Hades 2 platinum — 80 hours, 2.5 weeks, PS5

Got the Hades 2 platinum on PS5 on May 3rd. April 16 to May 3, about 80 hours. Some notes while it's fresh.

Coming in from Hades 1

I'd already played through Hades 1 so I wasn't starting cold. I had a sense of how the loop works, how to read boons, how to think about builds. It helped. I still got beat up constantly.

Hades 2 is harder, and I think it's specifically because the battle system has more going on. More options, more interactions, more things to track mid-run. In Hades 1 you develop a feel for the system and it becomes second nature. In Hades 2 that ceiling is higher, which is fun once you're over it, but the path to "over it" is longer.

What actually helped

Take the NPC door whenever it appears. I can't stress this enough. I skipped it early on thinking I'd come back or that combat was the priority. I was wrong. Do it.

The knucklebones prophecy — do it as early as you can, and knock out any related prophecies alongside it. It unlocks things that make the rest of the run feel considerably less punishing. If you're wondering whether to prioritize it, yes.

Beyond those two: just play like Hades 1. Try every weapon, every god's boons. Some things click, others don't. The platinum asks you to touch most of it anyway, so curiosity is its own strategy.

The grind part

Eighty hours over 2.5 weeks is honestly not that bad for a roguelike platinum. Most of it felt like playing, not grinding. Prophecies (Hades 2's version of the codex objectives) give you something to orient toward when you don't have a specific goal in mind, which kept things from feeling aimless.

The last stretch of cleanup was the most tedious, as it always is with platinums, but nothing was unreasonably obscure. If you're stuck, read through your prophecies.

Ratings

Graphics: 8/10. Really beautiful art style. There were some inconsistencies in how characters are represented that bugged me, but overall it looks great.

Gameplay: 9/10. Smooth, just like Hades 1. Some weapons lean heavily on button spam, which started hurting my hand. There are less-spammy options though, so you can adjust. Full voice acting across all the dialogue is a nice touch.

Story and characters: 6/10. I found the dialogue pretty boring and didn't connect much with the characters. The story was okay. Not why I was here.

Worth it?

The game: yes, absolutely. If you liked Hades 1 or the gameplay looks at all interesting to you, play it.

The platinum: less sure. Toward the end it did start to feel like a chore. A chunk of late progress is tied to dialogue, which means running the same content repeatedly just to nudge conversations forward. That wore on me more than the combat grind did. The buffed boss fights were the most frustrating part too. Once you encounter them you'll know what I mean.

Play the game, get as far as feels fun, and decide on the platinum from there.