I was introduced to the wonderful world of Hades, developed by Supergiant Games, only a few months ago. Even though I really enjoyed the first game, which is notable in itself since I am not really a roguelike (or is it roguelite?) fan, I never completed the required ten escapes to see the credits roll. In its sequel, Hades II, I managed to reach my goal often enough to see the credits, and even now I am far from done with it. Why is that?
This review is spoiler-free.
You Were Born for This
In Hades II, you play as Melinoë, Princess of the Underworld. She is the daughter of Hades and the sister of Hades I protagonist Zagreus. Some time after the events of the first game, your grandfather, Chronos the Titan of Time, has escaped his imprisonment. He has taken control of the Underworld, and your family has vanished without a trace.
You have trained your entire life for a single purpose: “Death to Chronos.” It is up to you to take revenge, reclaim the Underworld, and hopefully reunite with your family.
Your base of operations is The Crossroads, a region between the Underworld and the surface, overseen by your mentor Hecate. Each night, you prepare yourself here. You talk to your companions, choose your weapon, and then head out for battle. A successful run will usually take most players around 20 to 30 minutes. If you fall before that, you are transported back to The Crossroads, ready to begin a new run once more.
The Best Combat of 2025
Hades II’s combat is blisteringly fast, fluid, and incredibly satisfying (it did not end up at number one in my favorite combat systems of last year for no reason). You have access to your normal attack, a special, and a cast in the form of a binding circle. The first two vary greatly depending on the weapon you choose, with more weapons unlocking as you progress through the game.
On top of that, all three abilities have an enhanced variant. By holding the corresponding button, you trigger Omega attacks and specials. These are powerful versions that consume Magick, a limited resource that regenerates after every encounter. Holding the cast button turns your circle into more than just a binding tool, as it also deals damage.
“Hades II’s combat is blisteringly fast, fluid, and incredibly satisfying.”
Avoiding damage is just as important as dealing it. By dashing, you evade the many attacks thrown at you by your enemies. Some encounters throw so many foes at you, each with their own attack patterns, that it becomes impossible to deny how demanding this game is on your hand eye coordination. You are constantly timing your dashes and choosing the right moments to safely strike back.
Fighting your way through an encounter packed with enemies without taking damage never gets boring, not even after 50 runs. The same goes for those moments where you barely survive a hard fought battle with just 1 HP left.
Even as I write this, I already feel the urge to quickly boot up the Nintendo Switch 2 for another run. And that is without even touching on one of the coolest aspects of the combat, the boons granted by our Olympian Gods.
Hephaestus, My Beloved
I have said it before, and I will say it again: everything in gaming revolves around rewards, and Hades II delivers them in abundance. At the end of every encounter, you get to choose between 2 rewards. These can include increases to your maximum health and Magick, extra coins (which you can spend on useful bonuses during a run), or an upgrade for your chosen weapon.
The best rewards, however, come in the form of Boons, granted by one of the many Gods. Some of them will be familiar from Hades I, such as Zeus and Poseidon, but the sequel introduces a whole host of new Gods as well. You will meet Hestia (Goddess of the Hearth), Selene (Titaness of the Moon), and my personal favorite, Hephaestus (GOAT of the forge. I mean… God of the forge).
The Gods do not just treat you to consistently entertaining and flavorful dialogue, they also lend you their powers. Each God offers you a choice of three boons that Melinoë can make use of during that particular run. These might add scorch damage to your basic attacks, inflict status effects through your specials, grant you extra dashes, and that is only scratching the surface.
Boons are divided into Common, Rare, Epic, and Heroic tiers. On top of that, there are Duo and Legendary boons, which can appear once certain conditions are met, such as collecting specific combinations of boons.
After I finally learned which icon led to which God (a process that took longer than I would like to admit), I started actively hunting for Hephaestus boons in particular. Some of his upgrades let you deal area damage of up to 400 or even 500, triggered by both your basic attacks and specials. At that point, my regular attacks dealt roughly 10% of that amount, making these boons an enormous power boost that carried me through the early game. There were moments where I might as well have abandoned a run entirely if Hephaestus did not show up.
Sometimes Your Builds Come Together in Brilliant Ways, and Not Always Intentionally
But there really is something here for everyone. The possibilities for creating a powerful build during a run are practically endless. There are so many attacks you can enhance and so many bonuses you can collect and combine. One boon choice might suddenly synergize perfectly with another, often steering you toward a completely different build than the one you originally had in mind.
The first time I successfully completed a run, it was thanks to a build entirely centered around coins. Coins are absolutely not a resource I normally prioritize during my runs, but that is simply how things unfolded. It felt like a snowball starting to roll downhill. Early on, my alternative options were not particularly appealing, so I picked a boon that gave me +15 coins whenever I used my Hex (yet another special ability I have not even mentioned yet).
“The possibilities for creating a powerful build during a run are practically endless.”
Later, I was offered a boon that increased the value of collected coins by 85%, and that was when the dollar signs started appearing in my eyes. Not long after, I picked up yet another 30% bonus to gold gained. And I eventually stumbled upon the legendary boon “Paid Dues,” which causes you to lose coins instead of HP when taking damage.
I faced Chronos with roughly 1,300 coins, while my maximum HP would normally sit around 200 max. Even with that advantage, I only barely managed to defeat our enemy, but it was incredibly satisfying to see how all those boons came together to deliver my first real success.
Unlike in Hades I, defeating the final boss once did not mark the end of my journey this time around. My motivation to go for more runs was high; after finally bringing Chronos down, I could not wait to return to The Crossroads and do it all over again. That eagerness is fueled in part by the interesting characters who are always waiting for me there, through both triumph and defeat.
I May Be In the Minority, but Hades II’s Story and Characters Resonated With Me Far More Than Those of Its Predecessor
When I first made the jump from Hades to Hades II, I was briefly disappointed. The previous protagonist, Zagreus, always managed to put a smile on my face with his cheeky remarks, as did the Gods during our often outrageous interactions. Melinoë, by contrast, is completely serious, and the Gods themselves feel dressed in a more solemn tone. In that moment, Hades II seemed to take away what I enjoyed most about the first game.
Fortunately, that disappointment quickly turned into appreciation. I began to admire Melinoë’s relentless drive to defeat Chronos. She may lack humor, but her perseverance and belief in her own strength soon became infectious. I found myself enjoying her lines, brimming with confidence and unwavering purpose.
Her relationship with her mentor Hecate, who fills a motherly role in her life, is another highlight of the game. Hecate’s demanding nature is conveyed in such a way that I almost wanted to make her proud on a personal level. And even when I returned after a failed night, the mentor always knew how to instill enough confidence in Melinoë (or in me) to try again. I consistently enjoyed their interactions.
“Melinoë may lack humor, but her perseverance and belief in her own strength soon became infectious.”
Thankfully, some of the humor does remain, most notably in our resident “tent shade,” Dora. The stakes in Hades II are incredibly high, and you feel that pressure almost constantly, but Dora cuts right through it. She is more down to earth (despite the fact that she… floats) and seems to take everything with a grain of salt. At times, she will even practice her “haunting act,” suddenly shifting mid-conversation into an angry specter. It is a charming contrast to her usual, completely opposite demeanor.
Add to that the tense exchanges with rival Nemesis and the more strategic conversations with Odysseus, and you end up with a cast of fantastically voiced characters I was always eager to return to. In fact, as much as I adore Hades II’s combat, part of me just wanted to get back to The Crossroads as quickly as possible to talk to its inhabitants again.
Incantations, Resources, and Arcana Cards
That said, there is more to do at your home base than just talk. The Crossroads is also where you perform incantations. Incantations are spells that push the story forward. By talking to various characters throughout the world, you discover spells needed to progress the narrative or unlock different bonuses. These spells require specific resources, which you can find in certain areas during your runs.
Collecting these resources adds an extra layer of motivation to every run. Since you bring back everything from a run except coins, a run rarely feels wasted. You almost always return with some kind of resource that can be used for an incantation, which in turn brings you one step closer to your next goal.
One of the most important resources is Psyche. You can obtain it as a reward during runs, or by compelling spirits, a simple action you can occasionally perform mid run. Psyche is used to upgrade your Grasp, and Grasp is required to activate Arcana cards. Still with me?
Each Arcana card consumes a certain amount of Grasp, ranging from one to five, and in some special cases, zero. These cards grant a wide variety of bonuses, such as increased cast damage, permanent boosts to your maximum health or Magick, or extra Death Defiances (essentially an extra life during a run). Early on, you can only activate a limited number of Arcana cards, but as you increase your Grasp, you unlock the ability to stack more bonuses, making future runs significantly easier.
This creates a naturally flowing sense of progression. Early in the game, bosses can feel almost unbeatable, but later on you will wipe the floor with them. The Arcana cards play a major role in this, alongside the fact that you learn and anticipate enemy movesets better with every single run.
Some Loose Scraps
- Interactions feel genuinely dynamic and realistic because they respond to your circumstances. NPCs acknowledge things like winning a boss fight without taking damage, or meeting them without a scratch. They also sometimes comment on how long it has been since they last saw you, what outfit you are wearing, or whether you are under the influence of certain spells.
- The same NPCs have so much to say that events are not always discussed immediately. I met a certain character during a run, and Hecate only brought it up around ten runs later, as if it had just happened.
- I have written roughly 2,000 words without even mentioning the gorgeous art style. So, here it is: it is once again stunning.
- “I am gonna Claw.” What an absolute banger.
- Judy Alice Lee, who voices Melinoë, also voiced Neyrelle in Diablo IV, Alaune in Octopath Traveler 0, and Yone in Ghost of Yōtei.
- Amelia Tyler voices Hecate and was also the incredible narrator in Baldur’s Gate 3. She additionally voiced Malady in Divinity: Original Sin II, the Surgeborn in Eternal Strands, and Nyrissa in Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
- Dora is voiced by Erin Yvette, known for Blonde Blazer in Dispatch and Snow White in The Wolf Among Us.
- Okay, one more voice fact: Logan Cunningham voices Chronos, Hades, Poseidon, Polyphemus, Homer (the narrator), and Charon. Impressive.
- On Metacritic, I saw a user review complaining about constantly encountering the same bosses and enemies. That is a bit like complaining that you sometimes have to play a football match in EA FC.
- I loved hearing “Return to Shadow now” grow stronger after every run. Early on, Melinoë struggles and you can hear the defeat in her voice, but as you grow stronger it sounds increasingly confident and calm.
- Is this a good moment to admit that I am still doing runs purely to unravel Echo’s story?
Conclusion
Hades II even manages to wrap this anti roguelike guy around its finger. Despite the repetition that naturally comes with the genre, the game offers so many possibilities for different combat styles that starting a new run is always a pleasure.
The game also excels outside of combat. Returning to The Crossroads provides the perfect breather, thanks to its engaging cast of characters, all of whom are fantastically voiced.
If the genre had been more my thing, this could easily have been a 10/10. For now, it earns a 9, but that score comes down purely to personal taste. Fans of the genre can expect a near perfect game.
