The Insane Imbalance of Hades II | Design Delve
Added 2025-09-29 15:03:53 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Design Delve is now available!
Comments
I feel like this video mis-characterizes a few things about Slay the Spire's systems -- it's true that there are achievements to hunt that require certain playstyles, but then JM8 says that hunting those achievements will unlock further upgrades, and that's just not true. There is technically a 'progression' system with each character in StS that unlocks new cards and artifacts as they 'level up' -- but secretly, the real purpose of that system is almost entirely hiding complexity from new players by introducing more complicated elements gradually, and doesn't substantially affect game balance. Like the additional Jokers that Balatro unlocks, the new ships in FTL, the new squads of mechs in Into the Breach, and almost all of the hundreds of additional items unlocked by achievements in The Binding of Isaac: what the player is 'unlocking' is not in fact generally an upgrade that will make future games easier -- they are mostly adding additional complexity to the game at a measured pace to both keep the game fresh and keep all these elements from overwhelming a new player, and with further achievements and unlocks as targets for the player to encourage them to play the game in new ways. The games I mention here are all far more roguelike than roguelite. (Uh. As long as we're not talking about the strict Berlin Interpretation of "Roguelike". I've met a few people who would probably want to shiv me for how wantonly I'm using the term to refer to games that aren't ASCII symbols moving on a turn-based grid) Another trend of Slay the Spire and its more roguelike / less roguelite kin is to directly reward victory by unlocking harder and harder difficulty options. The video talks about how 'consistency of victory' and associated leaderboards is the end-game for Slay the Spire, and that may be true for *some* extremely high level players, but for the first few hundred (!!) hours, the reward most obviously presented to players for victory is a one new higher difficulty challenge level after another, each of which will require even deeper understanding and mastery of the game's systems to overcome, up to Ascension 20 which has 20 layers of additional modifiers crushing down on the player. This is also featured in Balatro's stakes, Monster Train's covenants, and a general trend of uncovering harder and scarier levels the deeper into The Binding of Isaac the player progresses. Hades and Hades 2, of course, steal ideas liberally from their more roguelike kin, with prophecies encouraging variety of play in a way similar to achievement unlock systems, and Pacts acting as scaling difficulty for players who've had repeat victories. Of course they do -- those games are smart, and made *really well*. (I'm just echoing things JM8 said in the video at this point -- pardon my gushing)
Anders Carlson
2025-10-01 08:27:10 +0000 UTCGreat analysis! I really love the way keepsakes and arcana cards let you adapt the RNG to your particular challenge. And Hades 2's blend of hoarding resources for unlocks while still having to discover access to them through gameplay and narrative is definitely the best of both worlds IMO.
Squizzie Squizzerton
2025-09-29 18:39:10 +0000 UTCFunny observation: Both Silksong and Hades II added a sprint to the existing movement options. I cannot say how much it changes the gameplay in Silksong, I've only jumped back in recently, after giving up a few hours in years ago. But in Hades II it changed the way the game feels significantly compared to Hades I, a few hours in I thought I'd never get used to it, but 200 hours later it feels super smooth to the point the movement felt rough when I did a run in Hades I.
DonDon
2025-09-29 16:59:08 +0000 UTCAfter being unable to beat Act 3 of Silksong due to it's punishing difficulty, I was delighted to see that God mode returns in Hades 2. It's still very tough, but I think I have more of a chance to actually beat this one. The writing, art style, voice acting, and music are all superb.
Dan
2025-09-29 16:24:47 +0000 UTC
