Hands on with Hades II - Preview
When the first Hades entered early access, I was tempted to get it as Greek mythology is something I am passionate about, but I held off. When it shadow dropped onto Nintendo Switch, I knew I had to get it and hundreds and hundreds of runs later, I was very happy I did. When Hades II was revealed, I knew it was ging to come to Nintendo Switch, it would not make sense for it to not, but Nintendo Switch 2, that was not as expected.
Now I will be up front here, I have played Hades II before, though it was before the early access release and only via a technical build. This was not the full release of course, as the game is still very much in development, but it was more game than I was expecting to see, so I consider it a win. The build that was on offer was unlimited in the amount of runs I could undertake, just limited in the amount of time I had, as it was capped at 15 minutes. Now as I didn’t want any story spoilers, I sort of mashed A to get through any dialogue, which also meant I could complete as many runs as I could, and boy did I.
What I found good about the build on Nintendo Switch 2, is that everything felt as good as I remember Hades being on Nintendo Switch. The Y button is still your primary attack, X is your alternate attack, with A being your magical attack. I didn’t need to know anything about Melinoë, I just ran into a room and once the enemies appeared I started to attack. Much like when I first played Hades, discovering what enemies did what attacks and what the best options for countering them were, was half the fun. Eventually I came across a boss and was able to put some serious time into beating it, but I was the one who was beaten. Thankfully on my second run through, I was able to take it down and push forward onto a new room, but thanks to some enemies with a passion for screaming, I was defeated here.
Having been successful against the mini-boss, I was ready for another go and after beginning the run, I was confident, perhaps too confident. The first few rooms proved to be easy enough, I soon encountered that boss and was able to take it down with little fuss, showing that I was learning. But that overconfidence was my undoing as a few rooms later, I found myself dashing around like a madman and got stuck behind a big enemy and was taken out. But that was ok, I was ready for another run, but my time was up.
Going into my time with Hades II I knew what to expect, I knew the controls, the combat and the basics of the story. So, I knew that I would have a good time and you know what, I had a good time. While I could easily jump into the game on PC today, I will wait for the Nintendo Switch 2 release, because I played the first one on Nintendo Switch. Because of my playing Hades II and now talking about it, I will also admit that I jumped back into the first game for a few runs, it is just that good.
Hades II does not have a release date for the 1.0 release on PC or both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
