Summary

• Slow down with the Game of the Year talk – it's only June.
• Hades 2 is a solid sequel but has a lot missing and needs balancing.
• It's still enjoyable, but not Game of the Year-worthy.

I’ve seen multiple people say that Hades 2 is a shoe-in for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game of the Year. What, and I cannot stress this enough, the heck? Listen, I liked Hades as much as the next person and the sequel’s early access period is a roaring success, but this unfinished slice of a game is in no way, shape, or 🌌form a Game of the Year contender.

Firstly, I would like to point out that it’s June. One of my biggest bugbears in games media is people describing games as “Game of the Year contenders” before October. Have you played all the games that will be released this year in February, when you’re saying 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a Game of the Year contender? No, it’s a meaningless platitude that doesn’t say anything about the game itse🌸lf. It doesn’t help that this phrase seems to be reserved for triple-A games with impressive visual fidelity, either.

Aside from that, I don’t believe that an in-progress game can possibly be Game of the Year. Perhaps a half-finished 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur’s Gate 3 would be better than a completed 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lord of the Rings: Gollum, b🐻ut it wouldn’t be better than every game released that year. The same goes for Hades 2.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Hades 2 is an accomplished sequel. It’s building on the first game in myriad ways. The magic system is bet♏ter, if a little overtuned. The dialogue and narrative is excellent, probably its strongest point in its current state, and the new and returning character designs are spot-on, too. It’s more 🐼polished and less janky than I expected at this stage of development, and I’ve barely encountered any bugs.

That said, there’s a lot missing. Not all of the weapons are implemented, and one is vastly more powerful than the others. On that note, balancing is way off. Attacks that use mana are way too strong, and there’s no reason to select boons that buff any of your other attacks. I also think some of the boons could be reworked, but that’s a smaller issue. Some characters don’t have portraits. There’s no endgame. The story falters and flops because the rest of the game isn’t finished. That’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:all fine for an early access game, it’s par for the course꧂. But if it were any other game, if it were fully released and in contention for the industry’s biggest awards, we’d laugh it out of the room.

Hades is immensely popular, and I understand why everyone is excited about the sequel, but let’s not get carried away here. This game isn’t Game of the Year material in its current state and, if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure it will be when it’s finished. I have no way of kno🔯wing, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t have that same magic as the original for me.

Hades rewrote the roguelike rulebook. It threaded a narrative so cleverly through your runs that it blew our ⛄collective mind. It was fresh, new, and exciting, and it’s no wonder that countless developers have tried to ape it since, or that Supergiant has gone back for more.

The problem is, that’s a lot for a sequel to live up to. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Supergiant has always prided itself on unique and innovative experiences, and Hades 2 is not that. Instead, it’s a safe bet, an iterative experience that builds on the first game, but never excites you in the way something entirely new would❀. It may well end up being better than the first game, but it will never be more original.

I shed a tear for the Supergiant game that we could have had instead of the seque▨l. Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, Hades. Name a studio with a more exciting and varied first four games. Hades 2 bucks that trend, and not for the be🎉tter.

The game’s name itself is representative of the decision to jump back into this successful hellhole. Hades 2. It’s not called Chronos, named for the antagonist in the same manner as the first game. I𒀰t’s not called something completely new. It’s the same name as the first game, with a 2 afterwards.

I can’t begrudge Supergiant for making this decision. Hades was by far and away the studio’s most successful game, and in an industry as volatile as this, you have to follow the money. By going back for more ⛎Hades, Supergiant is giving the fans what they want, but also securing the futures of its developers for at least the next few years, possibly longer. But it’s still a shame to see a game so iterative from such a creative studio.

There’s no real point to this rant. I wanted to remind people to analyse the things you love critically. Think before you speak. I have immense fun while playing Hades 2, I have a grin plastered across my face as I plough through early access. But let’s not pretend that it’s something it’s not. It’s not new. It’s not particularly innovative.🐎 And it’s certainly not, in this unfinished, unbalanced state, Game of the Year material.