History VideoGame / HadesII

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fjf7b7mveaefpkk.jpg]]
''[[caption-width-right:350:[[TagLine Go kill time]].]]''

* SequelEscalation: ''Hades II'' had an Early Access at launch which featured more biomes, characters, boons, and overall content than ''the entire final version of the first game''. A major contributor to this is the fact that there are two separate paths this time, one for the underworld and one for the surface, each with their own different areas and bosses.

Just like the first game, each night you set off as the Princess of the Underworld will involve going from room to room, [[KillEnemiesToOpen killing enemies to open the next chamber]] and finding power-ups along the way. As you fight, die, and sometimes win, you'll gradually unlock more and more resources for your task at night. There's a multitude of Arcana cards for stat boosts, weapons for playstyles, keepsakes for upgrade powers, and various incantations to invoke your will. All of this is done to slowly but surely grow more powerful, and gradually expand the game's content.

** Your MP functions this way. Noramlly, your MP completely refills when you enter a new chamber, an Arcana card causes a small MP regeneration effect, and there's Boons to make MP slowly recover as well. However, without these Boons or Arcana, you're limited by what you have available.
** Magic can be Primed, which functions as reducing your max MP in exchange for a passive buff. For instance, Aphrodite has a Boon which Primes twenty MP in exchange for increasing your attack power.
** There's multiple different tools for gathering resources you find in the world -- a spade for seeds, a pickax for minerals, a tablet for purging souls (which gives you Essence), and a fishing rod for fish. In the original Early Access release, you could only gather one type of resource each night. However, the first major patch changed this so that you can gather any type of resource, but whichever tool you choose will have its respective resource show up far more often.

** In the first game, Zagreus couldn't survive for very long on the surface, because those of the House of Hades are tied to the Underworld and thus can't survive in the land of the living. When Melinoë tries to do the same thing, she gets the same result, and [[UnwinnableByDesign it's impossible to progress beyond a few rooms before she suffers an unavoidable death]]. [[spoiler:That is, until she learns an incantation to briefly surpress this problem and ascend to the surface without the curse.]]

* DownTheDrain: Oceanus, the game's 2nd zone - in sharp contrast to the [[VideoGame/{{Hades}} original game's]] [[LethalLavaLand Asphodel]]. It's home to easily-burst pipes full of scalding-hot steam, as well as a great many hungry sea monsters - including an entire rock band made up of sirens.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Like its predecesor, the endgame boss is one of the most powerful beings in Greek Mythology. Although this time, it's not the eponymous God of the Dead but rather ''his'' own father, who exceeds Hades in power. However, you are most definitely capable of defeating Chronos all the same.
** This trope is also [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] like the last game as the final boss's "death" is not enough to put them down permanently. For Chronos, being a fundamental concept of the universe itself (ie. the concept of time) makes him essentially immortal. He will proclaim how futile it is to stop him as he will always return, not that it will stop {{Determinator Melinoë}} (and by extension, the player) from trying anyways.
*** [[spoiler: Progression into the game reveals that there is a spell that Meli can use to put down her grandfather permanently though it is not unlockable yet due to the early development of the game.]]
* DissTrack: "I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes then Drown You to Death)" is one from Scylla and the Sirens to Melinoë, which shows up after a few runs. Scylla's lyrics accuse Melinoë of being obsessed with the Sirens, says that her dress looks like "it's from the garbage", and that Melinoë's hair looks like something died in it.

* ForcedTransformation: The Twilight Curse [[LimitBreak Hex]] launches a homing projectile that turns enemies into harmless sheep. Hecate also opens the last phase of her boss fight with this, and if Melinoe is hit by it she'll become a sheep that can't attack for a few seconds.

* ObviousRulePatch: In the original game, Athena's Deflect buff was ''the'' [[invoked]] GameBreaker, allowing Zagreus to get through the game basically unscathed while dealing massive damage to {{Mook}}s and guardians alike. Athena is preoccupied fighting the war with Chronos, and as such, isn't able to offer her Boons to Melinoë, meaning Deflect isn't in the game.

* ZombieAppcalypse: [[spoiler:Chronos revives legions of the undead to fight for him on the surface, as both Thanatos and Hades are imprisoned.]]

* ZombieArmy: [[spoiler:Chronos's forces on the surface are this, as both Thanatos and Hades are imprisoned, and he can raise an undead army with impunity.]]

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu : Like its predecesor, the endgame boss is one of the most powerful beings in Greek Mythology. Although this time, it's not the eponymous God of the Dead but rather ''his'' own father, who exceeds Hades in power. However, you are most definitely capable of defeating Chronos all the same.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulu: Like its predecesor, the endgame boss is one of the most powerful beings in Greek Mythology. Although this time, it's not the eponymous God of the Dead but rather ''his'' own father, who exceeds Hades in power. However, you are most definitely capable of defeating Chronos all the same.
** This trope is also [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] like the last game as the final boss's "death" is not enough to put them down permanently. For Chronos, being a fundamental concept of the universe itself (ie. the concept of time) makes him essentially immortal. He will proclaim how futile it is to stop him as he will always return, not that it will stop [[Determinator Melinoë]] (and by extension, the player) from trying anyways.

* WhateverHappenedToTheMouse: While the game adds four new Olympians to get Boons from-- Apollo, Hephaestus, Hera, and Hestia-- three of the Gods from the original game are conspicuously absent. While dialog from Apollo confirms that Athena is engaged in the defense of Olympus, there is no word on what's happened to either Ares or Dionysus.

* MutuallyExclusiveBuff: A few of the Arcana cards can't be activated manually and have certain conditions that need to be fulfilled to 'Awaken' them, and some come with conditions that ensure that all of the Arcana can't be active at the same time.

* BossAlteringConsequence: In the final area of the Underworld, you can find an NPC who can give you Boons, some og which affect your battle with Chronos. These effects include making Chronos summon only half the normal amount of {{Mook}}s, or making him take twenty percent of his max HP in damage when the fight starts. [[spoiler:This NPC is Hades himself, using Melinoë as a measure of revenge against the Titan.]]

* RelationshipValues: Similar to the first game, Melinoë can deepen her relationship with some of her allies at the Crossroads by gifting Nectar as well as fishing with them.

-->'''CAN TIME NOT BE STOPPED?'''

* RoyalBlood: One of the reasons Melinoë was chosen for the task is her authority over House of Hades, permitting her access to special routes only available to rulers of the Underworld. The Service Entrance unseals and the chambers rearrange into the Express Route by her command. Only the main doors to the House proper do not respond to her anymore, forcing her to take an alternate route through the sand-polluted River Styx.

** Hephaestus was described as lame in some myths. Here, his leg is fully missing and he uses a prosthetic replacement.

* GothicHorror: Arguably, this game has a lot of common imageries and themes of the classic Gothic Horror literary genre. First and foremost, our main protagonist Melinoë is a princess of the fallen royal Chthonic family who was trained as a witch under Hecate, the titaness of witchcraft with wizard hat on top, and brew with a large cauldron. She is destined to overthrow her tyrannical titan grandfather who took over the underworld. Her friend is a shade who likes to act like VengefulGhost. Her boon has lunacy-theme with Selene. And the enemies she faces along the way are werewolves, banshees, sirens, ghosts, living plants, or any monsters you would expect from classic Hammer Horror.

* PintSizedPowerHouse: [[spoiler:The King Vermin from the previous game returns as a mini-boss in Oceanus, newly christened [[OhCrap "Uh-Oh"]], which is precisely how Melinoë speaks when she hears the thing roar the first time:]]

** An excursion to the surface is UnwinnableByDesign, as Melinoë has the same problem that her brother Zagreus has: she's tied to the Underworld, and can't survive in the land of the living. Running out of HP from this curse just instantly kills you no matter how many Death Defiances you have left, so you aren't just sitting around waiting for what you've already figured out is coming.

* PintSizedPowerHouse: [[spoiler:The King Vermin from the previous game returns as a mini-boss in Oceanus, newly christened the phrase Melinoë speaks when she hears the thing roar the first time: [[OhCrap "Uh-oh".]] ]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: The first game was a largely comic affair mostly focused on the troubled relationships of the House of Hades, with Zagreus being all too used to his current situation to a degree where all he can do is joke about it right from the start. By contrast, this game immediately deals with a [[TitanomachyRoundTwo much more dramatic premise]] where Melinoë has lost her entire family - to the point she wasn't even able to be raised among them - and her quest is far more directly to take revenge on Chronos and free them. Even the visual style is far darker, and nearly every new NPC deals with at least some gothic characterization and styling, while many of the encounters one can find in individual runs have an almost surreal and disturbing bent to them. Fittingly, Melinoë is rather serious, if rather cute and endearing, compared to the endlessly sardonic and free-spirited Zagreus.