I like that if you cut the narrator off you get a "hmph" or something similar from him. I hear it a lot. If you let him finish you get a response from Zagreus.

I died on second boss yesterday. I was too reckless.

If you're bouncing off the narrative I can see why the minor impositions at the start of a handful of runs might seem annoying, but I can't say it bothered me. I get a few repeats in 1.0 due to having them during various stages in the Early Access, which has happened once or twice really cos I imagine there's a lot of progress triggers getting nixed or swapped around due to the updates. But they're like... 30 seconds long max, i've got over 80 hours in the game now and I think I get one every 10 or so runs, at most.
 
In other places the dialogue is largely super economical. The conversations with the Chthonic gods and Olympians being skippable if you aren't jiving with it. You only need to gift everyone one Nectar to get their trinket, and that's it. The rest, bar to a handful of story interjects, is entirely up to you. 

That said however, narrative stuff is literally Supergiant's Forte. It's what they've made their whole image in - well written dialogue and interesting stories, expecting Hades to just elide all that cos it's a roguelike is misunderstanding their entire reason for being as a studio. I think you might just need to accept you don't like the game Crayon, which is entirely fine, but expecting a studio known for narrative to just like, not do that, is bringing the wrong expectations to their game.

I am not saying you can't criticise it, but it feels like you're slogging through with a game you don't like is all. As I say, it's an expectation thing.

My main bugbear with the art style is I wish they'd gone for the more flattened 2D colour characters of Pyre rather than the kind of ugly low-poly characters they have here, as it would probably match the 2D art a lot better. Main aesthetic draw is the music though, it's so distinctively Darren Korb, yet goes a lot harder than his previous stuff. The use of what I assume is a Theremin (could be an Ondes Martenot I guess?) is amazing in tracks like Rage of the Myrmidons, I love how he contrasts more classical instruments in the first half of themes with the more traditional electronic stuff in the boss fight halves.

Weaning myself off to focus on other things, but I did just do a 21 minute spear clear therre after seeing lots of folks say the spear is their favourite weapon (I don't get on with it) and due to some fortuitous boon stacking I managed to obliterate the boss of Elysium inn 40 seconds. Revenge boons go brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Its second behind Cyberpunk for me, stepped up over Neon Abyss

Thats like me going fucking Monster Hunter Rise is goty of 2021. Are you out your fucking nut son

Well can I claim Mohan as goty 2021 then son because that will be fucking TIGHT

I'm nominating the not announced Splatoon 3 as best online game

Okay, I did quibble on the narrative at first, but after a few more hours on this thing it's actually starting to grab me. There must be thousands of hours of dialogue here, it's incredible. I've not heard a single repeat yet? The incidental comments about a previous run from some NPC's is just uncannily good.

But that's just an aside from the gameplay. It's just madness how good it is. The boon juggling is like sex in your hand.

I got to the last boss then died.

I think one extra set of Health would have helped. I had the power that gives you 30% health per death defiance but it recharges every room but boosted for 15 rooms. But that whole level has about a hundred small rooms.

Enjoying it more than my dabble in EA, but still not totally won over. Early days tho I guess and will give it some more love. Not liking the bow and arrow but not got the spear yet so all about the sword still, and still figuring out mechanics etc really...

I like the bow and arrow with the following upgrades

1) anything with stacking status
2) if you can upgrade it with fast shooting.