Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Hades II Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Go to http://shadyrays.com and use code FUNNY for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Go to http://factormeals.com/kindafunny50off and use code kindafunny50off to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year. Thank you for the support! Run of Show - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Gamescast for Tuesday, Wednesday, September 24th, 2025. Of course, I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by blessing Adioia Jr. Good day, Tim. And Andy Cortez. Hello. Remember everyone, this is the Gamescast. We each and every weekday, we get together to talk about the latest and greatest in video games.

And there's been a lot of greatness recently. I feel like back to back to back reviews of games that are contenders at the very least. Oh, man. If not more. So yeah, it's been a very good time. I'm sure if you are into video games, there's something that you are enjoying. I got a pitch for a new game awards category.

Best AAA game. Okay. Because I need more love. They need more love. Let me tell you, game with the year category this year. It's like the AAAs might not be getting love this year. You know what?

Somebody needs to look out for those guys. Somebody needs to look out for the AAAs because they might not be getting love. Who will think of the people? Who will think of the EAs? That is very, very funny. every weekday we get together about the biggest reviews, previews,

and topics in video games. You can get it live on YouTube, Twitch, and then later on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the kind of funny membership. It gets you all the shows ad free and you get a daily exclusive show. Today, Greg Way is going to be Greg unboxing

the Ghost of Yote PlayStation 5. That's pretty cool. Hell yeah. It looks sick. For a chance to be part of this show, though, please YouTube, super chat, your thoughts in. If you have thoughts on Hades 2, please get them in.

Little Housekeeping for you. We're an 11-person business all about live talk shows. Today's Games Daily was talking all about the incredible reviews that Final Fantasy Tactics remake are getting. I also gave a Pokemon ZA preview. You should definitely check that out.

After this game's cast, it's going to be an Nvidia-sponsored Borderlands 4 stream leading into around 140 p.m. where we will gather together to do a little pre-show for the PlayStation State of Play. Y'all feeling excited?

Yeah. Super pumped. I'm good. Yeah. This is going to be a good day. If you're a kind of funny member, I was saying, today's Gregway is the unboxing. Thank you to our Patreon producers,

Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Somme Twining. We're brought to by Shady Raisin Factor, but we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's start with the topic of the show. It's Hades 2, baby. 1.0 is upon us. Tomorrow at 9 a.m. Pacific time,

everybody will finally be able to play the full version of Hades 2. Well, maybe not everybody, just most people, because you can play it on the Switch, Switch 2, and PC through the Steam and Epic Game Store. There's no announcement of a PlayStation or Xbox release so far, but we imagine that's going to happen at some point. A physical edition for Switch 2 is slated for November 20th, 2020,

it is fully on the game key card, which is awesome. I will be purchasing this. I'm very excited. I want to get into it, but who do I want to start with? I feel like Andy. I feel like Andy's where I want to start. Okay. Andy Cortez, what do you have to say about Hades 2?

I mean, it's just, what else is there to say about Hades 2 at this point? We've talked it to death for a long time, and, you know, it's been an early access forever. I put in so many hours into this video game, and then luckily we were given the opportunity to hop into whatever the sort of beta branch version is for the final version of the game, so we can see everything updated in its final forms. And the game's awesome.

The game continues to be amazing. The game has so much depth. It's so much fun to play. There is seemingly no end to dialogue. I would love to know. I would love to interview Super Giant and ask, what the fuck was the budget on the voice acting? Because I am 106 hours in.

And I don't know if I've ever, I haven't had repeated lines, but also every time I walk up to somebody, there's always something new to say. There's always really neat conditional moments where I did four or five runs in the underground. And when I came back up to do one of the above ground areas, one of the bosses was like,

damn, it's been a while. Like, I've been waiting here forever. And my character, Milanoi, was like, wait, so I've been fighting in the underworld. You've been waiting here for me the whole time. Like, find something better to do. Like, there's just so many cool moments like that. and so much cool, like attention to detail.

I, you know, I still have not necessarily rolled credits because I guess whenever this branch came out, some progress and currencies were sort of switched up on people for people like me who have a shit ton of hours and a lot of completions and a lot of boss defeats. So I'm still kind of working my way towards getting that. It was a really cool moment watching on my Steam page and seeing Bless his achievements pop up.

And I was like, what? How did he get like 17 achievements today? I was like, oh, all of ours are finally here. Yeah, I had that moment where it just started popping off and I was just thought, hey, let's go. I mean, yeah, the game's amazing. Could not recommend it more. I think this is just the easiest recommendation

I can make this year to anybody video game-wise. I think it's the, when we talk about genres and maybe there being some sort of like, not level gating, but, you know, there's some sort of something with Silk Song. Maybe it's a little too hard. Maybe you're not going to be into that. I can't recommend that to everybody. Something like Expedition 33, and he may not be into the combat.

Maybe, you know, something we assume Greg would love it. And Greg was like, I just still can't vibe with it no matter how active that combat gets. I think this is the most kind of open to be played by anybody. This is the easiest to be loved by everybody. Games amazing. Could not recommend it more. Would you give a score on the kind of funny scale? I haven't beaten it.

I want to see what happens. Did you think that's going to change your score? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think like I want to see what happens with what's happening story-wise. And it's finally, it's cool to see that things are happening story-wise because all that stuff was kind of kept out of the branches that we had. And I was wondering for the longest time, when is anything going to happen?

You know, I don't, I think the game has some issues with there's a million types of different currencies and things to collect and things to find on the ground. And it's really hard to kind of make sense of all of it. But somehow the game does it. And yeah, it's cool to see things happening now because things were not happening at all for a reason. I think people just didn't want, I think Super Giant didn't want people to get spoiled on it. I mean, it's as close to a 10 out of 10 as you can give a video game,

but I still want to see the game through and if it pulls off what it can do, what it wants to do story-wise, and yeah, I think this could be one of the best of all time. Bless. Yeah, I echo everything that Andy's talking about. I think the comparison that I have in my mind as somebody who is jumping into this,

mostly fresh. I played about 14 hours. during the original early access release. And I played the 14 hours in like that few weeks span. And I'm not come back until this 1.0 review copy that we got. And I put in 20 more hours. And so right now I'm at a total of 34 hours playing the game. Jumping from Hades 1 to this game reminds me of going from Portal 1 to Portal 2,

where it feels so expanded and so much bigger and so much like, Hades 1 was fully realized. but there's something about this that feels like it's going even beyond that to give you what feels like the ultimate Hades experience. And I think it comes down to how much this game is a masterclass in, I think the resource management, you know, they do throw a lot of resources at you. But the pacing of it, I think does such a good job of keeping it all manageable. And I think that's another thing where this game is a masterclass in pacing.

And I think that comes back to what Andy was talking about as far as how many voice lines are recorded for these characters and how well of a job they do as far as making the contextual stuff hit and making it feel like after each run there is always something from every single one of these

characters that is contextual to what you just did in your run. Every run feels different and I know a lot of what I'm saying here can apply to Hades one but I think Hades too takes that stuff and runs with it even further as far as coming back talking to all these characters and I'm having something specific to say all right I go on a different one

I go on the next run, oh, man, oh, here's this new thing that I didn't realize as far as a feature or a collectible or a type of upgrade or a boon or whatever it is that I find that totally changes how I'm thinking about strategy this run or thinking about my long term, how I want to paint my overall experience. I come back, I do that talk to everybody again and a new thing pops up or I make a new concoction that like, you know, adds a little flare or, oh, now there's a thing that I can do that lets me decorate or there's always a new feature being given to you. it feels like every single, I want to say 30 minutes to an hour interval, that feels very consequential to how you're playing the game, and it keeps it so fun and engaging and it's done with such quality. I think that's the thing that continues to blow me away, is that you have so much, but it all feels so polished. The key art and the character models, the first one, the first game,

they were excellent. This game, they feel even more excellent somehow. I think that's the ongoing trend that I'm feeling with Hades too, is that everything feels so amped up and so much more. And more isn't always better, but I think they found a way to make more or better in this game. And so I'm absolutely in love with it. Hades one, I think at the time,

we didn't do review scores, but I wasn't like, this is my masterpiece. This is the greatest of all time status. Hades two, I am feeling that way. Maybe it's a time and place thing, but Hades too,

I'm like, man, this is a video game right here. This is everything I want out of a video game. And we'll get into a deeper, but I also just got a shout out the boons and the upgrades where you know I've had some very very satisfying builds and in a roguelight that's exactly

what you want you want the players to feel like halfway through oh I'm breaking the game like there's no way there's no way that super giant intended to be to use these tools in this way that's the feeling you want to invoke even though surely they thought ahead on all these things that's another thing I want to shout out I know I'm going along but I think

we talk about early access We talk about what that looks like, what that benefits. And I think this game is an example of how you use early access to really fine-tune, balancing and fine-tune all these systems that you have working together at the same time where everything feels right. It really feels nice coming back to this game after not touching it, playing the 1.0 and being like, man, everything feels just right. And I think that's my overall review.

In another world, these games, this game would have come out without early access. and you would have immediately seen, they would have had the player data of the stuff that's being used the least. And then that would cause those things to get uptuned and it would just be a, you would have the power creep of, all right, just add more percentages to whatever these numbers are so people want to use those abilities more so that they feel more inclined to, but that doesn't make those things more fun.

And because of early access, you could say, they could, them a Super Giant could look at any of the gods and go what is the boon being, what are the boons being less utilized, right? The least utilized. And then say, all right, sure we could do percentages and stuff,

but how can we make these abilities more fun? Yeah. How can we make them just feel good to use? And I think the mark of any good rogulight is that one more run feeling and also when you're in the middle of a run, I wasn't necessarily feeling the stuff that I was given and now

I'm super into it and now that I know that this shit is going to be awesome in case I want to get it for a future run and there's a lot of rogue lights that don't give you that feeling and this one is the perfect example of damn I wasn't really I mean I went with that weapon because they were going to give me bonuses

so I decided to use that one of six weapons and I wasn't expecting a whole lot of it holy shit there's some cool stuff you could do with it and the way that it pairs with everything else everything is just so everything's in harmony with each other yeah fucking fantastic Tim, how do you feel about Hades, too? I mean, it's, you know, it's hard not to just echo every single thing you guys are saying

because I feel like this game is so good that anyone talking about it is going to be hitting on something different about why it's amazing because every portion of this game has so much love put into it that is immediately understandable. I feel like the greatest compliment I can give this game is that whether you play for 10 minutes or 10 hours, it's a 10 out of 10 experience. Like I feel like this is to me is a game that functions as like an arcade experience of like you just you put the quarter in. You don't even need to do that. But like you play and you have fun and walk away from it.

Like you're going to get so much out of it. But you're not going to be able to put it down because you are constantly incentivized to want to go back and do more. Whether it's doing a run to kind of like grind resources or doing a run that's like I'm going to try to get as far as I can or doing a run just to get to that second or third boss to fully lock in the, uh, that they have so that when you do decide to go back, you got this on lock. And nine out of ten times, whatever plan you had going in changes, right? And that's not bad. It's like something pulls you in a different direction. And Andy was kind of talking about this, but I love how I can be dozens of hours into

this game and be like, all right, I'm never going to use these type of abilities. I just, I'm not interested in it. And all of a sudden I get a setup that I'm like, how have I not been using these the entire? time. And I have yet to come across something that I'm like, that's just not for me. Every single time I think it, eventually I am taught, I'm an idiot and that there's so much value there. You're talking about way too many economies and stuff. That is so true. And I think that it jumping back after not playing for almost a year, I guess, at this point, I was definitely lost from the early access to the 1.0. And this is a very unique situation because most

games don't do this, but being thrown in trying to remember like what is new and what isn't new, that was kind of a hard thing to wrap my head around. But I think that the economy stuff was simplified from the early access versions where I caught up a lot quicker than I expected. And I, in a comparison to Hades 1, which I love. Like, Hades 1 is a game to me that I've said many times. Like, it's a forever game. Like I will just play it just because it's fun to me at any given time in my life. but Hades 1 kind of like the each run getting the little things that add up to your progression overall

I felt like took a lot longer and you were like decorating your little house and stuff and all that just felt like chipping away everyone it's going to take so long until you kind of have things how you want it Hades too I feel like doesn't have that problem at all every single run feels like I'm making forward momentum as building my character unlocking things unlocking the crossroads different character interactions. Like, it's just, I've never played a game with the most, but it's not overwhelming.

It's like, it's supporting and welcoming to you. And it's like, yeah, I literally do not have enough nice things to say about this game. Like, we didn't talk about the music yet. Oh my God.

Like the art is unbelievable. The voice acting is every single character is your favorite character. Like I, the boons are so satisfying and the way that everything kind of like adds on top of each other. Like, you start feeling like a fucking God. And it's so right.

I think the thing I want to compliment about Crossroads, like your hub area that you come back to after every run, is that I, you know, I've tried games like Animal Crossing and usually they don't stick with me. I think Crossroads kind of gives me that Animal Crossing feeling a little bit where I do care about the space and checking up with these characters. And when I'm expanding the space and checking in and doing like the, I'm going to plant these plants and then come back around

after a certain amount of time to then harvest them and then plant again. again, systems that like typically wouldn't necessarily be my jam. I think they've found ways to integrate them into this game to actually make them make sense for this format. And I think they feel really smart. They feel really well done. And also, yeah, like it feels compared to the chip damage of Hades, 2, 80s 1 that you're talking about. Yeah, like, I come back and I'm like, oh, there's so much for me to do.

Yeah. I got to harvest. I got to do this. I got to do that. I got to look at my Arcana cards. I got to, you know, make sure I'm upgrading my weapons. I got to do like. Hold me sleeping.

I still got to go talk to him. Maybe he has something to say. Yeah, like, I'm like, can I wake him up this time? You know, like, there's so, oh, man, is Eris in the corner now? Can I talk to her and be pissed off? Or, you know, there's so much to do in just the hub area. And, like, me and Tim talk about all the time, right, of, like, hub areas and how important that is in a video game, this game nails it.

This game does such a good job of giving that central space to come back to and really be invested. And it being a sequel from Super Giant, their first sequel, right? Like, this really shows that they obviously had something special with Hades 1, but goddamn what a talented team. And I want to give him a shout out for how great of an experience, the early access to continuing on to this 1.0. Crossplay, save, or not play. Does it never a guarantee?

No, definitely not. And the cross progression from Switch 1, or from Switch to PC, like, all that stuff. I'm like, this is how things should work. And I am obsessed with it. Like, I feel like they've done such a great job. And I didn't think it was going to cross over to the final thing. I know that they said that it was going to, but I had no faith that that was actually going to be the truth. And so when the second big update, when the Ben Star update came out for the early X,

I didn't play it because I was like, I'm going to hold off for this for the full 1.0. And I'm so happy I did on one hand because I'm like, God damn, this experience feels so complete. But at the same time, it was like, man, I really could have just been grinding for hours over the last year. You know what you mean? But that's the other thing, too, is like, I really think I'm going to be playing this game forever. Like, the only thing could stop me playing Hades 2 is if Hades 3 comes out, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah, there's just so much quality in every spot that you look in. And for a super giant, I remember before Hades 2 was even announced, and all of our discussions were, they wouldn't do a sequel, right? They wouldn't do it. They seem a little too like, no, like, we always have to make a new thing, right? Like, you know, we're not going to just go back and retread old shit. And this, in no way is retreading anything. Like, it is, it's very, much the combat that you love from Hades 1, but everything is supersized to an extra large.

Like everything that you could want more from that game and all the feedback that I'm sure that they were getting from Hades 1. And I'm sure there was a lot of stuff on the cutting room floor from Hades 1. What an awesome opportunity for a super successful, talented development team to go, hey, we can implement a lot of this stuff if we want to. and we can really, really make this experience and make all of these systems work in tandem with each other in the most perfect way possible.

And the amount of just moments that feel like they were just for me, you know, like you get into an area and all of a sudden, you've been in that area 10 times, and an NPCs there talking, helping you, assisting in the fight or fighting you out of nowhere. Like, all that stuff just feels so, you were saying this really, like, how is there this much dialogue in the game? Like, how does it feel like it's literally endless

and such high quality that you guys got to understand i'm 80 hours more than you all are yeah and you all feel that way yeah i feel the same way and i have played so much more and it still doesn't end it is fucking crazy to me i don't understand how well first off i bet you the file size of this game like 80% of it is dialogue the audio files like it's just wild to me the amount of love and care put into that because I think if somebody somebody who was in a cycle like me and was like, hey, I may lose everything, but I'll just put everything into this early access anyway,

for someone like me to still be rewarded with new things and not just the brand new players hopping in on day one, that's insane. And I just can't even fathom the amount of what these scripts look like, what these conditions look like. Oh, yeah, what does the spreadsheet look like? fuck. How is how like I can't imagine all of like the connecting.

All right. So they do this. Then they say this or like, you know, if they do this on this run, then override this and make sure that they get this dialogue when they come back or whatever. Like they've been the big boss six times now or seven times now. Yeah. And now we offer now every NPC reacts and kind and goes, oh, you beat so and so again. Like you're kicking his ass. And then to have the skeleton dude in the home base be like, hey, you're kind of like whooping a lot of ass.

you might you should put on some some of those curses and I go oh shit yeah I should do that I should make the make it harder for me because I've had like six clears in a row and you add those extra curses and those unlocking you it's unbelievable yeah this is unbelievable and even the the arts of each room right like the amount of love and care put into all of the small little details for what really just amounts to open spaces you know what I mean like it's so funny just how uninteresting the game is from like a level design perspective, but that doesn't matter because the art of every single section feels so designed and none of it just feels copy and paste. It feels so identifiable. Like looking at it, I know exactly where this is. You know what I mean in the game.

And like that's so cool for a game that at the end of the day looks very similar over and over. But it's like it's not because of how much care was put into it. And it's like that goes back to like incredible art design and the amount of talented people that are working on this. And like the time that they took to get this right. And like, yeah. It's just so cool. It's great variety, but it's also not only in visuals, but from a sound standpoint.

And I was so pumped up when Bessing was like, oh my God, I got to one of the newer spots because, you know, back from the first early access, those spots, those spots weren't even available yet. And he said, I got to this new spot. And the soundtrack is unbelievable. It sounds like Star Wars shit. It's crazy the way Darren Corb has evolved what we would expect from the soundtrack, and it fits, and it doesn't feel like, well, we're not getting that guitar or that bass line rocking. So it doesn't really kind of vibe here.

It totally works. It's insane, the amount of variety in just the soundtrack and the motifs and just every instrument they're using, it's wild. And that's why I want to compliment, you know, Tim talks about the level design and how you really are just in open areas fighting, right? But I think they do such a good job of making each location still feel set piecey even beyond what they did with Hades 1, where, you know, we're used to video games having, oh, this is the ice level, this is the lava, this is XYZ kind of thing. Here, it is, I think this, it feels like they coming off of Hades 1 were so in their bag as far as being like, oh, we can do much more. Like we can like it doesn't have to be you're going into the second area and it's asphidil and it's hot. It is like no there's shit going on.

There's stuff happening. Oh, for this one it is. I guess when you're going downstairs, right? Like you get three locations in and it is oh, no, this is the land of the undead. And now like you're not just picking one room. You're picking a big like it's totally different. And then you get to another level. You go upstairs and it's like, oh, this is totally different.

And they all fit. They all fit and work exactly as intended. I'm just so impressed by that shit I will say I think the most negative I can get if we're just moving away from like a glaze fest here would be that

and it's I hate doing the apples and the oranges thing but I've playing a lot of Silk Song there aren't a lot of bosses that I think could have used more and I feel like in Hades too

I wish some of these maybe not even the big bosses, but maybe some of like even the smaller mini boss type characters, I wish that I don't love all the patterns that they're doing. And definitely not all of them, but there's enough to where I'm like,

I wish this was a bit more fun and interactive. And maybe I'm just thinking of the bad guy, one of these underwater creatures named Caribdis that I just don't love the patterns. It's just not very fun and it doesn't feel super creative.

compared to what all of the other bosses are doing and I wish those a little bit more interactivity there but it does feel like that's just you know that boss that little mini boss is kind of just another roadblock to get by but yeah I that's like the tiniest nitpick that I can give is like I don't 100% love all of the boss experiences speaking of your experience from Silk Song to Hades 2

I could not recommend it any higher that you play Silk Song and then play Hades 2 because it makes Hades too so easy I can't be like I am just fucking cruising in ways that last year I was not I'm just like it's such a great experience I will say I don't know if anybody else who's been a part of the

a lot of the more recent early access stuff I don't know well if there's people in the comments right now you won't know because you don't have the final version I did feel a bit of I felt like it was a lot easier like I was not clearing as many times as consistently as I was until this update dropped and I don't know if there was some tweaks and tuning done a little bit but I still felt like

80 hours in before this update dropped that like man I'm still kind of struggling here and there and that felt great and maybe this is just to entice people like me with a lot of hours to use the, whatever the curse system is to, you know, I think in the Hades one is called like the heat system where you would add like one heat to give the enemies, you know, 20% more health, or now they do 20% more damage. Maybe that's a way to entice me to kind of use that system, but it did feel like booting this up. It was a little bit easier.

And yeah, I'm interested to see what everybody else feels whenever the game actually comes out. Yeah, I will feel, I mean, I will say the game feels easier. as I play it and I think that's just the systems right like that is same with Hades one right where over time you gain more resources to invest into like certain things and here I feel like that stuff gets amped up to where you're not just investing into oh make my X, Y Z thing stronger it's more so oh now here's access to an entirely new system that's going to make you stronger and so like last night I was having runs where I'm like damn this is the best I've ever done but also I can directly attribute it to the fact that for a certain weapon now I have a backstab ability that is waste

stronger than it was before and that just helped me like you know cruise through a bit faster like i think the the like long-term progression stuff here goes a lot further um as far as pushing you further in the game there's always a carrot on the stick there's always always a carrot what do they call the arcana cards yeah the arcanas yeah love that stuff and i feel like that really really pushes hades two more than one like the abilities they have here it really feels like you're progressing with the runs and it's not losing everything which is great i want to keep talking about Hades 2 and get to your superchats after a quick word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Shady Rays.

You know that moment, the one when you realized you left your favorite sunglasses at the beach or on the roofier car or in that gas station miles away. We've all been there. Nick Scarpino once left a pair of sunglasses in Vegas, and I've never heard the end of it. It wasn't my fault. But now there's Shady Rays. They've changed the game. These sunglasses are made for real life.

Seriously good looking, polarized, durable. and not stupidly expensive. And here's the wild part. If you lose or break them, even on day one, Shady Rays will send you a brand new pair. No guilt trip, no replacements. So now Nick can wear his sunglasses without fear on urban hikes at comedy shows at the old folks home, wherever.

Shady Rays is eyewear that has your back. We've teamed up with Shady Rays to bring you an exclusive offer. Head to ShadyRays.com and use the code funny for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the Shades rated 5.5. stars by over 300,000 people. That's shadyrays.com, code funny, for 35% off polarized sunglasses. This episode is brought to you by Factor. Fall always feels like a reset.

Between back to school, busier routines, and shorter days, finding time to cook can be tough. That's why I love Factor. Their chef-prep dietitian-approved meals make it easy to stay on track and enjoy something comforting and delicious no matter how hectic the season gets. Factor removes the work and gives me a delicious healthy meal in mere minutes. You can choose from a wider selection of weekly meal options, and for the first time ever try Asian-inspired meals with bold flavors influenced by China, Thailand, and more. Eat Smart at FactorMeals.com slash Kind of Funny 50 off and use the code Kind of Funny 50 off

to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year. That again is code Kind of Funny 50 off at Factor. Meals.com for 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor. Offer only valid for new Factor customers with the code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. And we are back. We got a couple super chats here.

I saw a chat first from Dustin Cunningham saying, should I get this on Steam for my Steam Deck OLED or Switch 2 where I can also dock it and play it on my LG OLED, LOL. I don't think there's a bad call. I mean, I haven't played too much on Switch. It seems definitely been like the vast majority of my gameplay, but both run great, but I will say that on the Steam side, it's flawless. Like, it's 120 frames per second, gorgeous, whether it's on my Steam Deck, all that, those colors be popping. And I have my 32 by 9, which is the most insane ultra-rides, like super ultra-ride monitor.

And this game runs perfectly. And it looks so good. I think this might be the best-looking Super Ultra-Rite game. So I don't think you can go wrong, but I would, I suggest getting it on the steam side of things. Because you can also dock your steam deck if you end up. Yeah,

there's some pretty cheap Amazon party docs. I do want to like, I don't like all the shit that Rogers's been giving me for my gaming pillow. They give me a lot of shit for my mechanism. You're going to tell me more about this. Your gaming pillow. I got algorithms. Oh, no.

The body pillow? of like a gaming lady? No, that's on the way though. That is being delivered. Leara from Mass Effect. It's a... I got algorithm and it's a... Company called Mechanism

and this is like one of the things that they... It's like for a lot of docking situations but they sell this thing called the gaming pillow that is a very, very soft kind of pillow. You know, it's not like a pillow that you would lay on to sleep. It's... I don't know.

It's hard to describe the material, but it's soft and it feels good. And on top of it is like a hard plastic disc that has a mount that you can mount this into. Oh, yeah. And it's about like this big, it's about like maybe a foot wide, about a foot tall. Oh. And the little arm can bend and stretch or do whatever you want wherever you want to mount that steam deck. And the amount of hours that has taken over me because I, I hate, one reason why I was so against handheld game for so long is like, it's so uncomfortable for me.

And even before I got this thing and I was like, wow, the Stendek really changed the game for me because I was never a portable gamer. But still, I limit myself because I'm leading on one shoulder for too long. I get tired. I'm like, fuck, I'm leaning on the other shoulder. And I just keep on doing that when I'm laying down. This thing, I just got a bunch of pillows against the wall. And I'm with my head against that, with this thing on my lap, dude, it is.

It's perfect blessing. Because you're not holding up the steam deck. You're not like holding up a device. You are just like kind of your hands are in the controller, but the thing is resting on your belly. Yeah. Dude, it is amazing, bro. This thing fucking rocks.

So you look at this thing and Roger's like, come on, you can't be buying that show. I was like, Roger, you don't get it. Like, this is something I would probably talk shit about as well. But after using it for many, many hours, like this thing rocks for playing games in bed. It's good. You sold bless?

Oh, no. But like, he doesn't have Sonic figurines in his house. He doesn't want that. Yeah, I mean, I get it though. Yeah, dude. I'm just, I haven't found the perfect position for handheld gaming. It's tough. You know, so I get it.

It's tough. Because yeah, I'm just playing on my, I, it's funny, I get things on Steam. I've been getting games on Steam specifically to play on my Steam deck, but then I just end up playing them on my desk anyway. That's how I've played 90% of the Hades 2, 95% probably is like playing on my, I have a regular ultraide in my, uh, in my room. And like, it doesn't. does look good on that white screen.

Yeah. It does look great on that widescreen. And so I'm just like, you know what? Let me just immerse myself this way. But yeah, if I can find a better, more comfortable way to play handheld, like, I understand that chase. Or I'll do like the, you know, sometimes you lay on your belly and you're doing that thing with the steam deck kind of in front of you.

Yeah. And then you switch out of that. It's just, you know, on your belly. I do. Well, no, I just, I'm switching around. Okay. I love the idea of Andy. Belli up.

My legs up. The legs kick in back and forth. Because I do the thing where I do the thing where I do. do build up like almost like a pillow pillow for it like behind me where i'm like leaning i'm leaning on pillows like this and my arms are on the bed and like i'm kind of like sitting like halfway up like a 45 degree angle and i'm playing i feel that's comfortable for me but also that's like not the ideal way to do this is the next evolution of that the haiti's one to haiti's two evolution your solution is to my solution like it's the upgrade it's the evolve version of it i'll think

about favorite boons i'm gonna ask this i didn't know if this is like a spoiler thing or not But I guess they're mechanics. Well, I mean, there's, you know, there's definitely some stuff later game that I will not talk about. Sure, sure. But, you know, they've been out there. You all have seen them on the internet because, you know, the right wing got angry because, you know, there's an overweight person. It got woke. Yeah.

I don't want to stick my wheelchair. I don't want to stick my dick in 100% of these characters. Fucking get them out of my game. What's her name? I really mess with, um, who's, the ice lady. Her? No. Demeter? Demeter? Yeah. Demeter. Yeah. Demeter. Yeah. Demeter. It's like her powers. Because I like the ice. The freeze powers are great.

Like when you put down like your circle and it freezes everybody in there and then you've got like a fire attack on as well that you're like using to unfreeze them. Like that shit. That shit rips. What's the, this honestly isn't even a boon answer. But when you're going upstairs in the first area, you know how you have like the handshake rooms that you can go into? Yeah. I see them those handshakes. What's the one in the first area when you go upstairs? What's her name? Because let me tell you, she different. As far as mechanics, I've been partial with Hephaestus lately. Which lady?

Which lady? Yes. When I first met her. Hephaestus rocks. Hephaestus is sick. I love the sound effects of the hammer. So good. Blaster, boom, or bang.

Whatever it's called. That shit. Oh, my God. Bless, I think I found who you're talking about. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, man.

I don't know what's in the water over there. super giant but keep drinking. I'm all about Salini. Oh my God. Oh, yeah, Celine. It's like, I would pay for ASMR for Selena.

Yeah, Selini, she ought to go on. I was very against her boons. I don't really care about this stuff. And then I had a couple runs that I'm like, you know what? Can I guess which one it is? Is it the one that heals you a little bit? No.

Okay. Because hers that does that is, that got me to do runs. Also the big laser beam that she gives you. Like that one is like a super move like in boss fights is I had it going where I was using the weapons where it's like

all of them are projectile based where it's like you're just shooting the green orbs or whatever you have your wand say yeah the ones from the witch later and I got a set of boons and stuff that made it so that my magic like is auto replenishing and that for it

halved and then halved again the cost for the big beam so it was just constantly refilling it I'm just beaming beaming and beaming and it was like I had me god yeah I I was never like a selenia believer and now it's like that's the second one that I equip when I'm done after the first guardian same um it's they are so important the one that I've had so much well whatever she offers I feel like always helps I think the gaining health is probably my least favorite oh dude I'll break it down for you in a second but go for it.

Because, like, the gaining health one, I've, like, fully maxed out, though. Mm-hmm. And it's still not as useful to me as the, um, raising the last person that you killed to fight for you. Interesting. And whenever you do that, when you fully level out that whole tree, the dudes that you are summoning are the most psychotic freaks. They're so fast. They're larger than the enemy that you kill. And they move faster than the enemy you kill.

And they have, like, a hard. heart over the head so you know they're like oh that's my dude who's fighting for me but they are they do so much damage it's insane what they can do and i love that one i love turning all the foes into sheep that's like that one's good incredibly useful the beam and is also great the you know kamehameha uh i always go with kamehameha mea but i know it's kameha meha mehaa way yeah so how you pronounce it in real life is kamehameh yeah oh sweet okay so the way so the Yeah, that is an awesome beam, but then the one that drops down a shitload of damage in a big-ass area fucking rocks. Because the way that that thing upgrades is also great where when not only will it do a big blast where it comes down from the sky into a gigantic AOE area of effect, but when you upgrade it, then it'll do halfway down the tree.

You'll have three different blasts that all kind of hit in a row. and then the big blast will follow that. It is so good. That's probably my favorite one. Just seeing what it can do to bosses. Selini is like priority to have that extra ability. Where at first I was like, I just don't really fuck with these.

And that's the beauty of early access because I don't think I was alone in that. You felt the same way. Totally. And I know some people in chat were always like, oh, you got to use her abilities. But I think there was enough hesitancy from players like me being like, eh, I don't really got to fuck with that.

It's just another thing I got to worry about. Now it's like I need that immediately. It's also like a weird looking thing. Like when you first collected and it's like, all right, here's an ability. It's a skill tree. Yeah, and I'm like, well, whatever. I don't want that right now. And it's like, oh, a skill tree but then, yeah, once you start level it. What I love that. In my Hades?

Yeah, exactly. I love that the skill tree is you see it, you're like, oh my God, there's so much stuff. And then I feel like within two rooms, you're filling out like half the damn tree. Yeah. Like you get so many points to use on the thing that I'm like, God damn, dude. It just feels so rewarding. And once you start seeing how things stack up, it's like, oh, actually, this is this fucking

powerful. So for me, the thing about the raising your health one is it's almost more about the money for me than the health. Oh, that's good. Because once you start filling in the skill tree, they have it where it's like, all right, plus 15 health, plus 15 coins or plus 30 coins or whatever. And my most successful runs so far have been the ones where I've been rich. They're the ones where at every single time I'm at, what's his name?

Caron. when I'm at Karen's store, I'm buying all the things. Like, if I can do that, if I can build up my money early enough to where I'm buying him out every single time, I'm fucking God. Let's go. I'm fucking God by the time I get to the end of it. So that skill tree is usually great for me for that. I've had a legendary drop before that when you get hit takes away money before health.

And it's like a legendary boon. And it's like, yeah, but money's awesome. Like, it is a cool thing. and I've used it before to where if you have like 700 coins, if you're getting hit, instead of losing 60 damage, you're losing 60 coins first. Or instead of losing 60 health,

you're losing 60 coins. And it's a cool trade-off, but I just look forward to the end of the run where I could finally meet up with Karen again and be like, yo, what's your store looking like? You have three fucking pomegranates? Oh my gosh. I can, dude, it's such an exciting game still after all of these hours.

It awakens a gambler in me that actually kind of scares me a little bit. Like when I'm getting into the I see two doors, I'm like, oh, one could give me money, but one, like the other one is going to give me, you know, what's his name, Zeus? And like, I got a lot of chain lightning right now, which I think I've changed my tune a little about on chain lightning. I used to be very, very pro chain lightning because it's very satisfying. Don't do this to me right now.

I think I'm turning on chain. Because here's the thing, like, it's only so useful until you get to the boss fights. and it's like, what are we chaining off of? This is a one-on-one fight, and I put all my points in the chain lightning. Now I'm getting my ass kicks. He's got a great point, Andy. You're not wrong, but it's about the journey, not the destiny. Did you think about it that way, plus?

I didn't think about it that way. The journey is fun with chain lightning. I love chain lightning. But now I've hit the point now where whenever I'm choosing Boones, man, I'm deep in the Duffy with the strategy now. Whenever I'm choosing Boones, I'm thinking, what is helping me with the boss? Because it's not these little guys that are fucking me up. It's the bosses.

but lightning the great thing about all these you know these abilities and these boons and these bosses or these gods that you're getting these boons from that when you get a Zeus ability it isn't only chain lightning and that's one of the coolest thing where

I've everybody knows me I'm a career long fucking Poseidon hater I just don't fuck with the guy I don't like the facial hair to him okay that's a lot of that is me not loving the feet facial hair. But also I just don't care about

the knockback. Like I just don't, I just don't fuck with Poseidon. But if I'm forced to get a Poseidon ability and sometimes it'll drop the awesome thing where it's like oh, you get a shit ton of treasure every time or you get, you have a higher chance of

finding more rare boon. It's like, okay, these are the things that I really, really like Poseidon. See, I feel like this is a better conversation of not who's your favorite god or like what's your favorite boon. Which god do you not fuck with? Because I think for me... my most unfuckable unfuck-wifable boss

unfuck-withable unfuck-wittable I'm looking up Apollo because I don't know if I fuck with Apollo like that. Oh Apollo rocks bless you haven't seen the light you haven't seen the light. Because is Apollo the ones where it's like when you take damage X thing happens

I feel like he has a lot of those and I'm like I'm not planning to take damage buddy. My favorite ones from Apollo is that he dazes your enemies and he makes it so that their attacks have a higher likelihood of missing but he also has a really, really awesome one where

whatever your cast that you're dropping down, which is the big AEOE circle that you drop down in the game, my favorite one from him is if you can get a really high level one, it expands up to, it grows up into like 60% of the size that it starts off as. So it's like by the end of these runs, you will have the most gigantic cast circle on the ground and you drop that shit and everybody's in there.

Everybody's getting affected by all of the other shit that's also happening to them. Dude, Apollo rules. Can I tell you a secret? Huh. I don't be casting. I don't cast.

That's crazy. What? It's because in my Arcona? That's crazy. Is your B button working? I gave up the Arcana card that like improved my cast?

Give it up. Because there's another Arcana card that's like only have up to two of each. And like I was like, well, I only got a sacrifice as one card to meet that standard. So I was like, you know what?

I'll give up the card that like improves my cast. And I was like, well, if I'm not, using the improved casts. Why am I doing this anyway? That's so funny.

And then I'm for the cast as you're in there. But then I'm min-max everything else. I'm in there. I'm min-maxing money. I'm min-maxing Hephafessus's. You're insane. You're insane. Money, bang, boom, whatever that thing is called.

And then Celine. The amount of like just, that's what I'm on. Piling on like boons to the cast, especially if you have that upgrade or power up or whatever it is, where they all like get really slow and frozen. in, but then you're freezing them, and they're getting shocked, like, all at the same time. The amount of, like, waves of enemies I've taken out in just a button press, bless, is crazy.

Yeah, and it also slows down the people. It stops them from chasing you. Yeah. So it's not only slows them down, but, yeah, like Barrett was mentioning, I might have Hephaestis' cast where it does, like, three thing, ding, ding, of hammers. Yeah. And then while they're in there, I might also have a torn. tornado going that's doing damage over like

eight seconds of like freeze or wind damage or you could pair Hephafestus with fucking Fire Lady and now everybody's getting scorched like oh bless it's so important Maybe this game is hitting Maybe I started more than I Like was giving it credit for it because I've been playing it

The last couple of days I'm like coming off of Silk Song I've had the opposite effect of you to Tim where it's not hard but I'm just like I'm not in the right mind space for it but Blessing woke me up with the castes. I'm like,

I'm like, man, I do fuck with this game. We have a bunch of super chats. I want to get to to close out the show. Reminder everybody, after this, we're doing our Borderlands for stream. And then after that, we will be doing, of course, our state of play live reactions. Lucid Dream says,

what was the biggest improvement through early access? I mean, we've kind of touched on this a bit, but I do think it is the easiest answer is balance, right? Like, I feel like there are a lot of elements of the game that I didn't necessarily fuck with before. but, and now I do, and I think that's totally due to tuning of everything and, like, everything feeling worth trying out. And not even necessarily just tuning, but I would also say the way that when some games come out

and maybe aren't vibing with a lot of the player base, you'll get, like, a big rework. And then there'll be kind of another pseudo release that these games will do, and they'll say, hey, we worked, we reworked all of our skill trees. we reworked all of the abilities like a lot of that took place in this early access period where they were getting a lot of feedback from players and I'm sure

internal player tests as well and everything just feels like there's not a whole lot I could look at ability wise and say I wish this did this like everything just is kind of right the way it is Patrick Kremman says

does this game have a hell mode equivalent I don't know I don't recall Helmode I assume that was a Hades one difficulty thing Was Helmode like Where Or I guess it was God mode

Where you could There god mode's in this Okay I think And a function's in a really cool way I think Helmode might be the The heats that you're putting on stuff Yeah there is a way

That you can increase a lot of the difficulty stuff In this game that they give you after you complete a run And then every weapon you have Also has Upgrades where you could get different forms of every weapon and that unlocks new shit as well. Everything gets really, really awesome. It's a harder difficulty option.

It seems to add a condition called personal liability, which removes the impervious shield that Zagrius briefly gains upon taking burst damage. Y'all fuck with Aphrodite? I mean, Aphrodite is one of the ones where I skip. I'm so bad, but I don't know. I need a description. She's the baddies. She's the love one.

She's like the heart. Oh, okay. Yeah. She's one of my least favorites. And I don't remember using her stuff a lot of the first one either. Like she does like weak damage. Like enemies will get hurt by her stuff just, you know, by you being next to them. But then they are given the weak sort of status where their hits are way weaker than they should be.

And that shit does kind of go hard if you can upgrade that really well, where now. now suddenly that boss that takes you out in three hits is it'll take four or five or something like that, you know. Zee's speak says, who do y'all think is the hottest character, barring Aphrodite? Because that's too easy. I'd say, I don't even think Aphrodite. Or nemesis. I mean, everyone's just so fucking hot. Everybody's hot.

Like, I think y'all overrated in Aphrodite. I think Dionysus, he's got that big old bulge looking good. Oh, yeah, Dionyses is. That came out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah, when I saw a massive bulge. He's back in. He's back at it.

Dude's got a hot. Chaos. Chaos, dude. I don't like the little baby, but chaos is fire. I mean, I come back to my girl, Medea. Medea goes to jail. What did you just say? Wait, her name's Medea, right?

The girl from the... Which lady? Yeah, which lady? I don't know how to say it. Hold on. I think it ends with an E. It's... Oh, it is.

Yeah, Medea. Oh, shit. That's hilarious. I saw a lot of people call me out. Like, about Celini. like that's how they say that's how fucking oh i i always said selene like i see that i would have said seline but like they they say selini yeah i would have said seline because of fucking returnal but oh but yeah uh milanui calls her seline or selini even milanoi man

milanui's a baddie yeah the little like the designs of the outfits and everything like super giant oh they know what they call the fuck down okay oh they know exactly the voice acting is so fucking good. The whole cast is amazing. Like this, this game's just hidden on every level. Kinnatic says, should I play Hades 1 on Game Pass before buying Hades 2? I never played either, but I also don't have a lot of time to

game these days. So if skipping one is recommended, I prefer that. I really don't think that there's a bad call here. Like, Hades 1 is incredible, and I don't think Hades 2 negates that, but I also think that Hades 2, I would say, is probably what you should just jump into at this

point. Like, I think that it is better and it is just better because it's more but I do think the Super Giants learned a lot since 80s 1 and like there are little things I might like a little better about Hades 1 but I think overall 2 is the easy answer what do you guys think yeah I think if you don't have the if you don't have the the understanding of what Hades 2 is then you should play Hades 1 because it's it's the breath of the wild tears of the kingdom sort of argument

where you go, they're both awesome games. I think Tears is better. I think Hades 2 is better. But if you don't, if you haven't played the second versions of those games, then the first ones will be as goaded to you as, because you don't have the knowledge of what they eventually become, you know. I found a hard drive article.

Hades two characters ranked by how tender and giving they'd be as lovers. And let me tell you, this game is filled with like, we didn't talk about ERIS in that last year. We didn't talk about ERIS. We didn't talk about nemesis. Hercules. I mean, dude,

Hecatee. The abs. Hackety, dude. Peckety, you know what I mean? Or no, absetit, whatever. Heracles is fucking fire. Come on. Jesus.

I said Heracles. I'm in her. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah, Hercules, yeah. Hermes looks great, too. William Bryant says, is the story standalone are connected to one. It's connected, but it's very standalone.

Yeah, you can jump into this. The way they onboard you is, like, very easy to process. Yeah. It's so awesome, finally progressing stuff and figuring out how to progress stuff. It's really nice to have these new things pop up after I talk to somebody, and it's a thing that I know will progress the story. It's really exciting, and I'm stoked to see where it goes. Neil DePaul says,

That Witch Lady's Medea, who's also part boss pertaining to Andeon boss is not being deep. There's a curse for all bosses being wildly different. That's interesting. Oh, so like different moves, maybe, different movesets? And then Trevor Final Super Chat of the day says Game of the Year Noms are going to be contentious this year. It's starting to get crazy. If we only have six spots at Game Awards,

like even coming up with like, people are going to be pissed. Oh, yeah. Like some fan bases are going to riot. Outside of Bonanza, is there a AAA game that makes that nomination list? Kingdom Come Deliverance 2? right now i think that's the other contender and then we'll see with like what the rest of the year looks like but i'll say goes to beota potentially yeah potential right oh ds training two

yeah i mean there's a lot of maids here i just unlocked another version of a weapon fuck 80s too everybody i'm sure we're going to be talking about this game for a long time to come uh stay tuned we're going to do our borderlands four stream and then after that it's state of playtime baby until next time love you all goodbye