Go buy Hades II. There. That’s my review… Okay, sure, I’ll elaborate a little more, not in part due to the cold stare of Nintendo Insider’s owner but also because I’m always looking for an excuse to talk about what easily ranks as one of my favourite games of 2025.
Continuing on from 2020’s stellar Hades, its sequel picks things up with Melinoe, the sister of the first game’s lead Zagreus. Aided by the likes of Hermes, Odysseus, her Headmistress Hectate and many other Olympians, she sets off on a mission to defeat the new villain, Chronos (the Titan of Time) and save her imprisoned family (including Zagreus). And what a mission it would be.
Much like the original, Hades II would focus on taking out rooms of enemies, each one successfully done, awarding you with a random choice of perks. This might be coins (used at Charon’s shop), materials (more on this shortly) or Olympic awarding Boons, each of these granting Melinoe some kind of boost in her abilities. The latter proves arguably most important, essentially helping you create a unique build of powers for Melinoe to help defeat the escalating intensity of enemies that await. Hestia, for instance, will provide your attacks with a range of fiery effects that burn enemies. One of my favourites, Hephaestus, adds some rather tasty explosive effects to your arsenal, perfect for dealing with crowd control. The more you return and play, the more of these Boons you’ll discover and experiment with, and just like the original, learning what Boons work best with what and even accidentally stumbling across some surprisingly effective combos by mistake is not only satisfying but hugely exciting.
You’ll collect a lot of materials in your attempts, which are used to create incantations providing upgrades or even advancing your progression. It might be something small, like adding coin-awarding urns on runs, or it may be something much more impactful, such as unlocking the ability to upgrade your weapons or change them entirely. This resource gathering gives the game a satisfying way in which to improve your odds at beating a run, expanding the original game’s system massively.
Of course, this being a roguelike, you’ll fail… a lot, particularly in the early goings. Failure is just part of the process, though, and with every run, new information is gathered – Boons that don’t quite click with you or the weapon you’re using, enemy attack behaviours, guardian battles and more. Furthermore, it’s this trial and error that makes every run so interesting and unique, where even a single choice of Boon can dramatically alter the way you approach fights.
It’s through these repeated efforts that you’ll get to know the game’s cast of exceptionally written and acted characters even more. While many games will simply advance their narrative through cutscenes or events, Hades II does so in a more organic fashion through its conversations. What’s more, it’s truly mind-boggling the sheer count of unique chats you’ll have with its characters, not to mention how they will reflect what has happened on your runs. Going up against a boss only to fall victim and noting how another character down the line acknowledges your failure is the sort of magic trick that never grows tiring. It certainly helps that the tale itself is an engaging one that had me gripped from run one to run 101.
The Crossroads – your main hub – proves just as engaging, too, every failed run transporting you back to the warmth of its familiar sights. It offers you the chance to talk to your slowly growing set of characters, tend to your seeds, upgrade your gear, make a few purchases, expand the Crossroads itself and more.
Combat, while similar, features a few subtle but certainly impactful changes. Yes, you’ll certainly be slashing and dashing your way through biomes, but to walk into Hades II expecting the same approach you took in the first will guarantee victory and will no doubt end in disaster. For starters, your casts (originally projectiles absorbed into enemies) now conjure circles on the ground, impacting and slowing enemies that get caught inside. Dashing – something you could eventually complete three times in succession in the original game, making Zagreus a zip-zapping machine – has been dialled back to just the one, a change that at first makes the game feel a tad slower overall. To make up for this limitation, players can now sprint by holding the dash button, an interesting change and one that alone can make the game feel distinctly different to the first. Perhaps the biggest addition, however, is Omega moves, more powerful charged versions of your basic attacks. Using these will cost Magick, a finite source that, as you continue to play and unlock more abilities, can regenerate, opening the door to bigger and more powerful combos of attacks.
All this is before you even get into the game’s numerous trials, familiars, relationships, and so much more. Quite frankly, it’s astonishing just how much there is to discover in here, making even the first game seem small by comparison. This is no more evident than when you realise that there are essentially two runs to consider, down to the Underworld and upward to the surface, both presenting very different enemies and even unique layouts.
From a presentation standpoint, it should come as little shock to learn that Hades II looks and sounds incredible. For starters, the music complements the action on screen wonderfully, while voice acting is up to the high standards we expect from Supergiant. As for the visuals, these don’t disappoint either stylistically or in terms of detail. In fact, I even went back to the first game (an already beautiful game) and was shocked to see just how much clearer and more detailed Hades II looked in comparison.
A sequel is always a hard thing to pull off. On one hand, you want to push things forward with fresh and exciting ideas, but on the other, you don’t want to alienate fans of the original nor make it feel too detached. Hades II, in my opinion, manages to deliver in every way possible. Bigger, better and even sexier, there’s no excuse for any Nintendo Switch 2 owner not to have this in their library.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Supergiant Games
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