Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Hades 2 Early Access Impressions - The Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Tim, Blessing, Andy, and Parris give their thoughts on their first weekend with Supergiant's Hades II Early Access. Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Hades 2 Early Access Impressions - How the Gameplay has Evolved - Do I need to play Hades I Before Playing II’s Early Access? - Ads - Should You Wait for Hades II 1.0? - The Boss Fights - What Should the Early Access Improve? - How’s It Run on the Deck? - The Grind - How are the Weapons? - Favorite Upgrades Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Monday, May 6th, 2024. Of course, I am Tim Geddes and I am joined by the new face of video games blessing at Eo Ye Jr. Good day, Tim. Good day to you. And good day to you as well, the nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Good morning. And rounding out the group today, calling in from beautiful sunny San Diego, California.

It's Paris, Lily. Hey, good morning, everybody. Really happy to be here today. I am very happy to have all of you here today. This feels like one of those lucky ones. It's a blessed day. It is. The fact that we get to talk about Hades to everybody.

The early access is out now. A very, very surprise shadow drop. We were very lucky enough to have it the last couple days, so we've been able to play. But now everybody gets to play. So y'all listen to us, talk about this. Me and Andy are going to stream it after this, but you too could be playing this magnificent, magnificent video game.

But of course, enough about all that. Let me give you some reminders real quick. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast where each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free. Watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be part of this show, you can submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube superchats as we go. So if you have anything to say about Hades 2, any questions about what we've got to experience in the early access,

how it differs from the first game, what your experience was with the technical test, any of that stuff, super chatted in, we will get to it. Some housekeeping for you, Kind of Funny Games is an 11-person small business that's all about live talk shows. Today, you've already gotten PlayStation reversing course on Hell Divers 2 on Kind of Funny Games Daily

that you can check out on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services. Up next, like I said, me and Andy are going to be streaming Hades 2. on YouTube and Twitch. And if you're a kind of funny member, we got a whole bunch of fun for you as well. Today's Greg Way is a secret that you won't want to miss. And you are going to get blessed. Do you know the secret?

No. Okay. I don't know either. I have no idea. It's fun stuff. It's a little switcheroo. You know what it is. But, yeah, it's happening because you and Roger are going to be breaking down

everything that's been going on in the world of Kendrick Lamar and Drizy Drake out there. and everyone else. If you remember, you get to watch today, otherwise you'll have to wait until tomorrow to get it on YouTube and podcast services. Thanks for making our dreams of reality. Patreon producers, Delaney Twining, Karen Hobes, Abian, and Carl Jacobs.

Today we're brought to you by All Our Frames, Shady Ray's in Better Help, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with what is, and forever will be the topic of the show. It's Hades, too, everybody. Paris, Lily. I want to start with you real quick.

How long have you played Hades II early? access and what are your thoughts so i've probably played about 18 to 20 hours of it this weekend and um i'm pretty much completely head over heels in love with this game um i was late to the party with the first hades um i didn't join join the bandwagon until you know a good year or two until after the game was out so when they first announced that hadies two was going to be a thing i got super excited about it. I actually didn't put a lot of time into the technical test. I was busy with other things. So this was my first real time to sink some some real time into Hades 2 and play it and understand the new mechanics and just everything about it. It's phenomenal. This is

taking the template of that first Hades game and listening to all the feedback from people that played it and just the great lessons learned with this. It's a complete improvement. of everything of the original game. This is phenomenal. I can't even believe this is early access. Just put it out now. It's great already. It's fantastic.

I'm stumbling over my words trying to say it. But yeah, it's great. I love this game. Yeah, thoughts that I feel like might be repeated a lot today. Blessing, what did you think about this? And how long have you put into it so far? I put in probably around 12 hours into this so far. And yeah, I think Paris hit the nail on the head in terms of it doesn't even feel like

early access. I had to go over to the Igen review to actually figure out because Mitchell, Saltzman has played through the whole thing over there. And like he had to break down that, um, let's see, he talks about how there's some placeholder art assets. Uh, there are still more weapon aspects to come. There's a weapon missing from the Arsenal six. Uh, there's no currently no proper story ending.

And there's still another planned, uh, region, um, that's coming in a future update. But like, for the 12 hours that I've played, I'm like, I would have, I wouldn't have known, right? Like, this feels like such a full experience. I've played enough to like, have it feel so far. Like, it's way more bigger. and way deeper than Hades 1 was, which is wild to think about.

I think the biggest way to put it, and, you know, I think this might almost be hyperbolic at the stage, but for where I'm at with the game, I'm really feeling it, this reminds me of the jump from Portal 1 to Portal 2, where Portal 1 came through, and you play it, and you're blown away,

and it's such a good concept, it's such a good execution, and it's like a nice tight package, and you finish it, you're like, wow, incredible. Playing Hades 2, it is shocking the amount of things that just feel seamlessly, just better.

right? Like one of the things I've talked about with the technical test is that I, in Hades won, the dash attacks and like how much I'm dashing in that game always felt a bit, but I'm actually in a way that I didn't fully vibe with. That's one of the things they've kind of tweaked here where, of course, they still have dashes and all that stuff. And there are like dashed attack stuff, but it's way less emphasized. And now sprinting is way more emphasized as a way to get around the map. That is like a small example among so many examples now that I've been able to find of just ways that they've tweaked it. The new weapons are so good and way more veiled. and I think way more interesting than the first game. The environments, when you go from region to region, the way that things are set up to feel a bit more varied, I think is really impressive. The first game has had areas that you would get to, especially like the fourth area in the first game,

had a gimmick to it where it's, okay, no, this is a nice switchup. This game has way more of those in ways where it's like, wow, you guys really found ways to continue to keep this fresh and keep it interesting. And yeah, there's so much to talk about in terms of characters, stories, crafting, finding resources, how much that stuff

loops back together and how well-paced out all that stuff is. It feels like I'm playing a masterclass in video game design right now. But yeah, I'm absolutely loving Hades too so far. Andy, how long have you put in? What's you thinking? I'd say I'm around 12 to 13 hours in

and yeah, the seamless nature of all these interconnected systems that work so perfectly with each other and it's one of those things where you have to have somebody experienced it to understand how good it is

because I know a lot of the questions can be well what makes it different from Hades 1 and that's something that I think needs to be experienced because on the service level it looks and feels very similar right and it's but that's not a bad

it's hey your favorite restaurant they just build a new one a block away from you like oh should I get to have more of my favorite restaurant and it's like it's just yeah like Blessie was mentioning it's a masterclass in game design. It kind of makes you, it kind of makes me realize after spending a decent amount of time with Hades 2. And of all the hours I put into Hades 1, and of all the years we've had to kind of reflect on Hades 1, like, oh, they kind of fucking

nailed it with Hades 1. And there was still some things that they could improve on in Hades 2. And so far, I'm seeing all those, all the fruits of their labor, right? Like the, it, honestly, I'm getting a lot of, oh, shit. there's an underground and an overworld and in the sky of link to the in uh in uh in tears the kingdom like how how are they doing that and

I'm getting some of those vibes here as well this world is so much larger than I expected it to be I I wasn't expecting to have this much access and early access and I wasn't expecting the game to be what feels to be this much bigger than Hades one was

um yeah I love the weapons all of the the interplay play with these systems and abilities. It's so much fun. It's got just one of the most satisfying loops to get back and, you know, oh, I

was mining silver that run and now I have a bunch of these plants that I can then plant and if any of that feels, if any of that turns you off, don't worry. It's not like that. Like it's not. It's just so easily and so seamlessly designed in there.

It's a masterpiece. I love when games trick you into enjoying the crafting systems and the resource gathering because I'm so not the resource gathering person I don't play survival games and stuff like that but this game has such an excellent

all right and I was talking to Tim about this earlier today like you go out in a run and you're like all right like I'm gonna get these resources that I know I need to get the specific thing and then I'll probably call it for the day you do that you end up fucking going for the run because early on the game does such a good job of giving you these builds

where it's like well I gotta see this through but you finally finish it you get back and it's all right let me craft the thing that I wanted to craft and as you're crafting it you see another thing and you're like oh snap let me do this

this next thing's ready it's right there and it's like oh let me just do let me just do another room let me just do the first room make sure I can get this thing and it continues to go and it's so good

Tim how do you feel all right man this game so far is one of the biggest surprises in video games I think I've ever had in so many different ways one of them being

the early access is as substantial and out now you know what I mean like that's so much sooner I feel like all of us would have expected earliest summer game fest maybe we get that shadow drop or something but for it to come out now just feels so wild to me just in the the cadence of how video games have been coming out the technical

test being just a couple weeks ago i fell in love with that i put about five hours into it and i just wanted so much more and when we found out the early access was coming this soon i was like whoa like how much more is there really going to be i cannot believe how much more there is like this feels like such a complete game. Right now I am about 10 hours into this into the early access. So 15 total into Hades 2. And every step of the way, I am just blown away by how invested I am in in every single mechanic and every single thing that they add. And it is the ultimate, all right, just one more run type game. But what Bless and I were talking about is not only is it the, all right, I'm just going to do one more run. It's also then getting back to the crossroads, which is essentially your like hub

area in this one. And being like, all right, cool. I'm just going to check in with everybody and see what's going on with the support systems of talking to people and seeing who's new here or like what new weird things happening or what door opened up or what chest that wasn't there before is now there. All right. Now I'm going to do one more run. All right.

Now I'm just going to do one more check in the crossroads. It's like such a good back and forth of what we're doing. And I, the gameplay is just so masterful. and the way that every single weapon, every single ability you get, I didn't think you could improve much on Hades 1. And I think that's going to be a common theme of what people talking about this.

Hades 1 was just so special and so great. We've talked about it here for so long. And like for me, it is definitely a little out of my comfort zone in the type of game that it is. But I was still satisfied with how I felt like I was making progress with every run, even though I have to go back from the beginning.

But like, you're getting new story beats. You're getting upgrades that stick with you. It hit a point in Hades 1. that, I mean, Haiti's one to me is a five out of five, but there were some runs that I was like, okay, I'm doing this just to get to the next run

because I know this run's not going to work for me. So far in Hades 2, every run, I'm surprised at how I feel like I might get farther than I did last time, no matter what build I have. And that's such a great game design thing of just like,

no matter what abilities you get or are boons or anything, you feel like, oh, I can do something different with this run that I haven't been able to do before. and it is so impressive that then I have my mindset of, oh man, if I don't have this weapon, this isn't the one for me. And all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, wait, maybe I like this thing better.

And I don't think I dislike any of the abilities. Well, that's not true. The heck system, I still don't fully have my head wrapped around. The heck system. Oh, never mind. I'm thinking of a different. I'm thinking of the caste system. The heck system, I might be with you.

But it's so far, I am just so blown away that, like, moments and moment to moment, that's all happening with gameplay. And then I get back to the crossroads. and is there unlimited dialogue in this game? Like, it's crazy how much there. Are there writers writing this in real time? I just don't understand, Paris. Go for it.

No, no. I'm so glad you went there because that's what I wanted to hit next. Look, the writing in Hades was already great. I don't think any of us will disagree with that. They've stepped their game up. This is so good. I would find myself in the first Hades wanting to hurry up and get through the dialogue

so I could get to the next thing. I was listening to everything that everyone had to say and it was interesting every time. So to your point, yeah, I don't know, maybe they got chat GPT running in the background and just keeping this thing going because it's really good and it's so varied depending coming off of each run that you have too, where it does feel like they are reacting to what you just did in the game. It's, it's so good. I think it's a lot more contextual than Hades one. Hades one had a lot of contextual dialogue, but here it is I came in with a keepsake and in the first boss I find is like, oh, you got a

keepsake from this person? Oh, that's interesting. And I'm like, damn, that's very specific that you're addressing this. Like, you know, that run, I can think of like four different things I did that were specific to that run where I run into somebody else and they're like, oh, fancy seeing you here. You've not been here in a second. And I'm like, damn, dude, you remember me.

Like, it's really cool. Clearing a boss with the tiniest amount of health. When you know the last couple times, you've completely just destroyed the boss. And this time, you barely made it and they're like, and I almost had you there. It's like, oh, it's so cool. There was one where, to give a very specific example that people will get if you played the technical test, that first boss, Hekatee, there's a move that they do where she throws like this blast

that'll turn you into a sheep and you got to like dodge around. I, for my first probably six runs couldn't dodge that and then finally went to my dodge and he's like, and she's like, oh, usually that hits. Yeah, that happens to me too. And I was like, that's fucking cool. I love the stuff that they're keeping track of to then add that bit of flare to the dialogue to keep it feeling like this. oh shit, like I am really, this is a personal experience I'm having with this game.

I think my favorite thing about it so far, though, is the commitment to systems that work and not trying to change something for the sake of change. And I could see there being, you know, a bit of temptation there within the developers are like, yeah, but we can't just keep that identical. We got to like change something there. And I love that they committed to the stuff that I think worked flawlessly in Hades 1, like the gifting one of these people

something you gift them a little thing of nectar and then they let you start off a run with their little special keepsake. Keepsake, right. And it's one of my favorite systems

from Hades 1 and I'm so glad that it's pretty much identical in Hades too except for the actual like, I guess enhancements you're getting for the run. But it's still super cool

that that system went largely untouched and I'm super happy about that and there's a lot of things like that in the game where I think a developer that maybe questioned themselves a bit too much may have tried to change something just to say that they changed it. And in here, the stuff that worked, I think, went largely unchanged here, and I'm super

happy about that. And I really like the stuff they changed so far. Like, the caste system in the Hades 1, I, like, I vibe with the idea of it. I think it worked in a lot of the execution, but there's so much of the execution that it didn't work for me. Can you explain the difference between Hades 1 cast and Hades 2 cast? Yeah, so the Hades 1 cast, you're basically throwing a projectile, like this red projectile that was kind of like attached to the enemies and then once you hit the enemy or once

you like beat the enemy you'll get the cast thing back and usually those might have like different effects depending on the boons that you get to upgrade it but usually I think it's something like oh yeah you'll hit them with the cast they take some damage they might take more damage if they have it in them and then you hit them back and then get it back in Hades too was the was the taking it back from them on an enhancement ability or was that always just the stock thing I think it was always just the stock thing okay got you I think what the effect it had before it came back to you, that was what... Gotcha.

Yeah, that was enhanced. But the Hades 2 cast now is an area of effect circle that you're now casting, right? It is more... Melunui, the main character, is more like... She has, like, more witchy kind of powers. And so you do this area of effect, and there are so many upgrades and so many boons attached to how you can do it. And so the default is you press the cast, it, like, forms a circle around you.

I don't even know what the default thing is. I think maybe enemies take more damage. It slows them down. It slows them down. pop up and like they have to stay they can't walk through it. Gotcha. But that's like the fault if you press that and then if you hold it, it does like a magic enhanced version

of it that I think does more damage as it goes away. It'll detonate essentially. Yeah. But there are so many different boons that you find to upgrade it and for me that's defined the bulk of my runs is what I'm doing with that ability because there will be some that turn it into a like a bomb that you can throw

essentially and so like it turns into a project out and then wherever it lands that's where the circle forms but then maybe you can be able to enhance that to then give some kind of like effect to the enemies right maybe make them curse maybe make them like whatever the thing is um there's uh depending on like who you're talking what boons you get there's another one that it where you form the cast at they'll automatically get like the lightning from zeus or whatever like there's so many different things that you can do with it and i find it way more useful and way more interesting than how it was used in hades one yeah essentially with

Hades 1 and 2, the cast and the special just flipped. Because in Hades 1, Zagirus's powers were the main weapon, and then the special was the special that that weapon is doing. And here the special is very similarly just that sort of like arrow, that casting. Go ahead, Peres. Yeah, yeah, I just want to pivot off of what Blessing was just saying. The thing that I'm loving the most about this is, first of all, with the casting, your special and your attack, there's basically that power up option to it.

where if you hold it down, depending on the type of boons that you get, it'll do some kind of effect, blast effect, or whatever the case, right? But I'm loving the build diversity overall that you can have through each run because of the various boons that you get and just, like of a better term, the diversity of them, each run feels so unique just because of that. I might go into a run. Like one thing that I was noticing is, and I'm with you, Tim, where this isn't necessarily my wheelhouse, but I don't feel that.

the difficulty, it's overly difficult, but I'm learning each time that I'm going in these runs and I'm finding most of the time it's because I'm, it's a new enemy that I'm running into and I just don't know what to do. But once I figure out what to do, then when I go in the next run, I'm like, all right, if I run into them again, all right, if I have this, this and this, I know how I'm going to take them out and what I'm going to do. So that to me is what is separating it from the first Hades where it does feel unique every time I go in. surprised at the amount of like unique dialogue stuff like we were talking about and like the the slim health or whatever it was but then also in hadies one again a lot of the stuff we're talking about had hadies two just has so much more of it at every single turn that i feel like it needs to be called out but the amount of times that i will be like 17 runs in and then on the 18th run all of a sudden one a room that i've been to a million times we go through a different door it feels like and not literally door but like there's someone else in there that it that brings the path completely differently.

And I'm just so shocked at how they keep throwing things at you and there's so many systems. There's so many abilities. There's the boons. Then there's the hex. Then there's the weapons that you're using. There's mixing them all together. There's the buffs that you

all that stuff. There's the enhancements that you kind of like level up and you get to keep with you as you like you go into different runs. There's the card system that you get to like you have a, I forget what it was called. grasp. Maybe it's grasp where you get a certain amount of points that you can

allocate to these different cards that each have different abilities, but that's different than the keepsakes. There's just so much that like it could be overwhelming. But when you just play and you don't worry about letting it overwhelm you, you just kind of like take things as it goes, it just constantly rewards you.

And I feel like that is going to what Andy was saying or maybe it was one of the Andy you're blessed talking about the farming simulator type stuff. I don't want to do this shit. It doesn't feel that way. It always feels like it's a one button press that's very clear of oh, in five

encounters, this silver thing is going to pop up and then I get the silver that I can then buy this other thing with. And it just all works in this amazing web that I'm just so shocked that the moment I feel like I've totally got my head wrapped around something, they introduce something else that not only adds

to everything we've done so far, but enhances everything we've done. It's the ultimate carrot on the stick. I constantly feel like all right, that next run, I'm going to get that thing that I, oh, man, you know, I can't wait. So it's constantly compelling me to want to keep playing and just do it over and over. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it is an incredibly pace game, like, to everything Tim's talking about.

Like, there is literally kind of a farming system. You plant stuff and you can, like, get back plants or whatever. And that feeds back into the crafting system. And the fact that, yeah, they're mixing all these things, it never becomes overwhelming. I think that comes back to how well they're pacing it and how they're tying these systems to characters to other systems like nothing. It's I feel like a lot of games will have a bunch of shit where it is

oh man all right well I got a farm I gotta do this I gotta do that I gotta do that all of this is contextualized within a ways that make me open to trying these different systems that typically if I looked at in other games the way they package I'm like oh no I'm good here I'm like no I got to plant this thing so I can get this other thing so I can get to this other area that I'm trying to get to and I think the pacing comes back to the difficulty

of it where I think the game does a very smart thing as a roguelite where I think think the first areas are fairly easy or at least on the easier side compared to like a lot of other rogolikes and i think the reason why they do that is one they want to get you in they want to get people in right they want to they want to allow people to ease into it and like you know not get discouraged early on but then also like the thing one of the things we haven't talked about so far is that the game has two paths now and so like quite a few out quite a few hours into the game you open up like an upstairs area that you're going down and that is where like the difficulty

hits you in the face early on and I think it's great they did it that way right where the first path that you have as you're going through like the difficulty hits you way later on in that path but in the other one it is all right here's where the rogue like sets in like here's where the difficulty sets in and I think it's done extremely well yeah remember you can get your super chats in here LeVStar says, should I play Hades 1 while I wait? Absolutely. Hades 1 is amazing.

And I personally feel like Hades is the type of game and Hades 2 that you can't play too much. You're not going to get sick of these games. There's just so much great stuff, whether it's the art, the VO, the gameplay itself. Like, there's so much good stuff. Having said that, somebody else asked this and their name's gone now.

But you could totally jump into Hades 2 without ever touching Hades 1 and have the best experience. ever. Like there's literally nothing that I feel like you'll be losing. Obviously if you played Hades 1 you're going to get the fun, oh, that's what that character's doing or that's what that character is. So far at least, none of

that stuff is like make or break for your experience though. Yeah, totally agreed. And yeah, just going back to when I was like initially first thinking about my experiences with the Hades 1 and how I've kind of been just chasing that rogue light high ever since.

And I've, I think maybe returnals as the closest I've gotten to having that feeling, but Hades 1 just did such a great job, and they nailed every aspect of what a roguelight needs to be with abilities and upgrades and making

every run feel like you're accomplishing something. And that is so helpful for Super Giant this time around to be able to say, hey, we kind of nailed everything. We're not really trying to create new systems from the ground up necessarily.

There's definitely some new stuff in this game, absolutely. but it it lends that they are in such a situation where they could just enhance everything that they needed to from the last game as opposed to like here's this brand new thing we're trying out we hope it works this time around they're like no let's just kind of double down on what already made hadies one great and change some things where we feel like you know we need to see some changes and and i think it's like they're in such a great position right now for the future of haides too yeah and i think uh jumping off of that, like a good example is just

the art itself. The art is gorgeous. Hades has one of the most defined art styles that we've ever seen. Like, it just works so damn well, but the classic kind of character arts popping up, which I mean, some of the best character art. No, yeah. There's not a bad-looking character in this game. Yeah, it's so, so cool to see them.

It's beautiful. And then they sound great and all that. But what's new for Hades too is there's these, like, effects when they're talking around them of kind of what we have going on with the video wall stuff where there's just like, slight motion or like little things happening or depending on where you're talking then there might be like trees or foliage that like kind of lightly comes in front and it's an effect that is so

subtle that if you're playing Hades 2 you might not even realize it wasn't in Hades 1 but seeing it's like oh this is where all the little enhancements are like you just took a amazing game and you're just like turning it into a masterpiece like little by little yeah I don't forget the music oh my god the music is incredible so good it is so good remember get your super chats in We're going to take a quick word from our sponsors, but when we're back, we're going to keep talking about Hades 2, early access. This episode's brought to you by Aura Frames. Looking for the perfect gift to celebrate the moms in your life? Aura frames are beautiful, Wi-Fi-connected digital picture frames that allow you to share and display unlimited photos. It's super easy to upload and share photos via the Aura app, and if you're giving an aura as a gift, you can even personalize the frame with preloaded photos and memories.

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And here's the thing. Normally, I would say yes. Just a couple weeks ago, we did an episode of Gamescast talking about early access and our thoughts on it and everything. And one of the biggest hurdles I had is, especially for a game that feels as complete as Hades 2 Early Access does, it's like, I don't want to put this much into a game and then not being able to continue over and all that. When you boot up 80s 2 Early Access, there's a thing that pops up that says like,

hey, roadmap for our future plans. and in it they say they're going to try their best to make all of this transfer over to the final game. So with that being said, for a game that's probably going to end up being like 50 hours plus get in man. There's so much game here.

Like I don't think you're going to be missing out on much. I, yeah, I tend to agree with that. I think especially if you know, we had the early playtest. We had that server playtest or whatever it is that they put out and you fought the first boss and whenever you were done

the first boss, he went right back to the beginning. I think if they only had one additional boss, maybe wait, you know, if maybe you got to the end of the second world and then you beat that boss and you restart, maybe in that case, wait, but man, we are, you know,

we are going way deep sort of in these gameplay loops that I, you know, I think bless you mentioned that there is one more boss that's missing, according to Mitchell Tossman. One region, one area. Yeah.

There is so much meat on this bone. Like, I think you should definitely hop in, especially, well, I can't guarantee that the price is cheaper now than it is going to be at release. I know a lot of early access games do that. I don't know if Hades is doing the same thing. I'll look that up right now, but I would say absolutely hop in right now if you have any interest because it is so much more massive than I really thought it was going to be during this early access period.

Yeah. What do you think, Blas? I mean, I'm conflicted. I'm with you guys. like, man, it is feature rich. And the idea of your saved progress possibly transferring over is a big, okay, well, this might be a fine thing. I do get bummed out about the idea that, man, I am 12 hours in.

I can see myself putting in 20 more hours and then getting to the end and they're not being an end yet. Like the idea of that kind of bones me out. And like, you know, of course, I'm putting myself into this. I'm going to playing the early axis. That's not on them. But I almost wish that I could have waited a bit and be like, yeah, let me just play this whole thing when it's out.

because I'm the kind of person to play things all in one go, right? I'm not the kind of person to play something, put it down, come back months later, play more, put it down, play and then come back months later. So that's kind of make me be like, oh, man, I don't know. But honestly, if you're the kind of person, if you're listening to me right now, and you're like, yeah, I don't mind playing 30 hours, 50 hours of a thing, and then coming back later, a year later, to see how it ends, then, yeah, go for it. Real quick, the Super Giant has mentioned that the,

$30 price, depending on the duration of early access and additional scope, the price may be raised at a later date. So they already kind of put that. It could be more expensive later on. Paris, what about you? Yeah, so I'm kind of, I look at it this way. Excuse me. If you love the first Hades, this being early access, like I said, I'm probably 18-ish hours into this. I feel like I'm still barely scratching the surface. So there's still so much more to do, this even being early access. Sure, you might have to wait for more. But look at it this way. Kind of look at it as an expansion packs at DLC. You get to play Hades 2 now. There's no way in hell I'd be waiting. I'm playing it because it's that polished already. And there's so much to do in it now. And there's the, I believe,

the path of punishment, kind of their new game plus in this as well, where you can modify difficulty as well. So there's still going to be stuff to do even once you do beat the final ball. So yeah, I say go for it. Pera, sticking with you for a sec. Dante, the clerk says if you have not played Hades 1, would you recommend playing Hades 1 first or skipping straight to 2? I would play one first because that game is that good

that I think you want to experience that. And I think it just enhances your experience going into Hades 2, knowing what the events of happen in Hades 1. Yeah, I don't agree with that. I think Hades, I think also just going in with the skill of having played Hades 1 and taking that into Hades 2. Like I think that's just going to enhance it more from the get-go. And you've been playing Hades 1 randomly recently, right? Yeah, very recently, I've been playing a lot more Hades 1.

And like, that comes from me having like not actually completed a run before. And I was like, you know what? Let me get back into it and see if I can do that. And so I'm playing a lot of Hades 1 recently. Funny thing is that after playing enough Hades 2 now, I'm like, oh, man, I might be fucking up Hades 1 right now. Like, I am so, I am, like, I'm having so much of a better time in Hades, too, right? And that's not saying that I didn't have a great time of Hades 1, because I did have a great time in Hades 1. But, like, it just feels like jumping forward in a way where I, like, I almost want to just put this down and be like, let me just commit and play as much Hades 1 as possible and finish this so that I can just fully usher myself into the second one.

But yeah, like, if you're somebody who's not played out there, I would say, yeah, play Hades 1. Like, like, focus on that. And then maybe when early access is up in the game Hades 2 was out and full release, pick it up then. If it comes down to, you know, Hades 1 is on a crazy sale right now and, you know, do I jump into Hades 2 that is not fully feature complete, although it feels like 80%, 85, 90% done. Yeah, hop into Hades 1, especially because hopping into Hades 2, you'll see a bit more of those enhancements. And I think playing Hades 2 first and then hopping back into Hades 1, you might start to feel. like, ah, this stuff is missing, this stuff is missing, or you may not, because I think, I largely do think like it, it is like just enough of an enhancement to feel the differences

there, but I would, I would hate to go back. I would hate for you to go back and feel like your experience, you know, is lessened because you've experienced the game, you know, years and years after a Super Giant has been able to really hone down on these systems. It is funny because after the technical test, when I didn't know how soon the early was coming. I was in such a Hades mood that I went back to Hades one, just a bit, just to do a couple runs and see. And I was shocked at how much better two felt to me in a one-to-one direct comparison. And maybe that's just the bias of being so much more into. But I was very surprised at how much of an improvement it felt like. And it's no one big way. It's just a lot of

little ways that add up to overall a feel and look that I'm just like, my God, super giant or on a different level. Earlier, Andy was talking about like Chase and like a roguelite that was going to meet the standards of hades one right like you had mentioned returnal and for me you know when i think about my rogue like like like experience and like um jumping from rogue legacy to dead cells to hades to returnal returnal i think i was more engaged with it than i was with hades at the time specifically from the action standpoint like i just liked playing returnal as like an action game more than i like the action of hades one hades two has i think taken that over for me where the Haiti

2 action just feels so good like it has gotten to a point where I'm like oh yeah I think this is just my favorite playing rogue like and I didn't feel that way about Hades 1 but Hades 2 somehow was able to do it for me in the ways that I think about how bungee in 343 can really

try to get those satisfying experiences for you when you have a rocket launcher in your hand and they purposely throw out two elites and four grunts and they know that you know that they know that they know. I'm going to hit these six dudes of the rocket launch that they're

all going to fly. It's just going to fill me with so much happiness throughout my body. And like, the enemies that they have made in a lot of these zones for Hades too, it's just so satisfying to put up your grasp and it's a gigantic circle on the bottom

and enemies can't get through it. But all these little fuckers just get caught in the grasp. And you have what feels like 30 of them in there because they're little tiny dudes and you just go to town on them. And it's just like gigantic attack. And if, and you know, in addition

to how awesome the sound design is and using like Hephaestus is like what sounds like whenever you, whenever you get your hammer to upgrade your offense and you hear like that, that little metal clinging but Hephaestus' thing going all over the place, dude. It's just

like they know what makes that serotonin hit. You know, it just like it feels awesome to experience. Not only that, but of course, like, we were mentioning earlier, the music. Like, we quickly brushed over it before we went to the ad break, but Darren Corb and the whole team working on the sounds there and having all of it feels so dynamic.

We talk about how Spider-Man is so amazing with like, let's ramp it up when you start swinging. Let's slow it down when you, you know, once you're kind of just walking around on the ground. And they do a lot of that same stuff here. As soon as the fight ends, the music ends, but that baseline is so do-d-l-l-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-and. And it's just, it's just perfect, man.

Like the songs that they've come up with for these boss fights are so damn hype. And the boss fights themselves, too, I think, are fantastic. Every single one I've hit so far, I'm like, this is such a good concept. And yeah, I don't want to spoil it. Like, any of what they are, but they're fucking good. They're having so much fun with the boss fights. Like, in a way that I feel like, I didn't get from one. And I didn't even think I needed it.

One had bosses that were like, yeah, this is the boss that's cool. This one, every boss, and that's not entirely sure. One did have some pretty cool things. But like, two, so far, I'm just like, and I've only faced two bosses. But both of them, I'm like, I love you. Like this is so the first one, I'm like, all right, this is perfect for what I expected, but like this is perfect Hades. The second one, I'm like, this is one of the coolest things I've experienced in a while.

Andy, since this is early access. Mm-hmm. And part of it is giving feedback. What do we think Hades 2 should improve on for its 1.0 release? Fares. You would come to me first because I don't know it feels great. You would go to first. Yeah, I mean, that is a great question.

I truly, I don't know because I don't have any real big complaints so far of, yeah, they really need to tighten this up. I'm sure some of the attacks that we're currently doing, they could be refined a little, a little bit. But I mean, overall, I don't know. It just feels so polished. It feels really good. It almost feels like they just need more time to add more content to the game versus actually, you know, the fine tuning of, of the game itself, if that makes sense. Yeah, I'm a pair of it. I genuinely

don't know. Like, I think it is, it feels so fine-tuned. There are, I guess, moments in menus. There were, like, a few specific menus where text was on top of other texts, and I couldn't read like a certain thing. But that happens to, like, a very, very specific menu. The, I think, in terms of

tuning, I could see the magic system being turned down a little bit, because I am relying very, very heavily on that magic meter and, like, the enhanced, like, Omega moves. And that stuff, it doesn't feel O.P., but it does feel very emphasized in a way that I, most runs, I am relying on that. So I could see that being turned down a little bit. But aside from that, yeah, it's like really tough to think about things that I would want them to fix. I'm just looking forward to seeing like what I will say, I guess I don't know how they would fix it or even if this is like a thing that I just need to get used to. This goes back to how environment to environment, they're doing different things, right? There is like, it is a, to the third environment that you get to, that feels a bit almost too open, right?

Where it is, oh, man, I'm kind of getting lost here. That might come back to maybe I just need to, like, conjure some things, like craft some things to help that out. Maybe it is like a, oh, maybe the more I do it, the more I'll kind of understand like the exact routing of it. I'm being very vague because I don't want to spoil the concept. But I can see maybe that being dialed in a little bit. I'm with them that it's hard.

I struggle to find things that I can criticize because I'm just having such a great time. And I feel like with Hades 1, one of my big criticisms was, even though I'm having fun every run, there were runs that felt like I wasn't getting something from it. That's just not the case here. So my biggest criticism has been addressed. I do think that and earlier I said that like you just don't worry about getting

overwhelmed. Just go through it and like you'll understand things as it happens. I am kind of at a point though that with the amount of different. There's the water stuff and the fire stuff. Like there's just so many layers to this that I'm, getting a lot of things and I don't always know exactly what it's doing. And I don't know the way to fix that because going to the menus is not helping me. Like I'll, you can hit left on the D pad and it like brings up all the boons you have and all the enhancements. There's just a lot of logos. There's

just a lot of just different symbols and things. And I'm like, I know what most of these things are. And I'm pretty sure I know what some of them are. But then I'm like, oh, wait, no, I was wrong about that. So there'll be runs where I'm like, all right, I need to get this. element or whatever the hell it is. And then you go and you have the option of the two different doors and you see the pictures and I'm like, I don't remember which each one of these is. Cash and grass. Yeah, it's like, I wish I could have

something else. Oh yeah. I don't know. There's just something that I feel like a lot of this just it is what the game is. So I don't see them fixing it. But there are times, there's a lot of reliance on you remembering that this symbol equals this person and this symbol equals this element or this, resource or whatever it is. There's just so much of it that I

kind of wish that there was a way to get a better refresher of like, oh, that's what that thing is. If you press right on the D pad, it brings up like a breakdown of like what the different things are. Are you using that or is it like? Hit right on the D pad.

I think it's left. Or is it left? Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. That menu though, I just think is overwhelming. Like looking at it, it's like, I've found, if I'm looking for a complaint here, this is so nipicky, but it's like,

I found that there's been a couple times that I'm like, I don't know what that is and I want to know. And I try to look and I can't figure it out. On a similar note, I would love if for, was it cast upgrades, if they're a little bit more clear kind of up front on certain upgrades of, if it's a upgrade to your normal cast

where you just put down like a, you press B and you put down like the circle, or if it's an upgrade to holding cast, which is like a, Right, right, right. Yeah, that's good idea. Updated ability or like a more enhanced version of that ability. Because there's like the, what the... There's the Omega symbol.

Yeah, I, that, reading that on Steam Deck is really fucking small. I think it should be a bit more clear. Maybe like having the Omega symbol, not in the small text, but like maybe next to the big, like, clear icon a bit bigger. But besides that, that's like really the only complaint that I have. And I guess actually, jumping off that, I was saying it earlier. the hex stuff I don't fully understand and I feel like the reason I don't understand it is it's pretty clear when you read what

the abilities are but I feel like in use I struggle every time I come across a new one. It's like a lot of the abilities you get of specials or attack you're like okay cool I get what this means and even if you're reading you don't fully get it you play a little bit you're like okay that's where the lightning goes or that's how that happens and you're cool. Some of the heck

stuff I'm like the way to trigger it and hexes are like a third enhancement type move you can do with the right trigger and it'll be like all right you need to have use this percentage of your magic before you can trigger your hex but it only happens every the priming and stuff is kind of yeah priming i guess that's what it is some of that stuff i'm just like i i currently still do not understand yeah but see that's to the point of what andy originally said those are some of the kind of the things that they can still

tweak and listen to feedback on and make it a little more simplified for people to understand how how to properly use that stuff. Now, one other question I did that, because Barrett actually just said it right now, how is it on the Steam Deck? Because I have not tried that. It's very good. It's very good.

I don't even want to know how it looks on the OLED. I just don't want you to tell me. I mean, legitimately, y'all know my thoughts on OLED. Y'all understand all this stuff. Hades 2 is worth getting a Steam Deck OLED. Like, I feel like it is, it's a killer app for the Steam Deck, man. I see myself playing this for, ever on this thing. It is incredible.

I'm enjoying playing on my desktop more than you, my Steam Deck, but I think that's also when I'm playing on like a widescreen and then also I have my Xbox elite controller. And man, I'm just getting a fucking loss. I mean, let me tell you, I, Hades 2 is given Tim Geddes everything I could possibly ask for playing on my Steam Deck OLED and it's just looking and running as perfectly as it does. And not heating up a lot of battery life as well. Yeah, dude, it's insane, man. I'm playing this thing for hours on end, having such a good time on full brightness.

Like I'm like, fuck it, man, burn my retinas. Yeah. The colors are so good. And then I'm like, oh, you know what?

I saw Danny Pena playing on his super ultra wide. So 32 by 9 resolution, which honestly as cool as it is and gimmicky as it is and like impressive as that can be, I have found I don't actually enjoy playing games that way. Uh, it's just a little bit too much and games are very rarely, if ever,

optimized for it. What are my heels? 80s two, though. Oh my God. It's stunning. on this thing. Like,

and the way that the art looks, the way that you're seeing the areas, it's just like, I don't understand how this game can look so good in any resolution running on anything, but man,

this is such a great example of, of wildhood matters. Yeah, I also love how on Steam Deck it fully takes advantage of the 1280 by 800 resolution, which isn't typical 16 by 9.

It does kind of a bit on the top and the bottom and like sort of, whenever you speak to any of these NPCs, they have little art to sort of fill in for those situations. But yeah, getting that full resolution is fantastic. I'm glad I love whenever, especially games this early are already prepped to do that. And they know that like that's something that people are going to want to see. They're not going to want, you know, the 16 by 9 bars at the top. People are going to want

that full resolution. It runs phenomenal. It looks great. It's also, you also got to understand that this is like largely super similar to Hades one, which is a five-year-old game. game. So it's like, oh yeah, it does make sense that it does run this good and look this good. To your point, though, like the Steam Deck, I am so impressed by it using that aspect ratio and like fill in the screen and it is, it feels so at home

just getting that little bit of extra heights. This game feels like it was made for that. But then I play Super Ultraline, I'm like it feels like it was made for that too. I feel like the game is just very dynamic. In my OLED Monarch, let me tell it did. It's fantastic. A quick question that I

have with the cards that you're unlocking that you can kind of mix and match with that I forget like what currency Yeah like And you only have like 10 points That really fill out each card is like a Certain amount of points and stuff

There was one that was like zero But you had to like do a certain thing To actually have it activate and it was like You had to like get like one through five Like each card has a cost In that overall slot thing And you would have to get like a card That Cost 1, a car that cost to you

a card that costs three, a card that costs four and a car that costs five. If you activate those five cards, activated that zero. You can upgrade that thing to have more. Yeah. So I've got mine up to like 20 now or 18 or something like that. Yeah, mine is like 23. So you essentially have... You have more cards you can bring it up.

Because I'm still at 10 and I won't. It's the blue currency, right? Yeah, so that's something that I... That's one of the things because there are many, many systems. When you're forgetful like me, you can kind of just forget that there are things to upgrade. And so that was something that... I realized way later on

they're like, oh shit, this thing actually just gives me more slots. Thank Christ, because I barely discovered that within the last hour of my 13, 14 hours or whatever. I discovered that early and I was like, oh, we're cooking. I'm not to fucking get so many cards. I've been looking for

just that currency. Starting off with all that money plus with Karen's 200 coin boost, like start off a run of like 300 coins. I'm loaded. I got like three death defiances right now. I'm mad. No wonder you guys are getting so far.

I was like struggling and get past the second area of like, and I'm just constricted to like these, this 10. I mean, I got to the third boss if I knew any of that. So, yeah, I got a guy early.

I got the final boss, you know. I got a couple, uh, super shot right here. Hugo PR says, based on my time with the tech test, they could improve the grind with all the multiple resources.

Hades one was more streamlined. I, I, I, I feel like I disagree because there are always things to be doing. Like I, I do appreciate that the system has this forget-me-not system, that whenever you go out for a run, you can be reminded,

hey, you want this plant, you want this piece of steel. Like, you're trying to get to this item, but in order to do so, you need these three elements or two elements or whatever. I rarely feel like I'm grinding for that stuff. It all just feels so supplemental. Yeah. Like, it's so kind of in the background in my mind. Maybe that's just the way that I'm playing,

where, like, I'm focused on the run and the run only. and that thing that I'm upgrading to isn't, you know, life or death for me. And that's just something that I'm kind of like working on in addition to just trying to get, you know, that next weapon upgrade. Oh, favorite weapons.

We'll talk about that. Yeah. The thing that I like about the grind here is that whenever I go in, I am going after a different resource. It's very rare where I have the situation that I had in Hades 1 where, man, maybe like 30 to 40% of my Hades 1 runs were looking for darkness. I was looking for that permanent upgrade

and that's like the only thing I was going for whereas here it is I'm looking for I might be looking for the blue currency I might be looking for the gray one I might be looking for a specific thing that I need to dig up oh that's another thing. Are those bones? Yeah. Another thing in a shout out is that before you

want to run not only do you pick a weapon you also pick a tool right and so you might pick a shovel you might pick a fucking fishing rod and you're going after different resources and that affects what you can find and how you can find it don't you love how they always show you the thing that you don't have. Always. Oh, yeah. Always. Yeah.

You're going out with a shovel because you want to be digging some stuff. And first thing you see is like a pile of rocks that you could break with your pick. I was like, God damn it. You're only showing me that because I don't have it. But yeah, like based on all that stuff, there is always something different that I am looking for in my runs. And I think that works well.

And again, I keep going. I keep doing the thing where, all right, this run, I know I just need like three of this resource. And so I'm going to do that and then probably die and then get back. So I can just fucking upgrade that thing real quick and cut off the game. But it is. is the game is, it does such a good job of giving you such good upgrades so early that it is, I can't waste this run.

Like you go in looking for one thing and then you end up at the final boss somehow. Yeah. It's so cool, man. Paris, you have thoughts on that? Yeah, I actually, um, I was just ping and buried offline. I unfortunately have a, a slight family emergency I need to go take care of. So I'm going to have to bow out of here. Unfortunately.

Good luck. I will say, yeah, I will say as, as I part ways, this is, I don't even know if we're putting a review score number on this, but this is must play. Hades 2 is must play early access. I don't care if it's early access. It is, you hear everything that we've already said.

We're nitpicking at this point for anything to be wrong with this game. If you have the opportunity on Steam to go play it, jump on it immediately. You won't regret it at all. It's fantastic. A million percent. Bye, Paris. Thank you for being.

Bye, thanks, dude. Good, good, thank you. Yeah, man. It's very, very cool. To answer the question about the, he was saying that based on time with the, tech test they could improve the grind. I did find that in the tech test, some of the limited options that you had of like getting the different tools is improved in the early access.

So like playing the early access might solve the problem you're having with the grindingness of it because some of the grind that I was, I remember doing the tech test, you weren't even able to unlock some of the things that you were going that you were actually like grinding for. So it was just currency for currency sake. Whereas in the early access, every single thing, you're just like, boom, boom, boom, getting it and moving. on. I could not find a good loop with the axe. Oh, dude, really? I like, oh, first run with axe. I love that axe. So good. The defense, like, the special of, like, blocking, I feel like that's maybe the weaker part. And it also maybe because I, I upgraded to a boon that only lets you do

the third hit in the final, in the combo. So with the axe, it's large, it's lumbering. It's a big heavy weapon. Wait, so you're just doing like the- Yeah. You're doing that over and over again? That's awesome. So I got a boon that skips the first swipe, the second swipe, and it only does the uh-d-d-dun sort of big charge. What's crazy is that I had a boon that would make it so that that third hit would always

do like the double hit. And so like, I'd be fucking mashing through the first two hits. I'm getting a hit and I'm like, I don't care because as long as I get this last hit, you're fucking done. And if I had that boon that you had, oh my God. I wish I had a boon, because one of my favorite boons to go along with any weapon is I think the staff is or the spear is still my favorite weapon. I love the range you get on it.

I love the speed of it. And especially if you get the ranged upgrade, that's freaking fantastic. But if you can get the faster upgrade that Hermes supplies or the double hit, it just feels like, it feels perfect to me. The one that I really love is that the area of attack for the axe, you can upgrade to make it way larger. and then having like the, I think it's the ring that you can equip that whenever you use magic for the first three seconds after you use magic,

it'll just like refill your magic bar. And I feel like there's another upgrade I had for the special attack for the axe where you just spin it around for hell along and that uses magic, but because my magic was constantly filling itself back up, I just had like unlimited magic use and unlimited use of that attack

while also like, I think it also gave like electric damage and shit and it was just, it was an insane run. The only weapon. The second boss still fucks me up. The only weapon I wasn't feeling as much is like the close rate, like the fast close range, I think it's like a sickle type weapon. Yeah, the little dagger

like, one of them to sickle, one of them's a knife or something like that. That one I wasn't feeling, but I've only done one run with that and it was not a great run. That's my go-to. Oh, is it really? I love it. See, that's good to hear it. It sounds like, yeah, every weapon seems viable in some way. It's cool, man. Delaney 20 writes in says, is the base weapon variety better than one? I mostly stuck with the sword or shield in one, and those were my best runs.

I never really used the spear or bow. I think unequivocally, yes. Yeah. I like these weapons way more than the ones in the first one. They're varied and interesting, and because she's a witch, they really lean into the magic side of it, even with, like, every weapon has some type of, like, magic taint to it. That's the weird thing to say, but...

But, like, one of the weapons is kind of, like, a more witchy, like, kind of staff and then it shoots out these like balls that circle around her. Yeah. And it, I haven't wrapped my head around like how to use it in gameplay. God, I love when this happens. Uh, but it's so cool to like when I get doubled up of that and like when you get the right boons and all of a sudden, you're just being surrounded by these like giant magic balls.

Yeah. It's like this is so cool. And I, I'm so impressed with the variety of the weapons and how they play. Everyone feels good. Even the big axe is like it's as much slower type of, um, or hammer or whatever it is. it's a much slower game, right? But I feel like the way that the boons interact with the weapons, in the same way that I don't understand how there's limitless amounts of dialogue in this game,

I don't understand how there's limitless amounts of fun combinations where I feel like every boon enhances every weapon in such a creative way that that's what makes the runs feel so good, is that no matter what I'm doing, especially because they have that system with the, uh, every run, one of the weapons is like, enhanced or whatever to get more resources, which makes you want to try that weapon out.

It's like, all right. I don't think I've hit that. You must have. I think that's a, it's a thing that you craft in like the cold. Oh, is it? Yeah. Oh, really? Okay, yeah, because I remember that in Hades one where they'd be like,

hey, this one's going to be pop off for you. We'll get more XP or whatever, more rewards if you go out with the bow this time. But I haven't hit that yet, surprisingly, because I've been, I've been digging all sorts of plants all over the place. Oh, yeah, dude. I have like four little crops, four little crops. for little plant things. Oh dude, I got those too.

Yeah. God, it's just so cool. But do you guys agree with what I'm saying of just like the way that the boons interact with the weapons feels like just incredibly limitless and fun? It keeps going. Like I, there have been so many times where it is. Yeah, I like how specific the boons are.

Like the first game did this too where it is like depending on the weapon you have, the boons will have a specific effect for that weapon. But here it does feel a bit more, again, emphasized on like, the weapons have more, it feels like they have way more unique aspects to them that are being enhanced or that are being altered. And I get very excited when it is, hey, the attack is just different now. Like, this boon is changing the base attack for this weapon to be something completely different. And yeah, it feels like it is, it feels like they're so far they go down the rabbit hole of like

just changing up the way you, the way you play, right? Like the first, halfway through the first environment, it is, okay, well, I guess I'm playing a completely different game than I was in the first half of this environment. Um Favorite God favorite See this I wanted to ask

Like Or even just talk about The characters Because I love the characters Like the cast The characters So far in this game Probably equally

If not more Than in the first one I mean nemesis man Shout out to nemesis But also shout out to Ares Shout to everybody Shout to everybody

The ones you're using though For upgrades Oh you did You did Just be in general I don't just mean baddies. Oh, I thought you shout out to batty.

I would go with, my favorite one to use is probably Hestia, the fire one. I've gotten, I've had so many great runs with combining all of the scorch damages and lighting these enemies on fire. And then there being an ability that once, if I have scorch on my main attack and scorch on my special and maybe even scorch on my grasp, if you hit a certain amount of combined scorch and that does an ultimate even bigger power move and combining and chaining all those things have been super great for me and Poseidon's probably my least favorite.

That's so weird. I like Poseidon's sprint where he maybe pushes water at bad guys, but aside from that, I think Poseidon's coolest thing is the one that gives you more money and health whenever you find money and health. He's probably my least favorite. Whenever he pops up, I'm like, all right,

I'm not super stoked about this run. And that's funny because I feel the same, but I loved Poseidon's upgrades in the first game. And I think it's just like what they try to turn his stuff into for the more like witchy stuff. I'm just not feeling as much. I also just is like, this is my first ever like early access game that I've really fucked around with. And one of the, you just like reminded me bringing up Hesio. Like I love that there's like kind of this default hooded kind of NPC art that they use for characters that they don't have. Yeah, like the placeholder art.

And it was really cool. Oh, is that what that? And so having Hesia, like, have that default character art. And then I think it was like last night, maybe two nights ago I played for a little bit. And she got like character art, like updated into the game. I was like, oh shit,

this is cool. Dude, that's so funny because, yeah, when I saw Hesia pop up, like her actual art, I was like, oh, she's not hiding from me anymore. I thought there was some weird I thought it was a narrative reason. Karen. Yeah, like he has that art too. And he's got a big hat.

Also, the dude that sounds like Nicholas Cage. Oh, um, narcissists. Yeah, narcissus, yeah. So sick. He has got that same place holder, but I was like, this guy sounds like he's doing a Nicholas Cage impression. I love it. This makes so much sense because I thought all the ride from me.

I was like, oh, I just got to talk to them. Give him some nectar. I was like, I got to just have the warm up me. Give a nectar. Like, it worked for Hesthia. Like, and I was like, this makes so much sense because I was like, Hestia didn't look like that under the hood. Like, Hesia has like a whole different body type.

What's going on here? All right, well, that has been our thoughts so far on Hades 2's early access. I'm sure we'll be playing a whole bunch more. I know for a fact, than me and Andy will right after this. We're going to be streaming on Twitch and YouTube. If you're watching on Twitch, just keep hanging out. We're going to be playing all day long. If you're on YouTube, you're going to have to make the jump to the other stream.

But I promise you it's going to be worth it. We're going to have a great time hanging out with y'all. Remember, this is our new schedule. Every single weekday, we're going to be live on Twitch and YouTube. pretty much all day talking about video games playing video games talking about a whole bunch of other stuff as well it's a great time thank you all for hanging out until next time it's been our pleasure to serve you