Recent reviews by pkkp

i think I can safely say that Hades II is already a worthwhile succesor to my favourite action yapping-like.

Currently there are 6/7 stages, 6.5 bosses (one is infrequent), 5/6 weapons with 3 aspects each, 2/3 animal familiars, 4 gathering tools, 25 arcana cards, 10 boon gods (12 including sporadic artemis and chaos, 13 if you count spoiler npc god), 15 new chaos trials and 27 keepsakes.

New gods: Hera, Hestia, Apollo, Hephaestus and Selene. Hephaestus is amazing, easily one of the best gods overall. Hera's Hitch mechanic is alright. But Apollo and Hestia are kind of mid right now. Apollo's Daze is weak and I think Hestia's Scorch just does not work properly. Selene introduces new mechanic of ultimate attack based on the mana used during a run. Once you take one ultimate, next boons will provide you with upgrades to it. Pretty fun but once I started focusing more on basic attacks builds and priming mana for benefits, it was completely useless.

Rest of the gods: Zeus and Poseidon are power houses. Aphrodite is killing in close comabt builds while Demeter's frost mechanic plays just great. Meanwhile, Hermes feels like a copy paste from Hades I. Chaos and Artemis are alright but negligable. Spoiler npc god can nerf last boss quite significantly so I always take him.

Gameplay wise it's quite different experience from Hades I. Here it's best if you decide early whether you are going for omega/mana or basic attacks build because focusing too much on both can hurt in the long run. Arcana cards are quite helpful with that but sometimes boons roll for other build than you have arcana cards equipped and it can be not that fun.

Soundtrack 10/10. Whoever designed Oceanus vibes and music, hats off you.

New systems: Arcana cards are new passives but there is a limit to how much you can take at once. Limit can be enhanced but even at max it was still a limit in my experience. Pets are fun, chaos trials are alright, gatherig tools are a little annoying that you can take only one a run but pets offset that a little bit. New interaction mechanics are fun but it seems they are one time only. Why?

Lastly, pet system is weirdly unlocked and can be blocked behind never ending Hecate's yapping if you progress too far too fast. It was literally one of the last things I unlocked after beating last bosses more than 10 times because Hecate was focusing more on what I wore that run rather than giving me animal familiar spell.

Very good game, even at the current early access stage that it's in. After addition of new tier of blessings (divine) with the connection of previously added synergies, it provides satisfying growth experience throughout the run.

Edit: It still holds up.