Boons are the only thing holding Hades 2 back from sheer perfection

Even games as close to perfect as Hades 2 has been so far aren’t immune to criticism, and the players are letting themselves be heard too.

Melinoë’s battle against Time invites players back into the depths of the Underworld, and while fantastic character redesigns and a whole set of impossibly fun boss fights set the stage, there’s one prevailing issue that is in much needed overhaul. At the moment, the Boon system, a feature present since the original Hades, is slightly off-kilt with the rest of the game.

You start Hades 2 with the Witch Staff, an obvious weapon for Melinoë – the goddess of ghosts and nightmare – and this is a very strong weapon to use throughout the game. That said, in our tips and tricks guide for Hades 2, we’ve recommended pairing the Daedalus Hammer with the God Boons you will find throughout the game, making use of the weapons heavy hitting damage coupled with damaging effects. Combining the Daedalus Hammer with Hephaestus’ boons yields a deadly serious and overpowered playstyle, but simultaneously renders the Witch Staff and its fast but long range playstyle useless.

This isn’t necessarily an issue with the weapon designs themselves, but rather that the Boon synergies compliment the playstyle of heavy weapons as opposed to fast weapons. Considering Melinoë is fast, agile, and attacks from range, I’ve got a certain expectation that on-hit attacks will produce some interesting Boon effects, something I loved about the original, though as of yet I’ve only encountered one from Zeus. Even then, the Boon was quite underwhelming, hampered by the conditional effect that you lose a set amount of Mana forever when cast.

This brings me onto my next point: conditional boons. Aphrodite has boons that only heal when you’re above 80% health, meaning it’s only really a viable option early on in your runs, while as mentioned before, Zeus’ on-hit chain Boon is too great of a Mana sacrifice to be worth it. In fact, Zeus’ Boon-pool (Not related to the Pool of Purging) is severely limited by similar conditions that all of his offerings are essentially unusable.

There’s a few Boons which make total sense at the moment, Ghost Onion, for one. It restores a portion of your HP whenever you exit a location, and the portion scales as the Boon ranks up. Similarly, Demeter’s Ice Strike Boon is equally awesome, freezing your enemies after hitting them. This is especially useful in an early-game run, without any conditional clauses to hamper you. Hephaestus’ Volcanic Strike is also up there, probably my most sought after Boon at the moment, which really does make you feel like a god as you’re taking on all the bosses the game has to offer.

Boons are pretty broken so far in Early Access, and that’s okay. It is, as we’ve just mentioned, Early Access, and this is a period of time in which bugs and balance issues are meant to be sorted. In fact, the community themselves are pretty on with recommending solutions so many of the problems they’re facing.