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Similar to Extreme Measures from the previous instalment,Hades 2reintroduces more difficult versions of their Guardian boss fights with the Vow of Rivals. Once unlocked, you can challenge bosses in new contexts for the glory of defeating bosses as their prime selves.
However, be warned: the Vow of Rivals means you’ll have to defeat Unrivaled versions of each boss in order. Skipping is not allowed, and Fate never allows you to pick and choose. And of course, to have the unique honour of unlocking the potential of late bosses, you must prove your worthiness by mastering the Unrivaled forms of all that come before.
How To Unlock The Vow Of Rivals
After clearing several runs with the Testaments of Night active,Hecate, during a combat instance,will inform you that you are now ready to try the ‘Vow of Rivals’.
Upon returning to the Crossroads, you will be able toadd the Vow of Rivals(first testament) to your testaments list. By adding it,the first bosses of either route will have major fight changes.
There arefour tiers of the Vow of Rivals.The first will be provided for you for free, but the others will require you to:
Hecate and Polyphemus
Rivals of Depth and Sea
Scylla & the Sirens and Eris
Rivals of Plain and Peak
Cerberus and Prometheus
Rivals of Old and Rot
Chronos and Typhon
All Vow Of Rivals Fights
The Vow of Rivals Fights arehighly-tuned and much harder versionsof their original counterparts. You mustmaster their previous versionsto even have a chance at defeating their new ones.
Many of these fightsincrease difficultynot by sheer damage output but by:
You cannot pick and choose the Vow of Rivals for specific bosses. If you want to fight a later-game Unrivaled boss, you must fight all bosses before them in their Unrivaled state as well.
Polyphemus Rivals Fight
Polyphemus’s Rivals fightintroduces Medeaas Polyphemus’s partner in combat. While you’re expecting all sorts of witchy hexes, this fight isdangerous for two reasons:
While Polyphemus can also be poisoned,his attacks take on a poison elementwhile he has contracted the status and can afflict you with poison when his attacks strike.
Medea will appearthroughout the match,casting poison spellsthat leave zoning elements to be feared. Although the cyclops is the only one you can hit, you shouldfear both enemies.
If you are poisoned during this fight, you can remove the status effect by the satyr pools now placed on the edges of the arena.
Hecate Rivals Fight
AlthoughHecate invites her doublesin this fight throughout the match, just like in her first phase, these copies rarely disappear and stay on the field for most of the fight.They will continuously attack, providing a real hazard for movement.
On top of the doubles, Hecate will be able todon the Dark Form, just like Melinoe does with Selene’s boon.
The witches will still appear as normal as well, though they now have Shield and are harder to kill quickly.
Like Polyphemus, the arena has visibly changed to add extra difficulty through theinclusion of stone pillars. These pillars can be used tohide from projectilesor become a hazard bytripping up your dash.
Additionally, new effects are present with Hecate’s ability toturn you into various animals,including:
Unrivaled Eris Fight
The Adamant Rail is transformed for Eris’s fight. Similar to how you use Aspects of the Night for your weapons,Adamant Rail has a new formwith changed attack patterns and types.
Rather than launching grenades at you, Adamant Rail has adopted the ability tofire lasersandleave delayed explosive orbs.
These orbs do create short-lived zoning areas of fire as well that pulsate and deal damage when you near. They can be destroyed early by your own projectiles and by Eris’s attacks.
Although the old Eris fight had a spacious arena where you could hide behind pillars to dodge attacks, you are nowconfined to a small rectangulararena.
You’ll have tododgeEris’s dangerous lasers and delayed explosions with little room for error. Oh, and her enemy summons are now more numerous and have adopted Shields. Lovely!
Unrivaled Scylla & The Sirens Fight
Reprising their debut, Scylla & the Sirens have invited afourth memberto their ensemble:Charybdis. As if either of these bosses weren’t frustrating enough in their own fights…
In abrand-new arena, Charybdis’s tentacles take up positions around the room, acting as they normally do for the mid-Rift of Thessaly fight. Scylla has a few new moves of her own, but most of this fight is aperfect mash-up of the Sirens and the Devouring Charybdis.
Charybdis can now be thefeatured artistof this fight during Phase Two. However, the real surprise comes from Scylla:Phase Three.
Unrivaled Prometheus Fight
Prometheus is already a difficult fight on his lonesome. This new, Unrivaled version of him takes this fight up a notch byintroducing Heracles as an enemy.
WhilePrometheus keeps all of his moves(and throws in some rapid, staggering punches to boot),Heracles will continuously attack youthroughout the entire fight. Wonderful!
The best way to survive this fight is todefeat Heracles quickly and first. This is because:
When Heracles is removed from the fight, Prometheus’s fight will becomeeverything you were used to, down to the arena and most of the summoned enemies being the same.
Unrivaled Cerberus Fight
Cerberus is a much easier Guardian fight for his location, especially compared to Prometheus. However, the Unrivaled takes your overconfidence and habitual understanding of Cerberus and has you wishing you could dunk your head into River Lethe.
This fight introduces the bane of all players' existences:space management. Much to our chagrin,Cerberus’s arena is massively shrunkinto the center for the first half of the fight.This means:
Then, in Phase Two, Cerberus turns up the heat even more.He introduces:
All in all, Cerberus’s Unrivaled fight is the greatest bane of any hitless run.
you may use Hestia’s Dash boon to help negate some of the burning damage inflicted by the magma in this arena.
Unrivaled Chronos Fight
Chronos’s fight is very similar in the regular and Unrivaled versions witha few minor tweaks:
Overall, however,his fight remains largely unchangedin the first phase.
Once you enter thesecond phase, you’ll seea lot more changes, including:
All other mechanics and moves of his fight remain the same, and those who are practiced with Chronos already will find this Unrivaled fight mostly smooth sailing with a bit of practice.
Unrivaled Typhon Fight
At last, the most difficult fight of Hades 2 arrives with Typhon’s Unrivaled fight. Following the trend of other fights under the Vow of Rivals, Typhon isaccompanied by an old threat: Chronos.
The Father of Time is an invincible enemywho uses his normal attacks from Phase One of his own fight on top of Typhon’s own.
As the phase transition in Typhon’s fight hits,Zeus is replaced by Chronos,who fires down upon Melinoe with more attacks. Your free hits against Typhon are over.
Similarly, you’ll have toprioritize defeating the monster eggsbefore they hatch as they will now summon the Wardens (the minibosses) from below.
While simple in theory and with almost no new moves to speak of, the difficulty of this fight is not in learning new movesets;the hardship is in learning how to juggle two at the same time.
ByseeingTyphon and Chronos’s Unrivaled forms, you will complete the prophecy: Unrivaled Prowess. This will reward you with +10 Nightmare.
Notably, you do not have to have beaten them to get this reward.
