Supergiant expanded on Hades in almost every direction and still ended up with a game that's just as hard to put down.
Hades set the bar for what a roguelike could do with story, and the pressure on Hades II was always going to be proving that wasn't a one-time trick. A year and a half of early access later, the 1.0 release settles it. Melinoë, Zagreus's sister, is fighting through the underworld and beyond it to take down Chronos, the Titan of Time, and the run-based machine underneath her is the best version Supergiant has built.
I'll say the controversial part first: I like Melinoë more than Zagreus. Zagreus was charm on legs, and his kit was fundamentally a sprint. Melinoë is a witch, and she fights like one. Her Omega abilities, hold-to-charge versions of every attack that spend a magick meter, mean each weapon has a rhythm question built into it: commit to the channel or stay mobile. The Sister Blades want you point-blank and impatient. The Moonstone Axe wants you greedy in exactly the moments you shouldn't be. Two hundred-odd runs into the genre, a new resource that made me rethink when to stand still is a bigger deal than any single boon, and stacking a build around one specific Omega move with the right gods behind it is the best feeling this genre has produced since the first game.
“Stacking a build around the right Omega move is one of the best feelings this genre has produced in years.”
Hecate, her mentor, is also the best character Supergiant has written, a boss you fight at the end of the first region who's still teaching you something with the way she fights. Returning gods carry new dialogue that reflects a different relationship, Melinoë grew up in hiding, and they know it, and Nemesis walks off with half the scenes she's in. A few old favorites get less screen time than fans will want. The new cast covers the difference.
Surface runs, the second path that opens partway through, trade the underworld's tight chambers for something more open, and they're the right kind of detour, a palate cleanser rather than a second full game.
One structural gripe survived early access intact: a few major story beats take so many runs to trigger naturally that I eventually looked one up, felt bad about it for a minute, and got over it. The genre's pacing math is hard and Supergiant hasn't fully solved it twice.
Difficulty is sliders now instead of a single heat toggle, so my partner cleared Chronos with tuned-down pressure and the story fully intact while I cranked fear levels until the game stopped being polite. Both of us were playing the version we wanted.
Darren Korb's score drifts from moody underworld tracks into something like folk music on the surface, and I've had the Ephyra region theme stuck in my head for a week. Visually, the hand-painted range across this many locations is Supergiant showing off.
Whether Melinoë ends up as beloved as her brother will take a few years to settle. As a thing to play, run after run after run, this is the better game, and I don't think it's especially close.