Hades 2

Hades 2 is Supergiant's follow up to their hit Hades. It's a roguelite plays with the well-known Greek mythology. You play as the main character Melinoë who is the daughter of Hades and Persephone. She is also the sister of the protagonist of the first game, Zagreus. The main plot of the game is summed up by the often said, "Death to Chronos."

That gets accomplished by continually throwing Melinoë against the army of Chronos both below on your way to the House of Hades and above on your way to the Palace of Zeus. On your path you will be granted boons from various individuals known in the Greek pantheon along with characters such as Icarus. These boons make up the bulk of the toolkit at your disposal along with six unique weapons. Add in eventual access to a familiar plus arcane cards that boost your powers even more and you're ready to go.

The game still requires learning the attack patterns of the various enemies especially those of each area's guardian, but the good news is that the game does have many paths to victory. Each weapon is viable. You can use close up attacks or ranged attacks. The omega system that powers up attacks, specials, and casts can even be ignored. I had many successful runs where I had zero magick, this game does add the "k," for using the omega attacks. That's not to say that you can just throw anything together. Finding what works together and what doesn't still takes time. Once it all clicks though? It's exhilarating.

I also found the story to be great. As I mentioned in the header, it does continue the themes of the first game. If you're aware of how that played out, how Hades 2 plays out shouldn't be a surprise. It's still well executed and the postgame story will still be a surprise to you. It does set the stage a bit for a potential Hades 3 if Supergiant decides to go that route.

The other major shining work in the game is heard with the voice cast and music. The music uses an orchestra led by the orchestrator, Susie Bench and is some of the best video game music I have heard in years. The voice cast is led by Judy Alice Lee who voices Melinoë. She also voices two side characters that I don't want to spoil, but all of her performances are exemplary.