When I'm driving, there's nothing more annoying than detours. They slow me down and make my drive longer. I'm a destination driver. I want to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. I'm not interested in sightseeing. I'll notice interesting things along the way, but I'm not stopping.
I play games the same way. I'll inevitably get distracted, particularly in open-world games, but eventually, the main missions call out to me. Besides, by following the golden path, I'm progressing towards the end, and I'm soaking in the most important elements of the story. Once I'm done, I can finish the side missions or replay the game.
Hades II doesn't let me play this way. The way it forces me to engage with things I don't want to engage with makes me weary, and now I'm reluctantly playing.
Between the second section and third section when descending (I'm being vague to avoid spoilers), I was doing run after run, losing to the same boss and wasn't earning good items to make longer runs. But once I equipped the Hephaestus stone, I made significant progress and thought I might be able to beat the game.
Then I maxed out the stone's level, and I suddenly stopped receiving Hephaestus's boons. I would go through multiple encounters without any boon reward. Almost every encounter featured nectar as a reward. Even when I returned to the Crossroads after dying, I got nectars. Previously, I could reliably beat the second boss, but now I lost multiple times because I didn't have enough power. That's when it dawned on me that Hades II is forcing me to engage with something I don't care about, or even need.
Most rougelikes (or roguelites, whatever) allow you to progress straight through—A to B. You're free to engage or disengage with any of the content that's not critical to beat the game. This is true of the first Hades. This is why it felt unique to the roguelike genre: the story organically intertwined with failed runs. Extra conversations or side content was optional. Sometimes, you would be rewarded for doing them, but importantly, it was optional. Now Supergiant is saying all of the content is important, but I'm not convinced that it is.
Most of the conversations I've had with these great characters have not led to narrative insights or rewards. Dora's awesome, but there's only so many ways to tell me that you don't like to move around. I just failed a run; I don't care. Tell me something that's going to help me or at least give me deeper understanding of the character. Deep character insights happen so infrequently that it feels like I'm playing the lottery when I decide to chat with someone. And we're talking about 17 hours into the game. That kind of dearth of content tells me it's filler. And filler is a waste of time.
I don't care about giving nectars to every god that shows up. I understand they give rewards, but I haven't needed them for success. I've reached Chronos multiple times. I've never lost to his first phase. I don't need rewards; I need reps. And I can't get them because Supergiant wants me to go on these pointless narrative detours.
What made Hades an extraordinary game was its intention to allow people to engage in whatever way they wanted while still delivering a potent and concise story. You were rewarded for failed attempts by getting a new meaningful wrinkle in the story. Hades II is too bloated to achieve that.
I like each element within Hades II. But if I just want to power up my arcana cards and do a few incantations, the game tells me I'm playing wrong. I don't want to avoid the content forever; I just don't want to do it now. I want to get to my destination. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
