Hades 2 Has a Tone Problem

I don’t pour hundreds of hours into many games anymore. The reality is, I just don’t have the time. I usually play games either in short, 1-3 hour sessions or just a few days a week. I certainly can’t log into any game that requires daily quests in order to keep up.

So when I put 300 hours into a game, you can rest assured that I loved it. Most recently, the only game that held my attention that long was Hades.

Hades (which I’ve recommended on this blog before) is a rogue lite. The entire game exists in a giant loop whereby you attempt to fight your way free of the underworld and gain a little more of the story along the way.

Not only did I devote a significant chunk of my precious free time to this game, I cried over it. More than once. It charmed me to the core, enough that I kept coming back well after I had actually hit the true end of the story.

So when Super Giant announced that they were making a sequel, I couldn’t be more thrilled. My expectation was that it would basically be more Hades – another loop that told another charming story. I was ready to add an extra 300 hours to my commitment.

Hades 2 spent well over a year in early access (a frustration all on its own). And the moment 1.0 came out, I dropped everything to dive into it. I had heard rumors and read reviews, of course. But I always try to reserve judgment until I experience something for myself.

I gave Hades 2 a lot of grace, despite my initial frustrations with the game. But in the end, the story let me down, and that’s something I can’t forgive.

What Made Hades Great

What truly made Hades spectacular was that its story fit into its game play loop. In fact, the story was about escaping a loop of destructive behavior and replacing it with something better for everyone.

At the beginning of the game, Zagreus is a jerk. He’s running away from an abusive father, but he also doesn’t care about who he hurts along the way. He regularly sticks his nose into other people’s business, and he doesn’t seem to understand why it blows up in his face.

As the game goes on, you meet more and more mythological figures and discover how their problems relate to each other. As you grow more powerful, you also have the option to grow closer to these characters and help them solve their problems. In return, they agree to help you achieve your goal and improve your position in the underworld.

Hades scratched a lot of itches for me. First and foremost was my love of this particular mythology, and I felt it was aptly handled. Second was that the game felt fair and forgiving and generally gave you ways to choose what level of challenge you wanted to engage with.

But most important for me was the story. Hades has a spectacular story. And it isn’t just the main story that’s great, all of the side character stories are wonderful too. One of the main reasons I kept coming back to this game was to finish the NPC stories, which took much longer than getting through the overall game story.

At the end of my 300 hours of Hades, most of the characters were happy and so was I. I enjoyed the time I spent with those pixels. And I was clearly eager for more since I dove headfirst into the second game.

Hades 2 has a Tone Problem

If you’re looking for a game that plays almost exactly like Hades but is a little longer and a little harder, then Hades 2 is that. In terms of mechanics and challenge, I would say it probably delivers a successful sequel. But when it comes to the story, the two can’t compare.

Like the first game, Hades 2 exists in a loop. But right from the start, the tone of the game is entirely different. Zagreus leaves the house of Hades on a personal quest. And he continues despite all odds because he’s trying to discover the truth of himself.

By contrast, Melinoë starts by informing the player that she was taken from her family shortly after her birth. Her goal is to fight her way into the house of Hades in order to end an eternal war that has taken over the land.

Right off the bat this poses a problem. Because when you finish the story in Hades, the game continues post-credits. Which means that the game loop has to be preserved.

Which means that right from the start, Melinoë can never finish her quest. The war that she is fighting can never end. Otherwise there would be a limited number of loops to finish the game.

So there’s strike one.

Despite my misgivings, I reserved judgment until I saw the game’s ending. I hoped based on the spectacular way the first game wrapped up that the preservation of the loop would include some kind of brilliant wrap up. Like maybe Melinoë gets to spend some time with her family whenever she clears a loop.

I was still only about a third of the way done with the game when Super Giant announced that they were changing the ending.

No Happy Ending Here

I don’t think every ending has to be happy. In fact, I’m a big fan of sad or bittersweet endings if they feel satisfying. What I most want at the end of a story is to feel like it was worth the experience.

Hades 2 doesn’t feel that way.

I never looked up how the original story ended, but I had high hopes after the changes were made. I thought maybe the original ending was rushed and the changes were made to smooth the rough edges. But the revised ending isn’t great.

At the end of Hades, Zagreus escapes his bad situation. He gets the resolution he’s looking for and he ends up forging better relationships with the people in his life. He continues the game loop because he finds it fulfilling.

At the end of Hades 2 not much changes. Melinoë doesn’t get to go home. She doesn’t get to be with her family. In fact, there’s a line from the narrator the first time you clear the underworld after the credits that states she never saw the house again like she did on that one special night.

Excuse me?

All Melinoë gets at the end of her story is one brief interlude spent with her family and a set of extra memories that the dream makes very clear are fake. She gets a dream of having been raised by a loving family. She never actually gets the family.

After the main events of the story, Melinoë goes back to the loop because someone has to clean up the mess and she feels its her duty. She is, in a word, trapped in an endless cycle. That she claims its by choice doesn’t make it better.

Strike two.

Who Are These People?

There are good things about Hades 2. I find the character designs to be as charming as in the first game. And it digs into other areas of mythology that weren’t explored in the first game. In terms of seeing more Greek mythology play out in front of me, I can’t complain.

But the way the characters act in the second game is vastly different from how they behave in the first game.

In Hades, most of the gods you encounter are understandably stuck-up. They’re all caught up in their own problems, which makes them appear shallow. But it’s okay because you’re not trying to do anything world-shattering. The more Zagreus learns about his family, the easier it is to stomach having to spend his entire life away from them.

In Hades 2 the gods all act the same. Except acting petty and shallow in the middle of a world-crisis is a lot more cringe than during a silly family dispute. I never got the impression that anyone was particularly invested in helping me succeed at Hades 2, despite the fact that everyone was pretty much doomed if I didn’t.

On top of that, the NPCs that are meant to be your friendly helpers are all toxic. Maybe some people enjoy having a rival to jeer them. Maybe for some people that encourages them to succeed. But for me, it was genuinely hard to continue when every one of my achievements was instantly belittled by Nemesis.

I could chalk this up to a simple miscalculation of tone, except the characters don’t improve when you make friends with them. Nemesis arguably grows worse. Because the game lets you romance her but she continues to treat you like crap. The problem quickly grew so bad I started skipping her voice lines.

Strike three.

Needless to say, my inability to invest in the majority of the game’s characters was the final straw for me. For the moment, I’ve set the game aside. I have no idea if I’ll go back, but I certainly don’t see myself putting 300 hours of investment into this game.

And it makes me sad because I truly loved the first installment of this series. In that game, each of the story elements were handled with such care, it’s hard to believe the same people wrote the second game. In fact, it almost feels like the second game’s creators had no idea what made the first game so good.