First look at Hades II

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Just this morning I was wondering if I should play Hades II in Early Access when it becomes available, and I wasn't sure if I wouldn't rather wait for when 1.0 comes out.
Aaand then Supergiant streamed Amir Rao and Greg Kasavin playing the technical test, i.e. the first phase, and I immediately forgot all arguments and watched it immediately. Given how weak I am at resisting spoilers I think I will play Early Access so I'm not yet fully spoiled for everything when I play. And it looks like so much fun!

Minor gripes out of the way first, I'm not sure if I got pickier about character design or what, but several of them I'm not completely convinced by and some even made me roll my eyes a bit, like Hecate having her stomach free (it makes no sense and it looks silly, the worst combination.) But the Olympians do look cool in their armor, especially warrior Demeter and Poseidon with the shiniest trident.
Melinoe herself looks hot cool, though there is one image of her where she contemplates which boon to choose that has her leg bracer on the wrong leg and I just didn't manage to ignore it ^^

The new characters are exciting: we knew about Hecate and Apollo and Nemesis and Moros from the trailer, but there's also Odysseus! And Selene, and Hestia, and Hephaestus! And Arachne! Arachne especially is amazing, her spider self looks adorable and I can barely wait to see how her story develops.
Of the gods, we saw Demeter and Poseidon and Zeus and Aphrodite and Charon and Hypno again - and Artemis, but this time in a Thanatos-like helper role, which is fantastic. Artemis called Melinoe sister! Melinoe mentioned that Artemis and Hermes kept her secret to the other Olympians and they seem close, and Hermes is apparently infiltrating the enemy?, I hope we will see him too.
We learned that Chronos has done something to Hades, Persephone, and Zagreus, probably locked them away, and has taken over the Underworld and is now besieging Olympus; and that Hecate saved Melinoe when she was very very young and raised her herself without telling the Olympians. Looking forward to learning more.

The new mechanics look interesting, just enough variation to keep things exciting. Same with the enemies. One of the best moments was Hecate's curse turning Melinoe into a sheep mid-combat xD
I also love the dialogue log as a tool, no more missing dialogue because I accidentally clicked away too fast. I wonder how that works after more playtime.

Comments

[yhlee]

AHHHHHH

I have not yet played the first Hades (I want to see if I can give it a go on the Steam Deck!) but my husband and daughter will be so excited!!!

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Afaik from friends it runs great on the Steam Deck. I hope you enjoy if you give it a try :)

Early Access in two months or so maybe? I'm excited, we'll see.

[shadaras]

I'm also very excited about the new characters! There are so many cool (hot) women! :D

The crafting/gathering elements intrigue me too.

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Apparently they listened to the complaints about Greece, so now there's farming! I'm curious how intricate the crafting/gathering will get.

I'm also very curious who the romance options will be. My current strongest suspects are Nemesis, Moros, and maybe Dora; but those options are similar in some ways to Hades 1 and maybe I'm totally wrong, we might not even have seen them yet.
Did you see the other portraits people found in the files? Some more characters that also look very cool.

[shadaras]

If Moros isn't a wildly popular romance option, I'd be disappointed in fandom. xD I'd also love for Artemis to be a romance option!

I haven't seen any other portraits; I don't tend to go digging for information like that (though if it's put in front of me I'd absolutely look). But they tend to have good character design, so I'm excited to see them!

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I'd love Artemis as a canon romance option; I don't expect it but I hope fandom won't let that stop them. She wears cloth (?) around her waist that looks the same as Melinoe has around her leg and I would be extremely surprised if that was a coincidence.
Edit: nevermind, Hecate and Selene have something that pretty much looks the same, it seems it might be some kind of, hm, community symbol? Something witch-related? Nemesis does not as far as I can see...

I have only watched a few hours of technical test and am already interested in half a dozen ships, this will likely only get worse ^^

[shadaras]

Yeah, canon romance would be great but even if that doesn't happen I would like fandom to run with the vibes I got from the exactly one interaction between Melinoe and Artemis in the technical test stream!

I'd also be extremely here for Nemesis/Hecate.

Really, I'm just delighted by how many women there are in central roles; this seems like it's gonna be a great canon for femslash opportunities!

[schneefink]

Same!
I'm excited for the many femslash options. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Selene too, I think she could be very interesting, being a Titan and connected to the moon and with her hexes.

[shadaras]

Yes! She seems super cool, love the lore potential and the interesting mechanics. :3

[nonesensed]

Yessss, I'm so hyped for Hades II!!!! Though I'm trying to avoid too many spoilers since I won't have time to apply for the beta test. But excited!!! Also, yes, the dialogue log is a wonderful addition, A+++, no notes (on that in particular) 💖

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I'm very curious how big the early access version will be. At one point the studio said the EA version will be almost the size of the first game and that would be very cool :)

[nonesensed]

Same! Seeing as I'm trying to avoid spoilers, it'll be interesting to see exactly how many spoilers I'll be dodging and for how long 😆 Though I do want the game studio to do whatever makes working on the game easiest for them. If they're helped by an early access version of the full game being out and about, I'll just have to be extra careful around spoilers 😊