Hades 2 Tech Test Review

Hades 2 Technical Test Review

If you search “Best Indie Games of All Time”, Hades shows up number one on most of the search results and if it isn’t first, it’s very high on the list. The reason for this is simple: Hades broke the mold. Hades actually broke the mold for roguelikes and created a new mold for the genre moving forward. Hades had precision gameplay, and very strong visuals, but what truly set Hades apart from the competition was a great story, excellent writing, and superb voice acting. It everything that you could ask for from a roguelike and more.

Based purely on the technical test, Hades 2 somehow manages to find ways to improve upon the original in three areas.

Improvements

The first area that felt different was the visuals. Hades was a beautiful game, but either the artists are getting better or Supergiant has more time to focus on other aspects of the game, considering that they are using the same foundation as the first. The world has more detail, the colours pop off the screen and there are visuals effects that happen in battle that help with immersion. On a tangentially related note, the tech test runs flawlessly on Steam Deck.

Secondly was the altar system, which is basically a perk system. The best way to think of this is like the charm system from Hollow Knight. You have 10 points to allocate to some perks before you head out on each run and each perk is worth a set amount of points. Recovering three health after exiting a room cost you one perk point and having an increased 20 health and 20 magic as a baseline will cost you two perk points. It was a fun system that does give the player more flexibility.

The third and final way that Hades 2 improves upon the original is with resource gathering or mining. At the starting hub, you can unlock tools. The first one that you unlock is a pick axe, which allows you to mine silver from the stone, which you will be able to spend on items and upgrades back at the hub. Having another form of upgrades is always welcome and it will be interesting to see where this system goes as the Tech Test only gave a slight taste of it.

MORE OF WHAT YOU ALREADY LOVE

If you loved Hades, then Hades 2 is going to be more of exactly what you love. It’s the same Hades formula with a story just as engaging as the original that is very hard to put down and somehow manages to always convince you to do just one more run or one more room. Before you know it, hours have been lost to Cronos himself.

At the start of 2024, we compiled a list of nearly 60 of the best indie studios and refined it to the Top 5, and Supergiant placed second. As we wanted a list representative of the current output of the studio, it only looked at their last two games. For Supergiant, it was Pyre and Hades. If you consider that Hades had a review average of 93, it would seem like Hades 2 will do just as well based purely on the tech test. Supergiant are going to make a very strong argument for first place on the list when Hades 2 releases out of early access