Hades II review: After 70 hours, did Supergiant really raise the roguelike bar again?

My first 10 hours: from “it’s more Hades” to “oh… this is something else”

I started Hades II with a weird mix of hype and dread. I put an irresponsible number of hours into the first game-those post-midnight “just one more run” sessions that end with birds chirping outside. So when I booted the sequel on my PC (Ryzen 7, RTX 3080, 1440p/165 Hz with a DualSense), I told myself to keep expectations reasonable. Ten hours later, that plan was splattered across the Fields of Mourning like one of my poor, sheepified enemies.

My first impression was comfortingly familiar: crisp isometric combat, gorgeous painterly rooms, gods who can’t help roasting each other between boons. But then Hecate dismantled me-gracefully, repeatedly-and the differences clicked. Melinoë isn’t Zagreus in a different robe; she is a witch with a completely different rhythm. The mana-powered charge system, the glyph you drop to control space, and those Selene hexes that change the tempo of a fight—slowing time, nuking a lane with moonlight, or turning the arena into a petting zoo—these aren’t little tweaks. They pushed me to unlearn my Zagreus habits and actually think like a caster-warrior hybrid.

By the end of that first night, I had reached Scylla’s stage once, died to a guitar riff that felt personally targeted, and found myself whispering “okay, Supergiant, you got me again.”

70 hours later: the shape of the thing

I’ve racked up just over 70 hours across Early Access into 1.0—about half of that before release, the rest this past month. Roughly 90 runs, 27 clears, and a notebook full of builds I swear I’ll remember (I won’t). I played mostly on PC with a controller, plus a handful of nights on a handheld (Steam Deck OLED) in bed to see how the game holds up on smaller screens. Broad summary: it’s bigger, punchier, and more confident than the first game, with a cleaner narrative spine and still the same “constant new dialogue” sorcery that made Hades feel impossible.

Where Zagreus tunneled upward, Melinoë’s war with Cronos sprawls in two directions. The eight-region structure—split between the Underworld and the surface—doubles the variety without feeling like padding. The Fields of Mourning loosen the “one room = one reward” loop into a slightly open labyrinth that mirrors the area’s melancholy tone; Ephyra lets you route toward the gods you want instead of playing hallway roulette; and late-surface biomes get just spicy enough with hazards that I started treating my dodge like a precious resource instead of a panic button.

Not every late-game beat lands with the same thunder. The final surface area and the ending itself felt a touch restrained compared to the operatic build-up. It isn’t bad—just more curtain call than catharsis. That said, I suspect part of this is me carrying 18 months of Early Access expectations on my shoulders. When a game becomes your nightly ritual, you start expecting a fireworks finale instead of a well-composed outro.

Combat: the witch, the glyph, and the best kind of chaos

What clicked hardest for me was how Hades II lets you sculpt the flow of battle. That glyph is the beating heart. Dropping it to slow or punish enemies turns messy arenas into zones of advantage. Early on, I kept forgetting to use it; by hour 20, I was setting traps, luring a mini-boss inside, then popping a charged special in sync with Selene’s beam for delicious numbers. It’s chessy in the best way—controlling space, baiting, punishing greed.

Melinoë’s weapons are more idiosyncratic than Zagreus’ armory. The Moonstone Axe made me play patient and methodical—commit to a swing, reposition, commit again. The Sister Blades asked me to become a dervish: quick slashes, blink-like dashes, high-risk corner pressure. The Argent Skull turned the screen into a festival of delayed explosions, and once I slapped Hera’s Link onto that loadout, I watched whole clusters of enemies chain-detonate because damage was literally bouncing between spouses. Umbral Flames—my secret favorite—became a crowd eraser with Apollo’s dazzle and Hestia’s burn stacked; a flamethrower that felt like steering a comet.

Charging attacks consumes mana, which forced me to break old habits and watch a resource mid-fight. It sounds fiddly, but the sensation is satisfying: you time your charges to sync with vulnerability windows, and when a moonbeam from Selene lands inside your glyph and you’re fully charged… it’s like landing a perfect parry that you orchestrated yourself.

The only readability issue is classic “too many sparkling blessings at once” syndrome. Some boon combinations turn the screen into fireworks, and in a few fights—Scylla’s concert, certain cramped surface rooms—I ate a hit or three under a confetti storm. It’s rare, but if you’re the type who needs austere clarity, you’ll have a couple “what even tagged me?” moments.

Boons and hexes: orchestral builds instead of solos

The boon design here is chef’s kiss. The returning gods still have their identities (Ares smirks through crits, Poseidon splashes, Aphrodite melts egos), but the newcomers are a treat. Hera’s marriage-link is the headliner; it’s the kind of boon that changes how you engage the whole room. Hestia’s fire stacks scale beautifully into bosses, and Apollo’s dazzling debuffs make aggressive play safer by blinding the most dangerous targets.

Selene deserves her own shout. Her hexes feel like mini-ultras that reframe fights rather than just pump damage. The time-slow one became my anti-tilt button during learning phases, and the sheep transformation never stopped being funny—especially when I sheeped a nasty elite and my familiar just trotted over like “thanks for the snack.” The game smartly rationed hex currency so I couldn’t spam them, which kept hexes special instead of routine.

The Arcana system at the Crossroads—the sequel’s answer to the Mirror—lets you sculpt passive bonuses with a tarot-adjacent flavor. I ended up with three decks that I swapped depending on the weapon: a mana-regen build for longer exchanges with the Axe, a crit-and-dash special deck for the Blades, and a “living inside my glyph” tank setup that made the Staff feel like home base.

The Crossroads: a home worth coming back to

If the House of Hades felt like a cozy afterparty, the Crossroads is the war room with a hot spring attached. It’s more modular to decorate, which sounds superficial until you realize it’s secretly role-playing: putting up a new lantern for Dora, restoring a little herb patch, adding seating so conversations reshuffle. I fell into a rhythm—clear, crash into the bath, trade barbs with Nemesis, and bring Ulysses (Odysseus) my latest tactical humiliation.

The relationship web is just as dangerously charming as the first game. I poured my Nectar mostly into Moros (I’m a sucker for soft-spoken doom), Nemesis (that rival energy), and Hera (don’t judge me). Keepsakes return and feel meaningfully useful—Hecate’s in particular smoothed some early rough edges while I was still playing like a Zagreus tourist. The writing is still that special Supergiant mix of elegant and mischievous: a quip, a mythic aside, a sliver of vulnerability. After 70 hours I was still hearing fresh lines at a suspiciously high rate.

Familiars are the sweetest mechanical addition. Toula, the cat, saved my butt with that no-death passive more than once, and Raki the bird turned pesky backline casters into birdseed while I focused on the bruisers. They also tie into a lightweight gathering/crafting loop—unlocking tools, collecting materials, brewing permanent upgrades in a cauldron—that starts as a nice-to-have and settles into a natural rhythm. It never went full busywork, which I appreciated. When I had a spare run where I wasn’t feeling sweaty, I’d poke around for a missing ingredient like a witchy errand-run.

Moments that sold me completely

• After 16 deaths to Hecate, I finally beat her by keeping my cool inside my glyph, letting her overcommit, and burning a hex only for her second phase. I physically exhaled like I’d been holding my breath for a week.
• Scylla’s boss fight clicked the run I grabbed an Apollo dash, Hestia’s fire on the special, and a Selene beam. I dashed through riffs, left a flaming arena behind me, and carved solos out of the noise. It felt like conducting.
• A Chaos challenge run handed me a pre-baked build that removed my mana regen and amped my glyph. It was a puzzle instead of a brawl—position perfectly or perish. I perished. Then I reran it and felt that intoxicating “I learned something real” heartbeat.
• My first trip to Ephyra with a Hera core boon turned a tough corridor into a domino show. Link two elites, tag a third, and suddenly damage is gossip hopping across the whole room. Cruel and beautiful.

What sang for me, and what fell a note short

• Build variety is off the charts. The way glyphs, hexes, and god boons interlock creates runs that feel like bespoke instruments rather than “here’s my Zeus run.”
• The eight-zone spread keeps the treadmill fresh. I never hit that “oh no, Tartarus again” slump I sometimes felt in the original.
• Characters are somehow more immediately lovable. Moros’ gentle fatalism, Nemesis’ rival-flirt vibe, Dora’s deadpan—there’s a found-family warmth amid apocalypse.
• Music and art direction are unfairly good. Not many games could make me pause mid-run to just listen—but Scylla’s track had me grinning even while I was dying to it.
• Readability wobbles in peak chaos. It’s rare, but the fireworks can hide a telegraph or two.
• The ending doesn’t quite punch through the ceiling. It’s smart and earned, just more diminuendo than crescendo. After such a long build, I hoped for a throat-singing note to end on.

Technical notes: controller tweaks, performance, and handheld play

On PC, I ran 1440p uncapped with V-Sync off and hovered between 120-165 fps on my RTX 3080. It’s a buttery game to control, and input latency is tight enough that I could actually feel the difference when I accidentally left Steam’s “Enable PlayStation Configuration Support” on—turn it off if you use a DualSense. I remapped glyph to L1 and hex to R1, which shortened my time-to-ability more than I expected. Small tip: bind heavy charge to something your index finger can reach without thought, or you’ll forget to use it during panic.

On the Steam Deck OLED, I settled at 60 fps with FSR on and shadows one tick down. It held almost everywhere, with a couple dips during boss fireworks. The smaller screen actually helped readability in some rooms because everything felt bigger relative to the display; the flip side is that text for boon details gets cozy, so I bumped font size in options. Battery-wise, I got around 2.5-3 hours per session.

I hit one minor hitch in 1.0: a single soft lock at the end of a run after interacting with a prop at the Crossroads. Reload fixed it and I never saw it again. Otherwise rock-solid.

Difficulty, progression, and the “one more run” math

Hades II once again nails the climb. If you want a smooth ascent, the Arcana and familiars give you early guardrails; if you want heat, the pact-style modifiers return with nasty twists that even rewrite some boss behaviors. My favorite mutator buffed enemy projectiles into little homing problems, which forced me to treat my glyph like an anti-missile zone. It’s a thinking person’s roguelike, but not a homework assignment. When I wiped, I usually knew exactly which greedy dash or missed charge did me in.

The long-tail grind feels better tuned than Early Access. Resources like Ashes and Psyche bottlenecked me a bit in the midgame, but I never hit an absurd wall. The cauldron unlocks are smartly staggered so you can specialize without sinking weeks into the wrong path. If you’re allergic to any grind whatsoever, you’ll still feel the treadmill, but I’d argue the treadmill is the point—you’re building a witch, a home, and a web of relationships as much as a win streak.

Comparisons: where it stands among the greats

Dead Cells remains my go-to for twitchy, side-scrolling improvisation. Returnal still owns the arena-shooter feeling of cosmic dread and exaltation. Hades II sits where story, systems, and style braid together. The original Hades felt like lightning in a bottle; this one feels like lightning with a conductor’s wand. It’s larger, more systemic, and asks more of you in the best way. I won’t say it makes the first obsolete—Zagreus’ arc is too intimate and perfect—but if you asked me which I’d recommend to a newcomer in 2025, it’s Hades II, easily.

Who should play this

• If you loved Hades but wanted more systems to chew on: the glyph, mana charges, hexes, and Arcana combine into endlessly expressive builds.
• If you bounced off roguelikes for being repetitive: the eight-region variety and constant new dialogue help each run feel like a new chapter, not a rerun.
• If you crave story with your skill ceiling: the Crossroads cast is an all-timer, and the writing feeds the loop instead of interrupting it.
• If you’re a handheld or couch player: controller-first design and rock-solid performance make it a perfect “one more run” on the sofa game.

Minor gripes and wishes

I’d take a couple UI toggles for readability during maximal boon builds—subtle enemy outline or toned-down particle density for specific effects would help. I also wanted a touch more punch in the final act, whether that’s a mechanical gauntlet or a narrative “oh hell yes” moment. And while I adored the Chaos challenge runs, I’d love an in-game browser that surfaces them more aggressively once you’ve cleared the story, like a weekly rotation with unique cosmetics to chase.

Verdict: a new standard, even when the credits feel modest

Hades II takes the roguelike crown not by being the flashiest, but by being the most playable day after day. The way it respects your time—with meaningful progress, quietly brilliant writing, and builds that feel like personal inventions—turns habit into ritual. I came for “more Hades,” stayed for the witchcraft of the systems, and kept playing because the Crossroads felt like home. The ending doesn’t quite detonate, but the journey there is masterful.

Rating: 9.5/10.

TL;DR

• Melinoë’s kit (glyphs, mana charges, hexes) pushes you into smart, space-controlling play that feels fresh even after dozens of runs.
• Eight regions keep the loop lively; Fields of Mourning and Ephyra are standouts for bending the classic room-reward formula.
• Boons are more synergistic than ever—Hera’s Link, Hestia’s burn, and Apollo’s dazzle create orchestral builds, not solo acts.
• The Crossroads cast is instantly lovable; dialogue density remains a small miracle after 70 hours.
• Performance is excellent on PC and solid on handheld; occasional visual noise during peak chaos.
• The finale lands more softly than expected, but the overall climb sets a new bar for the genre.