Played on PC. 60 hours from start to story epilogue. This was written before the 10/24/25 Story/Balance Patch.
Supergiant Games have proven to be masters at several aspects. Context aware narration is second to none. If you enjoyed the difficulty ramping of the first Hades, there's another stellar implementation here as well. Moment to moment action feels solid, comedic timing across hours will put a smile on your face, and a well thought out cast of characters and their individual revelations remain almost obscenely well written. But being a sequel, Hades II seems to have sought out a few new ideas for its storytelling, and in my opinion, it did not deliver with the same degree of execution.
Ms. Ghost Hand herself Melinoe establishes her own brand of gameplay in a way that Hades veterans will take a second to wrap their head around, but offers a greater diversity of movement and action than Zagreus did before her. By taking away "just dash" as the primary defensive mechanic and turning the cast into a snare mechanic, dancing around a screen full of enemies offers an additional satisfaction to all loadouts in a way Zagreus needed some weapon based specialization to accomplish. Achieving a truly broken build seems a bit harder to do, which may be off putting for some, but added a bit of challenge in a way I truly enjoyed. Very few enemies are truly recycled, and especially deep in runs, demand attention lest your run take a very quick turn for the worse. Very few things feel explicitly cheap, and once you have the knowledge to pass the checks asked of you, alongside the power creep you are offered, I feel like someone who doesn't usually play action games will be well shepherded into their godhood. And, if that's not enough, the "God Mode" in options will offer you bonus damage resistance with every death until you get to where you want to be without any additional punishment.
Darren Korb continues to absolutely kill it with his music design, and is offered the chance to flex his orchestral chops away from the usual brooding synths and strings you'd associate with this series. I am pleased to report that he is still incredibly fucking good at his job. Art & interface design takes a more evolutionary than revolutionary approach, with detail paid to faint glows and shadows that compliments the witchy nature of the game's powers and main hub. Additional expressions and animations on character portraits add a little seasoning to the character profiles of its predecessor. Some may have wanted more given the praise given to art before, but based on interviews I get the impression Supergiant is in no hurry to add more artists either contract or in house that would threaten their very involved and reflexive production process with that many more humans to supervise, and I do not blame them for this one bit.
Where Hades II fell a bit flat with me was with the new aspects introduced to story progression, and how that fits into the overarching morality of the story. Without getting into spoiler laden specifics, Hades II's first ending is whiplash inducing. A game and a studio this proven at pulling together its plot points while respecting your decisions trying to pull off the point it attempts to simply did not work for me. As you go deeper into the game, establishing loyalties and collecting trinkets, some additional work is done to try and reinforce their initial decisions but I don't think that worked well either. Getting to the final cutscenes and story epilogue was also much, much more of a chore, not due to difficulty or repetition, but just because the triggers you need to wait for are exhausting. I found myself using the added Chaos Trials to replay one boss eight times just to finally try to get him to spit out one line that wasn't nearly rewarding enough for what it took to get it. A game long quest also refuses such a payoff. Triggers for some of the romances took dozens of hours. Waiting to receive a proper incantation to progress can seem very left field, without the usual flavor text/codex hints that were pulled off so well last time.
This is an inference, don't hate me for it, but it's the impression I came away with; Originally Supergiant had no interest in making a sequel. I feel like in some aspects, you can see that unwillingness. And that's a massive detraction for a studio so otherwise sterling and immaculate with the feeling of a crafted, considered game.
None of this should dissuade you from playing Hades II for what it does offer. Voice performances, great gags, factoid history that actually works, cheeky romances, a final epilogue that did make me smack my head and emit an "Oh!". But the sore parts stick out.
Maybe a decade plus from now, if Rao and Kasavin are still crankin' out the hits, this universe could use a revisit. I have never enjoyed a game this much and felt the studio should absolutely do something else next. Hades II is a fated sequel, and sometimes, intentionally or no, fate can be cruel. To see that actually come back to haunt the game slightly does sting something mighty, but it can't fully overcome what is, again, one of the best roguelike experiences available anywhere. I'll leave the thought on whether this is also a classic to the fates as well, but I do recommend you take a chance on it.