That’s worth considering, but it also needs to be weighed against possibly impacting their friendship if she’s not interested. I also wouldn’t recommend saying he “really likes her” if he doesn’t already like her a lot that way, but even just “I like you” would work just as well.
You can use a controller. I got further in Dead Cells on my phone with the Backbone One than I did on my Steam Deck. Maybe the same would be true with Hades - it’s a shame the Netflix version doesn’t (or didn’t; I haven’t checked in months) support cross-save.