also very funny, both with his words and his super-dry delivery. Melinoe is a dutiful daughter, raised for a mission and mostly single-minded in her pursuit of it. When Hecate attacks her at the end of Erebus, she basically says "Thank you, mistress!" Overall a yes-woman goody-two-shoes is just less interesting than a defiant rebel, even though I always choose to play as a goody-two-shoes when given the choice in a choice-and-consequences RPG.

 

 

There's a line from Chaos where he says something like, "Your brother used to visit me. I found him amusing. It is interesting to see how different siblings can be." Which is a really sick burn. Good on Chaos!

I really did love the "Silver Sisters" sense of camaraderie, and the good-natured wheels-within-wheels plots of Hermes and Artemis essentially working as double agents but for a common good. Hades 1 similarly had Hermes and Charon essentially playing this role, but there it didn't become clear for quite some time. I like how in this game Melinoe already has established relations and warm friendships with so many characters.

MEGA SPOILERS

While the protagonist was very different, the main story felt a little same-y compared to the original Hades: a scary patriarchal figure opposes you, you fight him a lot and eventually reforge a family bond. It isn't a bad story at all, I'll take it any day over "Save The World From An Ancient Unstoppable Evil," but it was less interesting the second time around.

 

 

The main ending is great. I loved spending time back at the House of Hades, including brief chats with old friends like Achilles. The custom art is incredibly rare in the context of this game and felt like a really meaningful award. The absolute highlight for me, though, was spending time with Artemis, my favorite goddess, over the closing credits. Art and music are the Supergiant crown jewels.

 

 

As with Hades 1, the epilogue (which I think is what they call the "true ending") is a lot less impactful than the main credits ending, but I had lower expectations for this after the first game so I wasn't disappointed here. It is really funny to actually meet the Three Fates in person, they're a lot different than I expected. The big-picture story they're setting up is interesting and cool, basically outlining the transition from the age of mythology into the real-world timeline in which we're playing this game. The epilogue is a lot lighter on new art and music compared to the main ending, just enough for it to feel a step above an NPC conversation.

 

 

The biggest reveal of the game comes after the epilogue. The dialogue isn't super-explicit, but as I understand it, Hecate is Melinoe. In another timeline, Melinoe attacked Chronos, and was cast far back in time. So she has spent millennia studying magic, preparing and training. She positioned herself to be a servant in the House of Hades so she could take Melinoe away when Chronos attacked, then essentially raised herself to accomplish what she wished she had been able to do herself. Learning this adds a new color to so many things we've seen throughout the game. Hecate kept emphasizing "I am not your mother" - in the moment it seems like she is mostly distinguishing herself from Persephone, but really she's distinguishing her from herself. And her trial in Erebus feels a lot more appropriate: it isn't so much a teacher testing a student as a person testing themself. She's very insistent that Melinoe not reveal her existence to Chronos, which makes all sorts of sense, as she needs to keep the possibility of her survival open. After getting to this point, I realized that the main title screen features Hecate's face looming behind Melinoe's figure, which isn't spoilery on its own but feels like a huge revelation once you know their relation.

 

 

END SPOILERS 

What a blast! The original Hades left big (fiery) shoes to fill, and Hades 2 more than fills them. Every new addition to the game is an improvement: the new resource economy, the crafting system, new combat mechanics like magic and armor. The story feels less revolutionary than the first game, but it's still a good story, and blessed with vibrant, compelling characters. It's also just fun to play: the combat feels good, the weapons are solid, the fights can be tough but always feel fair. Some games keep me playing because I want to see the ending, but the Hades games keep me playing because of how fun they are.