for early access this game is just as fucking good as the first one, i cannot wait until it is complete

the number of times i made it all the way to the end just to die had me contemplating sewerside

there truly is no escape

These are impressions of an early access version, which are subject to change and based on limited gameplay.

Hades II is a triumph of roguelike action. It's predecessor was already wildly impressive and while it may be the honeymoon phase talking, this feels like an improvement in virtually every way. Environments are just as varied, combat systems are even deeper, and the progression is made even more rewarding and natural. It's incredible how consistently Supergiant are able to innovate and improve upon themselves. With each new Supergiant game, I keep asking myself how it can possibly get better, and as each one comes out, I am left flabbergasted by just how talented these people are. Bravo. Can't wait to sink dozens of hours in during the Early Access, and even hundreds more come the official launch.

Personal preference, but having put 200 hours in the first game

1. You get stronger in 1 / bosses are easier in 1
2. The weapons are much more unique in 1
3. Your bad runs in this game feel much worse and there are a lot more bad boons.

That being said, I don't have a ton of motivation to play because 200 hours tends to be my limit and this game is a clone of 1, which is fine, but I don't think I'll be putting another 200 in this one.

20 hours in I want to keep playing so it definitely feels distinguishable enough for a sequel but there are some preference issues I have with it which put 1 above this one for me.

Ton of content for EA though and it's still a great game.

Supergiant don't miss, the game is stellar and while I slightly prefer Hades 1 combat (two dashes are more fun than a sprint) the game is almost entirely upgraded from Hades 1. The game loses points just for general unoriginality. Hades is the studios most clean game but it is also the least interesting and that trend continues here. Supergiant are amazing world builders and I was really looking forward to exploring a new world with unique gameplay but this isn't that. A great game lacking any major flaws besides the fact that its all been done before. Where other Supergiant games feel like they innovate and permutate on what games have done and what they have done, Hades 2 is disappointingly trite despite its undeniable quality. Brilliant, but conceptually disappointing.

Early Access - First Patch - 19 hours so far
The game is a ton of fun, I'm a massive fan of a lot of the new features and they appear to have built on the first game extremely well. I usually don't play games in early access and prefer to play a finished product. I would pretty strongly recommend that if you can wait to play this, then you should. There is an amazing game here but a few too many cool moments are robbed by the fact it's not finished. I'll try to convey the current state of the game and convince you not to play it yet without any direct spoilers - these aren't all criticisms per se, just the reality of the game right now.
The character portraits and their in-game models are not all finished - the placeholders for these are either concept art (which honestly isn't too bad) for the portraits, or this cloaked figure for some models. I wouldn't care about this if these were minor side characters but there is one major character that you meet but they only have the concept art for their portrait. Similarly there are some important, late-game textures which are still concept art.
Menus are a bit buggy sometimes, this might only be using a gamepad but sometimes you have to switch tabs in the menus to get the cursor back after it disappears from going up or down a page. The scroll bar has these pulsing arrows that make it seem like there's something important on the next page but the they just do this by default.
Generally, the gameplay is very polished and bug-free from my experience. The two major bugs were: one main boss enemy going invisible half-way through the fight and I could only see their red energy shimmer to hit them. The other was in the main end boss fight where one of the arena-wide effects stayed on the screen for like 1/3 of the fight and wouldn't go away, and this seriously messed with me seeing other similar effects on the ground. There are a few enemy damage effects which get hidden beneath your cast area and you basically can't see them - enemy damage should pretty much always have priority over your own zones for being displayed.
The hub area feels a lot less polished than the House of Hades, the substitute for the archive room feels unfinished and the general curiosity that was there in the first game isn't really there yet for this game. The main elements of the hub are cool though, as is the witchy feel.
A lot of the systems feel pretty much fully fleshed out and have a great amount of depth. This is true for the boons, upgrades, weapons, arcana and combat from what I've seen so far. That said the general combat has a few balance issues. I can't remember exactly how the first game handled staggering enemies with no armour, but for a lot of elite enemies in this game, once their armour is gone, you can fully stun lock them and too many of these fights end with me not moving, spamming attack. These fights aren't the gimmick enemy with tons of armour and no health either, so it kind of leaves a weird taste in the mouth with the fight being trivialised once their armour is gone.
I think one of the damage effect boons for scorch is bugged. You build up fire stacks on the enemy which deal dot and one boon lets you consume the stacks early for a bit less damage, but I'm pretty sure it was a detrimental boon - watching the health bars it looked like it was doing no damage but taking the stacks.
There is absolutely a confined part of the game that is more or less finished, you can have a complete experience that is parallel to the first game and there is still a lot of fuel for incentivising subsequent runs. The content after this section is about half done and is great and a lot more of a departure from the Hades formula. But I wish I had waited to play it all in one go.
Dialogue is great and the voice acting is amazing. The story seems great and the cast of characters and their interactions are all polished (at least for general progression and early social links). Similar to the first game, sometimes you get event-specific dialogue at weird times, multiple runs after you did something for the first time.
A brief word on difficulty. I haven't settled fully on anything yet but currently two main trends stand out for me. First is that sometimes it can be really hard to increase your damage output if you're not getting the right boons etc. This draws out some runs a bit too much while you're searching for synergies. The other is that the bosses and specifically the end boss might be too easy. Obviously there's a similar system to heat and I've used this a fair amount but not at high difficulties yet. However, the fight feels way too passive. My first victory was very early on and I felt like I was cheesing the game. If you have good sustain and move speed and some ranged damage, the fight is starting to feel very simple once you've learnt it. I think Hades in the first game stayed pretty tough because he was so aggro - that is not the case here. Still early thoughts though.
I have other more substantive criticisms for the game but I'm happy to wait and see how it evolves for the moment. Even in its current state I can definitely recommend buying the game, but you should seriously consider waiting to play it, at least to see how much they can achieve in the near future.