Hades 2
I only played Hades 1 after the early access period was over. During the development of the game I kept up with it due to the great documentaries posted by the NoClip YouTube channel. I didn’t have a gaming PC at the time and when I did get one I just waited for the final release to experience the game in a “finished” state. I always regretted this since I had a lot of enjoyment of seeing the updates and changes and thought that I missed out on the Hades experience by only playing after version 1.0.
Because of that I decided to buy Hades 2 right at the start of the “Early Access” period. Now with a gaming PC (and later a Steam Deck) I could see the game develop in real time. Unfortunately I think this was a case of “be careful what you wish for” and, despite loving the game, the early access period didn’t contribute to a more enjoyable experience.
It took a while to “click” with the game. The early access period was a time of testing the balance of enemies and weapons and that meant that not everything was polished like on the first game. The sequel also has a different gameplay style, more focused on spells and keeping enemies at a distance, that I struggled to adapt to at the start. Eventually the combat did click and I saw the fun in it, it’s probably even better than the first game. Some of this was due to me becoming more familiar and experienced in it, but I do believe that if I had played the game after the early access period was over it would have been smoother.
Due to my slow progress the first time I beat the first main boss it was already at the end of the Early Access period. I wasn’t dedicated enough to read (or even understand) the patch notes and there was no cool documentary this time either so a lot of the new things and changes just went over my head. I did notice somethings, the most obvious ones but most of the time I wasn’t sure if something was happening due to an update or because I progressed in the game.
My underwhelming feelings around the Early Access period aside, I did end up loving the game. I played it for close to 80 hours (it’s much larger than the first game) and enjoyed most of those hours. The way Supergiant Games created a rogue-like game that encourages further play by slowly revealing the story and adding character interactions still works incredibly well. The new areas and weapons are great and it feels better than the first game to play as well.
This text ended up a bit more negative than I expected. After more than a year and 80 years the game might have suffered from being too big and I was ready for it to end. The gameplay is good but the variety didn’t hold for this long and I keep coming back to blaming the “early access” part of it which colors my judgment and feelings over this whole thing. Still, it is a fantastic game that I loved even if after reading this it might not seem like it.