The Battle of Olympus for NES is Marvelous - A Review | hungrygoriya
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- Опубліковано 25 бер 2023
- The Battle of Olympus is an easy new favourite of mine for NES. It has all the great makings of an adventure game with a great translation, challenging combat, and a very immersive world that I really enjoyed exploring. Play this one! 🍖
The introductory animation and outro text were created and designed by Saad Azim.
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#retrogaming #nes #battleofolympus - Ігри
True story: my parents got this game when I was a kid, and while I was too young to get far in it, I spent many happy weekends slowly "helping" my dad get through it. It made me interested in Greek mythology, and I still have the massive Greek mythology book they bought me so I could learn more. I was like six years old at the time. This game is a big part of why I learned to read.
The mom of a friend of mine once complained to my mom that video games were rotting kids' brains, and my mom just told that story and shut that conversation down.
That's adorable! I'm glad you had some fun gaming times with your dad. And good on your mom for stopping that naysaying lady in her tracks. What nonsense!
Haha. That's a good one!! Old folks usually just dismiss whatever's new.
@@ronch550 And now I'm probably older than she was...
It's probably the same for me in what it concerns Greek mythology. That game really mesmerized me.
At that time i didn't understand anything at all, i started playing really early like around 3 years old, so i started to play my first video games without knowing how to read in my own language and of course i didn't start yet to learn english too. My brother who was older and started learning english told me few things about characters were saying in the game, and the fact that the currency of that game was olives (hard to believe lol).
Also fun fact the 1st movie i saw at the cinemra when i was younger was Hercules from Disney which is also on the theme of Greek Mythology.
On more thing we can add to video games, in fact for people not talking english natively, it encouraged us to learn that language. I won't lie, i live in France and our system to learn english is/was really atrocious and really repeling, it's probably the same even for todays children. I started to be interrested to learn that language to understand video games, probably not the NES ones because i was really to young. At least i'm sure the NES games have motivated my older brother to learn that language, i remember him being able to translate what town folks were saying in Zelda 2 and so understand at least what to aim in the game lol.
Years later, my brother bought games at the PS1 era, it was some RPG that have never been sold in our country, like Legend of Mana / Valkyrie Profile / Parasite Eve 1 and i guess it's at that moment i tried to improve my skill in english to understand them, of course now most of the games are officially translated but in the past it wasn't and i guess it encourraged me to learn. Later, i've discovered online games and i probably really started to improve a lot to understand what other people were saying.
So yes video games weren't a waste of time in my opinion, we could argue about that with some of todays games that are made to make you spent time/money on them with daily system connection or other evil systems similar but in general i guess it was a good thing.
I also remember one last thing my brother explained to me about the true story of Orpheus, in the game everything ends happily but in the real Greek Mythology it ends sadly with a pact with Hades that ends badly. Hades accepts to give back to Orpheus his beloved one, but at the condition that he doesn't look at her until he is out of the land of hades, but unfortunately this happened when they were about to exit from here. Seriously it was very impressive that he had that culture considering he was around 10-14 years old when he taught me that.
@@FrozenZerg This is incredibly inspiring to me. I only speak English and can understand a little bit of French, but I can't say I've had anything near the experience here of what you're describing with the desire to learn languages. It's admirable! I've had the thought about wishing I knew Japanese a few times when I've been staring at a Japanese copy of a game worth a fraction of the English version, but other than that, I can't say I've felt all that personally motivated.
Good for you for sitting down and taking an interesting medium to propel your interests forward. That's an amazing feat! And hats off to your brother for being such a cool person to hang out with, by the sounds of it.
Part of the reason you feel so much for the characters in this story actually has to do with its development history. The dev team was lead by a _husband and wife_ duo, who wanted to emphasize the romance of the story as well as their shared love of Greek myth.
Their efforts definitely worked out as far as I'm concerned!
I never knew that at all. And its still the best game on NES, and most consoles i ever played. The puzzles and adventure feeling is very hard to beat. They solved lots of problem with smart solutions. Like the caves where you fight a big lion. Where there's also rooms if you fall down the right pit, and secret pathways.
It was like a nes Dark Souls. Connected worlds with lots of going between each area as you progress the story. The story is incredible. The mythology is incredible. It could very well been a stable series as 'Zelda', similar to Link in the Past with unique item inventory, and Hades (Ganon) has kidnapped his wife. Truely wonderful game. But the horror with you mistook a 1 for a L in the password screen. Oh lo.
I was 14 and named the woman as my school crush (who was older since my school only had girls in the last two years)… and I did find the entire game quite a romantic fantasy!
Those passwords were evil @somerandomchannel382
Omg I love learning this ;_;
One of my all time favorite games. After beating it decades ago as a kid, I was so proud I took a pic of the end screen and sent to Nintendo Power. Few months later a friend was reading it at school and saw my name. I instantly became a schoolyard celebrity.
That's so cool! That must've been surreal!
Brilliant.
This is honestly my favorite NES game. Not too many people knew about it, but the day I got it for my birthday one year, priceless. I spent hours trying to figure everything out. Now as an adult, I revisit this game at least twice a year just to hear the soundtrack and relive the fond memories this game gave to me. Thank you for the wonderful thought out video on this hidden gem
This game was a pleasure to play and discuss here. I'm so glad you enjoyed your time with it back then and still continue to do so. I play Faxanadu once a year, but I should probably play it more often.
I found your channel about a month ago and I’ve binge watched many of them, from the tune on your opening screen to the way you explain the games in a calming and engaging matter. I enjoy your channel very much.😊
Thanks for the compliments! I'm glad you enjoy your time here :)
Agreed. Mainstream video game journalists could learn a thing or two from this channel.
Her Twitch channel streams are calming and fun too. 👍
I went through this journey last year and now every Goriya video is instant happiness.
@@MarcosCodas Awww, thanks very much!
This game was my holy grail as a kid. I spent three years looking until I found it in a pawn shop on the other side of the big city I lived in. I actually ended up liking it less than I expected, but that's because I was too impatient to fight correctly. I like it much more as an adult!
I got similarly wrecked in Zelda II growing up because I lacked patience in combat too. It's much more manageable now in my current state of being with patience for days!
05:18 Absolutely. The game was not easy and getting lost in the forest is where I usually gave up. But the game was still worth it if you can power through it. And I definitely have fond memories overall. It's one of the few games that sticks with you for years and, er, decades at a time.
I'm glad it's not just me! The forest maze actually made me feel hopeless at first but I ended up pushing through.
I love this game. I still remember seeing the commercial on TV when I was a kid. It was advertised alongside The Guardian Legend.
The Guardian Legend is a fantastic game too! What a pair!
I was extremely interested in greek myths as a kid so this game was one of my favorites. I liked how you bowed to the gods and goddesses when talking to them, that little addition was just so cool
I bet it was a great extension of your love for those topics in video game form! There are so many nice details in this one that I didn't mention, but the kneeling also made me happy too!
Every time this game appears on a video or article it makes my heart sing because it is such an underrated and largely forgotten NES title!
I loved it. I hope shining some light on it gets more people experiencing it!
I used to rent this game A LOT:, it was really difficult in a lot of the ways Zelda II was, and I never got anywhere really, but it was still fun... I was just enraptured with the music, atmosphere and Greek mythology aesthetic. That opening theme song is a bop.
I treated Faxanadu like that a lot when I was a kid except I owned it. I used to wander around trying to figure out what to do for years and never finished it until I was an adult.
The opening theme was stuck in my head for weeks after I finished this game, and I still put it on sometimes. It's beautiful.
@@hungrygoriya I’ve never heard of this game(prolly once or twice recently) but the comments here make me wanna play it now.
@@NYCHeavyHitz212 I hope you do give it a try. It's worth it!
I still have this game from my childhood. Never beat it back then. I had no idea what to do or where to go but that didn't stop me from having fun :D
That's how I got on with Faxanadu as a kid as well. I never beat it until much later in life but adored it anyway.
I loved the size of the "backyard" that this game was to explore. I never played it to be beat, just to play it to explore and adventure as the password system just beat me. I frequently got spanked in the Crete maze.
I liked the Crete maze way more than the tree one earlier on. It was at least a little easier to map, though my actual drawing was horrible. Just numbers representing doors with lines going to different coloured hallways. It worked though!
@@hungrygoriya I suppose because it was earlier and easier and I just spent more time in it I became way more familiar with the tree maze. I also had no mapped order to explore the game so Crete I was likely underpowered for most of the time. The music of argus and finding the pits that lead to the salamander shield, and finding the secret water fountains throughout the game to fill my jug with was so thrilling. I felt like I was mastering a landscape.
@@KCUFyoufordoxingme Finding those fountains was a huge rush. I remember finding the second one in Crete and I almost exploded with relief, haha
A tip for the maze sections without a map:
As you said, each maze is divided into a few different colored screens with several doors in each screen. Rather than worrying how it all connects, you really just need to make sure you enter each room, as this will inevitably give you everything you need.
To this end, when you enter the first screen of a maze, start from one end of the screen and make your way down. Each time you encounter a door, go in. If it takes you to another screen of doors, go back through that door to the first screen and proceed to the next door. If there's an NPC or something else of note in there, interact with it. Keep making your way down the screen and explore each door this way until you have done all of them on a given colored screen.
You can now proceed to a different colored screen, and repeat the process. Then to another colored screen, and so on. This way you can systematically explore and collect what is in each door without getting lost, needing a map, or learning your way about.
The Battle of Olympus was and still is one of my top favorite NES titles!!! Thanks for the memories and love your voice...🙂
It's an easy favourite for me too. You're very welcome!
I'm glad you found this to be a worthy adventure game! One tiny detail I appreciated was the password numbers and punctuation being italicized to help differentiate them from regular letters
Oh I hadn't even noticed! That's a good point! No 9s looking like gs. Very smart on their part.
So cool to see you get around to reviewing this game. It's been a favorite of mine for over 30 years! Love your content as always.
Sorry it took so long! I was looking at the file dates and can't believe it was already over a year ago that I played this one. And thanks very much :)
Got this game when I was five or six. It opened my whole world up. Got me into mythology and was one of the highlights of my whole childhood. Great review.
Awww that's awesome! I love hearing stories like this!
You bring both heart and mind to your reviews, HG; they are works of art.
That's a very sweet sentiment! Thanks so much!
Always happy when you upload a new review. I tried to play this game once but I think I got frustrated by those jumpy blue worms. I'll have to give it another try!
Thanks very much! I'm glad I finally got this one reviewed because I loved it when I played it last year. I hope you blow by the blue worms and enjoy all of the wonderful stuff that comes beyond them. Good luck!
Glad you covered this. I had this growing up.Thank you!
My pleasure! Thanks for stopping in and watching! I loved this one.
One of my favorite things about your videos is how you talk about the game manual and value it as an important part of the game experience. 👍
I never start a game without consulting the manual, unless I can't find one for some reason. That's happened a few times. I'm glad you like the videos!
man, i've collected nintendo games for my entire life and since I been watching your channel i've already seen a few i've never heard of before. thanks for the videos, Goriya! Keep it up!
My pleasure! I'm still learning about new games and I've been collecting for a long while as well.
Awesome to see you enjoyed Battle of Olympus! This and Crystalis were the two action RPG's I played most on NES. Seems you had the patience to take things in stride that many folks struggle with in this one, and it's understandable with the difficulty curve at parts! There is a fan-made patch that adds SRAM saving to the game so that you can skip having to enter a password to continue. Very handy for folks trying to lessen the barrier-of-entry here also! Cheers
I had no idea about the fan-made patch and saving abilities! That's really cool. I wonder if more people would want to play it if they knew about that feature in particular, because the passwords are a dealbreaker for so many folks. Thanks for sharing!
I played Crystalis a long while back and really liked it too. I just never got around to reviewing it!
Yay, Crystalis! Crystalis is epic.
Crystalis is one of the top 5 NES games ever made. And I will die on that hill.
@@childofcascadia i flippin loved crystalis. But I never finished. I think I always stopped after a couple of the swords because I'd just get lost and eventually, frustration outweighed fun. For side scrolling adventures, theres a NES game whose name escapes me. You play as a samurai...ninja....a guy with a japanese sword.
Theres items to buy, abilities to get, and the entire game pops with a very specific NES style... i've seen it in other games. Can't put my finger on it. Its the colors, crispness, lack of jaggedness... kinda like how you saw mario 3, and just knew it was pushing the limits of your favorite grey box.
The title was... something ninja... i think. It had an unneccessarily long title.
Ugh. Posting this as-is. I'll come back in a few minutes with the game name or its gonna drive me nuts.
(Edit: I was getting titles mixed up. Its Conquest Of The Crystal Palace. Loved that game.)
This is by far the most underappreciated out of these NES metroidvania games. It's nice to see someone else give it praise for a change, rather than comparing it unfavorably to its peers.
Also, I found the area layout and connections just as confusing as you did! That being said, I found it far more forgiving than Simon's Quest. Simon's Quest had a simpler layout but incredibly obtuse clues and puzzles. As a kid, I didn't have Nintendo Power, so I wasn't able to complete Simon's Quest. Too many of the "puzzles" were effectively unsolvable because of the mistranslations and outright lies in NPC dialogue. Battle of Olympus, on the other hand, I was able to complete without help.
I try not to do too much comparing to other games when I'm reviewing, though if comparisons are helpful, I'll occasionally make them. Here, this game stood on its own two feet just fine. It's awesome!
I agree with you about the hints in Simon's Quest. There were a few times I stumbled in that game. The Battle of Olympus was clear as day. The only misconception I had was that Poseidon wanted to sell me a single dolphin ride across the ocean for 60 olives instead of unlimited use of the ocarina... I was pretty huffy about that but got back on track pretty quick, haha
I got this for Christmas with my Nes when I was around 6, I loved it but it was so hard. Came back to it at different times and when I was 10 I beat it, the music was so catchy and when I went to replay it last year I found myself being transported back in time listening to it. One of my favorite childhood games. This and Faxanadu were a few of the NES games I could actually beat on my own as a child. Great memories
Right on! I could never quite get through Faxanadu when I was a kid. I got lost in the mist until I was an adult and then I finally hunkered down and beat it. I play it through once a year now and I experience the same kind of feeling you've described here. I'm suddenly back in my childhood home exploring the World Tree, but I'm 10 years old again.
@@hungrygoriya I did manage Faxanadu as a child but it was tough, although I felt not as tough as Olympus but that could've been from the problems of a child trying to write down passwords and not writing it down exactly right and having to start over everytime 😭 also I think my first ever rage quit in gaming was against the lamia 🤣 few games from that time bring me back with music, but those two definitely do, oh and Shadowgate
this game was developed by a super small team -- 3 members -- Yukio Horimoto, design and programming, Kazuo Sawa, composer, and Reiko Sawa, story and graphics. Horimoto and Sawa would later get married
Yeah! That couple's love really shone through here.
There was something Orpheus did that instantly made me think of the 2019 action-adventure Metroid-Vania, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It's more modern than the usual games featured on stream, but I wager it could hit a lot of the same points Olympus and Faxanadu would. Large labyrinthine world, gaining abilities to unlock new areas, the occasional NPC to offer advice or clue you in on a puzzle, a little bit of grinding if you choose, an "olive grind" you can solve if you're clever enough and play your cards right, rewards for exploring, diverse environments, and someone who is famous for saying, "I'm interested in this."
The "I'm interested in this" guy's in Bloodstained? I always get the new/old Castlevania-inspired games turned around in my mind. I think I'd really like this one based on what you've said here. Thanks for mentioning it!
As someone also on a quest for more Faxanadu, I'll have to give this one another shot! Tried it a long time ago with some friends and we wrote it off. I think we made the wrong choice!
I hope you enjoy it if you try it again! It's extremely charming and I really adore it despite its frustrations.
11:55 This area with the snowy mountains and annoying enemy combo is actually Phthia. Laconia is the area with the seashore where Poseidon lives that you can get to after besting the Cyclops in Peloponnesus. It's where you get the Ocarina to call the dolphin, as well as the Flask and a few other things. The Ocarina is also what you need to wake the Gaea in Attica that blocks the path into Phthia. Phthia is where you get the Sword of Hephaestus and the Golden Apple, among other things.
Right right... I did make a small error there while I was writing. Thanks for pointing that out!
An outstanding and exhaustive review, as we’ve come to expect! Thank you for your efforts! :-)
Thanks for taking the time to watch. I appreciate it!
These reviews are always a treat. I was just saying to one of my friends, "I like Hungry Goriya's channel. She has a chill presentation, kinda like Jeremy Parish, and is really thorough and enthusiastic in her approach. She even includes the instruction booklet when relevant."
I've only barely touched The Battle of Olympus. This is making me want to give it a serious shot.
Awww, thank you for telling someone about my channel. That warms my heart!
I hope you do give this one a shot. It's frustrating at times but fun to the core. I loved it.
I am tied to this game by beautiful memories of adolescence. It's part of my trio of favorite NES games: The Battle of Olympus, Faxanadu and The Guardian Legend.
That's awesome! And those are three fantastic games that I adore as well. Especially that one in the middle that I can't shut up about.
I had always heard good things about this game, so it was cool to finally see what made it stand out as a hidden gem, great review!
Many thanks for your kindness here. I loved this game and I hope some more people will give it a try and enjoy it too.
This is a great game, but brutally hard. It's definitely not for casual players. That, of course, makes overcoming all of the challenges so satisfying. You're spot-on about the music, it's so wistful and gorgeous. The translation is also such a plus; the total opposite of Castlevania II, whose horrible translation made any clues borderline indecipherable. The combat is the biggest make-or-break factor for me; the hit box of your attacks always feels stacked against you. Great review!
This is definitely on the more difficult side of things, I agree! I wish the combat here had been a little deeper to help out against certain pesky monsters, but with enough practice, I got through the whole game eventually. It was hard fought, but definitely a victory I'm really proud of. Thanks so much!
This is a game I didn't know about until I found it in my emulation ROM pile one day. I immediately thought of Zelda 2, but as I played further into it, I realized that it was far better. Not enough people have enjoyed it.
Yeah, it's very different from Zelda 2, and I also enjoy it a lot more. Hopefully more people will feel inspired to play it someday. It's a worthy adventure!
Okay, those little spear bears may be evil trolls, but they're utterly adorable evil trolls.
They are very, very cute. I hate them anyway though!
What makes these types of games so special (to people who enjoy them)? Faxanadu, Battle of Olympus, Zelda 2, Crystalis, Rygar, The Magic of Scheherazade, & Karnov were all games that felt "immersive" to early teen me. An upgraded weapon or character strength meant I'd earned the right to take down early enemies in one hit instead of 3. As a kid with more time than things to think about, it was much easier remembering poorly differentiated maze routes just by trial and error . Enemies in Battle of Olympus had a habit of hanging just outside of your hit range until you opened yourself up by attacking, Had a weapon been included that either extended your hit range or allowed for additional directions of attack, it would have been much more satisfying.
I agree with you completely here, especially about the fighting. I loved the distance attack with the flame but most enemies wanted to get up in my face, and they were really tough to hit. A little more combat diversity would've gone a long way here. Thanks for a thoughtful comment!
I get a chuckle when you say "I get completely wrecked" in your videos. I use you say that a lot years ago and occasionally still do when the time is right.
I say that all the time in real life, and a lot during the streams.
Bat retaliation sounds like it could be the title of its own game
One of my favorites as a kid. I was so thrilled to pick this up on release.
I bet! It's an awesome game! You chose well.
I remember playing this as a kid with my best buddy and watching him play back in 1990. I played it myself a little but struggled with it, still good times.
I can see this being a great game to play with a friend. Taking turns wandering was one of the best pastimes back then!
Wow the colours and art direction in this game are fantastic. I don't think i'd heard of this game before.
Right? It's a gorgeous game with a lot of really high points that not too many people talk about. Do you think you'll play it?
@@hungrygoriya I definitely will play it i reckon. Though makes me wonder if you could take the graphics of Olympus ,with the sound from LaGrange Point. It would be amazing to see what the NES could do.
My only experience with this game was when I was around 6 years old, my next door neighbor had it and I played it once. Never could remember the name of it but I distinctly remembered the jumping blue worms, and the medusa archer by the start of the game.
Oh wow! So this video must've dug pretty deep into your memory vaults then!
Thanks for shining the spotlight on this one! Loved your example of the upside down sandal mechanic failing at that point in Tartarus. That part used to make me so angry! I just played through the Game Boy port which was 50x worse with the sandals actually working. As for moving around the map as a vet of this one, yup I know where I’m going except in Crete, where I count doors. If I get lost, NBD, we just run away from those knights!
It was my pleasure. I'm just sad I didn't play this game sooner because I loved it that much! That part I showed with the sandals and another bit in the area past the cyclops in Peloponnesus were the worst! Anywhere with pits or instant death water was just begging for that mechanic to go horribly wrong.
Glad I'm not the only one who got completely lost playing this game. My map for Crete is atrocious but I just numbered each coloured floor's doors and drew lines to show where each one led, as well as showing the fountains. I think there were two fountains in there and my goodness did I ever need them! Those knights were just terrible!
I knew absolutely nothing about Greek mythology when this game first came out (I was still in elementary school at the time and I didn't read Homer until halfway through middle school), but I could rent it at my local video store and it had a dragon on the box, which was enough of a selling point for me. I think part of why I developed an interest in Ancient Greece was because I played this game so much as a kid and not much Kid Icarus, which thrashed me so badly that I never bothered to play all the way through it until decades later. The reverse difficulty curve of the bosses from Battle of Olympus has nothing on that entire game's reverse difficulty curve.
As a kid, I used to watch a cartoon that told some Greek myths but I can't remember what it was called. That was my only exposure to it growing up, but I learned about this game eventually and was immediately sucked in. I love too many other games like it to not enjoy it too.
Kid Icarus is a very tough game. The reverse difficulty made it so that I never got out of the first world for a long, long time. I finally finished it a few years ago too but goodness was it ever tough! Good work on getting through it as well.
Nice work hungry! Thanks for taking the time to do such an awesome detailed in-depth! 👏
Thanks so much for saying so! It's my pleasure. I loved this game far too much to not talk about it eventually.
Yep, i also got completely lost playing this as a kid. I really wanted to get further as i was (and still am) into Greek mythology but it was just too tough for me. Having said that i think Metroid was even more confusing.
Metroid was pretty tough to navigate too, agreed. I really got lost down in the grey area near the bottom of the map. Things looked way too similar down there!
This is one that I've been almost hoping nobody puts on some top 100 list, since it's been sitting under the $15 range for years now. It's getting hard to find games of this quality at a reasonable price. Either way, great review as always! I love how you take the time to play through the entire game, and with real hardware no less.
It's definitely a sleeper hit. I'm grateful I got it for a good price, and I'm pretty sure it's still pretty reasonably cheap to get, at least for the moment. I'll hope it doesn't get onto any big lists too, but also that that people give it a try. It's worth playing and I think it's worth letting people know about.
I beat this game as a teenager when it was released, having rented it for the weekend. I don't know how I beat so many games in my youth that I find difficult now. I've been trying to remember the name of this game for twenty years and saw it on another channel tonight, finally getting the games name. Super cool to find your really recent review. Thanx!!
Teenager gaming powers are unmatched by people on either side of that age group, I think haha... congratulations on finding a lost memory here. I had a similar experience with a game called Challenge of the Ancient Empires on DOS where I played it a ton as a kid but had no idea what it was called. It was a magical feeling rediscovering its name after so long.
@@hungrygoriya Oh man! DOS, another core memory, ha ha ha. Thanks again
Very interesting and good to hear other people also enjoy this game. I agree with all the flaws and stuff it does have. But I overcame those obstacles and found a great game. Everyone with a hunger for side scrolling action adventures should give it a serious try.
Agreed 100%!
I loved this game as a kid. Took years to beat because I didn’t have the internet or Nintendo power but I got it done eventually. I’m still a big gamer, but MOST new games just don’t have the love that these amazing old 8 bit games had. Faxanadu is one of my all time favorites, as well as this one. Wonderful video.
I haven't played a lot of new stuff so I can't speak to it, but there's a lot of wonderful stuff in this generation of gaming that I never get sick of. Even the difficulty! Thanks so much for stopping in!
I do remember you playing this on stream a while ago! And it was indeed in Laconia. You kept your cool pretty well I think!
I still really like how the backgrounds look. Very nice use of colors.
Laconia... * shakes fist *
Perfect review as far as I see, there was many a time the sandals of Hermes drove me nuts as well and as far as the map is concerned I too had a hard time remembering what door went where as I set it off to the side for a while before I got back to it. As soon as you brought up that forest maze that's the one that really got me shuddering and makes me want to forget, but despite that I too love that game about the same if not more than Faxanadu.
Oh wow, thank you! I was hoping some of my thoughts lined up with at least someone else's out there. I've seen a lot of similar sentiments in the comments here. When I played this game on stream, it was difficult to find many that had finished it, or even liked it very much. I'm glad everyone has come out of the woodwork to finally sing its praises.
I really like your upbeat energy for this review. Continue to do great work!
Thanks very much!
So, I had picked this game up a few years ago, thinking it was a game I had rented alot as a kid and always enjoyed. It was not the game I thought it was so I set it aside. I went back and revisited this game last year. I beat it and really enjoyed it. So glad you covered this game.
What a happy accident!
I remember this game! Video game rentals were the highlight of my weekends during my middle school era. Sometimes I came home with a real dud but this one was actually good. I could recommend to you dozens of similar titles but the names of them have been lost in the mists of time.
I think I would've fallen in love with this game as a kid. My only regret is not getting the chance to play it sooner than this.
This game is one of my favorites of the side-scrolling "fantasy" adventure-style games (alongside Faxanadu and Zelda 2). The fact that Greek Mythology is technically the first "fantasy" genre I started reading about after I had learned to read (even before my ghost stories and "true" fantasy stories) is likely a huge reason for it, but the music and the gameplay are also really solid overall. I do remember getting lost/stuck a couple of times throughout my first playthrough (namely: areas like the Crete maze and the forest of Peloponnesus), but it never ruined my love of the game.
Great review, HG!
I remember you mentioning your fascination with Greek mythology a long while back here, so I totally get why this game would tickle your fancy. The mazes were definitely a low point for me, as well as Laconia, but none were insurmountable with a little perseverance. I'm glad you stuck it out and still came out with good feelings about it despite the troubles.
And thank you very much :) It's always nice seeing your name in the comments here!
@@hungrygoriya Yeah, I think one of the "strengths" of this game's mazes is that perseverance is all one really needed for them (aside from maybe a Nintendo Power magazine showing you the answers). Definitely better-designed mazes than other games I've played...
My apologies for my silence lately. Been sorta disconnecting myself from the intarwebz more and more over the past few weeks. But I always look forward to your videos when I do check in, especially when you touch on games I have played before (regardless of whether they're good or bad)! :)
@@LordSephleon All good! I hope you're finding what you're looking for out and away from the internet.
A childhood fave. Wish it had gotten a sequel.
This game is brilliant. I'm sad it didn't get a sequel, but I'm also sad that there are just not many games like it out there. Not nearly enough, anyway.
The only thing it got was a Game Boy remake, which I believe never made it to the states.
@@Bloodreign1 Right right... I feel like I saw some game footage of it and it seems really slow compared to the NES version.
Subscribed. Somehow, your review style including tone, music use, sarcasm, and breakdown of gameplay infused with opinion feels therapeutic.
Long live this channel.
Wow, thank you! That's very kind!
I love your reviews. The Battle of Olympus is one of my favorite nes games that few talk about. It was too cryptic for me as a youngling, but there were no real hints back then. I played it again later on an emulator after gamefaqs existed to fill in the couple holes I was missing. Loved this both back then, and being able to beat it later in life. I'm 40 years old, and when his come out, my mother worker at a video rental store. VHS and around 40 or so Nintendo games. A very surreal adventure when you're like 7. My brother and I couldn't find the 2nd two hearts back then. Anyways, I love this video of yours.
It's honestly such a great adventure. I'm surprised so many people look down on it or write it off for way less than what it is. I was glad for my adult brain while playing this since the hints weren't too tough for me, but I also appreciated the challenge in the gameplay as well.
It's so cool that your mom worked at a rental store! You must've gotten to have access to so much more cool stuff than most kids. I never rented NES stuff, just Genesis!
And thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
Oh hell, Laconia.
This is the one area that made me thankful that my first experience with this game was through an emulator with save states. I, myself, am very slow to anger, but I could imagine utterly ruining a controller or two trying to do this section on a console proper.
I usually play on hardware so I had no save states to see me through it, but I maximized every shred of patience I had and made it. Laconia was definitely a huge frustration.
This game is THE thing that got me into Greek Mythology! Funnily enough, I never knew I was playing Orpheus. I mean, I was 6 or 7 so that name meant nothing to me. All I really thought was that this was Zelda: the Adventure of Link but in ancient Greece - and I LOVED it
I really need to download an emulator and play it again
What a way to blast into that whole rabbit hole of a topic! Very nice! Knowing how much I liked Faxanadu and Zelda II (even though I couldn't beat either of them as a kid), I think I would've loved this one as well had I had the opportunity to try it.
If you do end up playing it again, enjoy!
Thanks for your wonderful review. I bought this game in the early 90s after having read an article about it in the Club Nintendo magazine, and it was a challenging but also rewarding experience. Although I don't rate it as high as Faxanadu (one of my absolute favourites), I would still prefer ist over Zelda 2 or Castlevania 2.
People have already mentioned the grinding, but (for me) there is something more to complain with this game:
a) There are two doors in the game, which will teleport you back to a previous location. The first one was at the beginning of Tartarus, and it sent you to Argolis. Now you had to walk the whole way back to the entry, and even had to fight the dreaded Cerberus for a second time. The second door was in the last part of the Temple of Hades. You enter a room with a fairy, but when you exit this room, you find youself once again at the beginning of the temple, and all the monsters are still there.
This was a terrible design choice from the developers, punishing the players without reason.☹
b) It is technical possible, to completely skip Phrygia. Once you have collected the 3 hearts, the way to Tartarus is open. So you can fight all the way to Hades, just to recognize that you are missing a critical item (the Moon Crystal). The game doesn't prevent this. Good luck with an invisible opponent.😉
Cerberus was a miserable opponent in this game and it took me a while to try to figure out how to actually hit him! I agree... I think they wanted to do a bit of shortcutting but it felt a little more like trickery if you did it unintentionally. Maybe that "warp" was there just in case you forgot to do b) in your list...
Between Battle of Olympus, Faxanadu and Clash at Demonhead... I'd say the NES was a solid breeding ground for proto-Metroidvania ideas. These games hold up exceptionally well!
Agreed with this sentiment wholeheartedly. None of the games you mentioned here (as well as the others I showed in the photo at the beginning of the video, like Rygar etc.) left me feeling anything other than impressed.
I'm hungry for more Goriya! Lol, I just started watching your videos. Enjoy the relaxed style and how you break down the games. I actually never played this back in the day, looks worth checking out
I try to get a new video out every couple of weeks, so stay tuned! Thanks for checking out the channel. I hope you give The Battle of Olympus a try sometime... I think it's definitely worth checking out!
I really wish games like The Battle of Olympus or Crystalis got modern day remasters (like those that Final Fantasy I-VI or Duck Tales got not so long ago) :/ There are so many forgotten gems in the NES/Famicom library.
Stranger things have happened! Don't lose hope!
Hey, if you're still reading these comments, check out Crystalis. Most people I know have never heard of it. It played more like the first Zelda, with a shooting sword but you had to charge it instead of having full life. You get a total of four different elemental swords that hurt different enemies. Only SNK role playing game I know of. That was my number one favorite NES game.
... have you seen what my most recent review was? 👀 I played it a little while back and finally got a video out on it a couple of weeks ago. If you watch it, I hope you enjoy it too!
I'm so glad to see a video done on Battle of Olympus. This game drove me absolutely batshit when I was a kid - maybe I was just too young and inexperienced to master the navigation or combat. But just as with Legacy of the Wizard, not having seen the majority of the game was no barrier to giving me a massive dose of nostalgia coming across it again. You've inspired me to give it another go.
P.S. - it's so refreshing to come across an entertaining and insightful woman in what is the far too male-dominated world of retro gaming. I've subscribed and look forward to checking out the rest of your opus. Keep on doing what you do, mate.
Oooo good luck on your quest here! I'm sure you'll have some luck this time around.
And thanks. I'm glad to be contributing to a thing far bigger than just me here. One of my favourite hobbies and pastimes is chatting with folks about games, so thanks for indulging me!
Faxanadu, Battle of Olympus, and Crystalis are 3 of my favorite NES games
All fantastic ones. I agree! Faxanadu's probably my favourite NES game.
You are exceptionally skilled at these reviews. I can tell you put a lot of work into them. I bet your scripts are lengthy! I enjoy your use of vocabulary and hearing you speak as if causally talking to peers while being specific in your descriptions ("The game's graphics and music further fueled my immersion."), just great! Also your inclusion of pix from the manual is much appreciated. That's a bygone era. Hard to explain to people now, but back in the day we'd pour over every page of the manual, sometimes when riding home from the video rental store! Well done.
I never played this game, but just looking I can see how people would call it a Zelda 2 clone. If you had Link's downward sword attack I bet the game play would change drastically. And forget bats and flying enemies, I hated those in pretty much every game.
I remember after playing Star Tropics I chased that dragon for ages. Never found another game to scratch the itch quite like that one! Did you find yourself in a similar position? You played one or two great titles, then were stymied trying to reach that high again? Is Faxanadu one of your top favorites?
That is awfully nice of you to say. I do put a lot of time into not only playing the games, but writing about them too. Scripting takes the longest for me by far since I want to make sure there's some flow to the video, but also that I cover everything I want to talk about. And I'm also a huge fan of manuals, so I need to put those images in these videos. They're a huge part of how I play my games! Thanks so much for your kindness!
It definitely looks like Zelda II and controls like it a little bit, but I can't say the similarities go much beyond that. I'll take the bats in Z2 any day over these jerks!
And I just finished StarTropics recently and enjoyed it quite a bit. Faxanadu is definitely my game like what you're describing. I played it a lot as a kid, fell in love with it, and play it through once a year. Nothing has really ever come close to it in my mind, except for maybe this game (at least in terms of things in the same genre... it's hard to compare apples to oranges).
Lol, my favourite game as a kid, and I never used retry, always continue, and losing in Laconia (and lot of olives) was tough.
Forest in Pelopponesous and maze in Crete were hard to navigate, but with some experience I got everything in my head.
Phrygia had tough combat too
I only used continue once or twice when I'd finished something important and didn't want to have to redo it again if I died. The olive hit was too much!
I found Crete okay to navigate because of all the different coloured hallways, but the trees were another story. The subtle green shade differences confused me!
I'm back again, watching through a second time, as a way to wind down before bed. Your reviews are so cozy! Also it looks to me you record gameplay footage from genuine hardware, that is awesome.
Hello again! And thanks! All of the footage I have of games for the channel is my own gameplay from the original games/systems. I'm glad you appreciate that aspect because I've been enjoying playing through my collection.
Keep these retro reviews coming. This is good stuff.
Hey thanks! Glad you liked the video.
Back in the 90s, a friend had this game and we were never able to get anywhere. Playing it many years on, I don't think I was ever able to get past the Lamia. I usually really like these type of adventure games, but I just never could get into this game enough to continue.
The Lamia fight was definitely a tough one, but after that, things started to feel a lot more approachable. It's not for everyone, but I loved it almost from start to finish.
I want to say the composer of a lot of Kunio-kun games ended up composing the music on this game.
I remember one day my uncle said he had come across a bunch of random NES games and Nintendo Powers at a pawn shop and asked if I wanted them. This is back in the early 00's when things like that could still happen. So I said yes and when I got it, it was your typical stuff. Mario, Ninja Turtles, etc. But also in there was this game and it was CIB although the condition was "well loved". I considered myself pretty familiar with the NES library but I had never heard of this game at that point. I played it and it quickly became a favorite of mine.
Sure it's got some knockback jank to it but the pros outweigh the cons IMO. The Greek Mythology setting makes it stand out from other action/rpg's on the NES. I could only imagine what this game would have been like if it had the same polish as a Nintendo developed game like Zelda II.
Oh wow! That's awesome that your uncle was looking out for you back then. I absolutely loved this game even with some of the trickier parts. There's something about the exploration and gameplay here that really won me over compared to other games I've played like this. Everything just made sense and flowed so well. I was never lost or stuck for too long.
Great job! I love Faxanadu, thanks for covering Olympus. I'm going to try it now.
I think you'll really like The Batte of Olympus. If you're a fan of Faxanadu, this game's not too far from that experience. Good luck!
One of my favorite games as a kid (I was big into Greek mythology as a little nerdling, and this was a dream come true.)
But yes, bitterly difficult in some places.
I can just imagine how cool this was for you as a fan of Greek mythology! It was neat for me as a casual enjoyer of those stories.
The anti gravity I thought was very smooth and fair .. it reacts when you are running at full speed and then hold the jump button.. that upside down jump was one of the good hard jumps in the game..
On the bright side, the game never puts you too far out to retry a tricky jump. I didn't mind the challenge of some of the upside-down maneuvers but I just struggled with it generally.
This has long remained one of those games that keeps getting recommended to me and I keep telling myself I will play someday. I retain one bit of foreknowledge that I should always keep at least 80 olives in my pocket before approaching Ares...
I hope you do give it a shot sometime. I honestly thought this was one of the best NES games I've discovered in adult life, in part to how much it reminds me of another of my favourites: Faxanadu! I will neither confirm nor deny the need for olives, but it's always good to keep plenty on hand.
loved this game as a kid...the walk on ceiling sandals and the fire staff.....all of it
There's a lot of really memorable things about this game. I wish I'd experienced it as a kid.
I love this game. I just bought this CIB.
I love your reviews as well! This is a very underrated channel!
Oh nice! I hope you enjoy it. It's a wonderful game. And thanks about the channel :)
These bats went head to head with Castlevania bats for valedictorian at Damn Bats University.
I find it reassuring that you consider Lamia to be one of the hardest bosses in the game. I don't know how I managed to defeat her (on a recent attempt to play through this one), other than just a silly amount of repetition, luck, and obstinance, but after that encounter, I concluded that I would probably need to take a break from The Battle of Olympus and continue playing again when I have more time, energy, and appetite for masochism to dedicate to it.
I will still probably wait a bit now for a better time to revisit it, but I am glad to know that things won't necessarily just become increasingly difficult from there. Even if they did though, I'd still be excited to play more of it when I feel more prepared to. I really loved what I experienced up to that point, and am very happy to have a copy of it in my collection now, after being inspired from your "8 Favorite Sidescrolling 8-bit Action Adventures" video to pick up a cartridge of it, so thank you for that, and just for making great content in general :)
The Lamia was definitely the worst for me. Other bosses had their own challenges, but I had more health to work with by then. I hope you enjoy the rest of the game whenever you get around to it.
As a kid, who had LOVED Zelda 2 and Faxanadu, this one I wanted to also enjoy more than I did but I always got so LOST in it I gave up on it 😅 - perhaps now, 30 years later I should give it another whirl.
I wish you the very best of luck if you do decide to try it out again. It didn't feel too complicated with an adult brain, but there were still certain areas that I found hard to keep track of.
I remember playing this one not long after it was released. I dont remember the exploration being especially trying, but I also have to remember that my experience was colored by the fact that I'd been jaded by enough games before (including the aforementioned Simon's quest) to learn to kind of expect the unexpected and not question it too much when it happened lol.
And yeah, I'm pretty sure the bats went to the tecmo/ninja Gaiden school of mob antagonism.
I don't know what I would change for the navigation in general, but it just hurt my brain trying to remember which tree to go into to move between areas... oh well!
Those bats are seriously the worst. I feel like I'd take the Ninja Gaiden birds any day over them.
This is one of my favorites. Ive had it in my collection for 25 yrs now. It is everything Zelda 2 was not. Took me 1 month to figure out how to beat it back in 1993
It's a worthy favourite!
Nice review! I didn't know your channel. The mountain area is called Phthitis and yes, it's the hardest part of the game. I got Battle of Olympus as a child and tried to make it to the garden a dozen of times. I have the pal version and since I'm a native german speaker and the pal version is in English, I couldn't make use of the clues from the townspeople. But I got a guide and in the end I could complete this great game.
Hey thanks! I don't know how I got turned around with the name confusion there, but I'll probably add something to the description to clarify what I meant.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game despite the language barrier. It's cool that you still found a way to enjoy it! Thanks for sharing :)
This one I chalk up to one of my rental nostalgic favourites! I always loved Greek mythology so seeing it there on the shelf I had to try it. I remember getting decently far but of course I would eventually have to take it back and then forget how to play for next time. Still, when I went looking for NES games for my collection, this was a no brainer. I still have to buckle down one day and finally beat it, but like any Greek epic you need to face those trials like a true hero! ⚔️
Oh man... I can't imagine trying to play this game as a rental! I think I would've been glued to my TV for the whole weekend had I had the opportunity to rent this back when I was a kid. I hope you'll get to finish it someday. It's definitely worth picking up again if you have the ability to do so.
I love games where you get lost in. You are very down to earth and I love hearing your voice. You are a real gamer and that is hard to find.❤❤❤
This is a lovely game to do just that in. And thanks so much! I've been playing games since I was 4 or 5 years old and it's been a life-long passion for me. I'm glad I have the means to share some thoughts with folks here about the games I'm enjoying.
1:15 fascinating statement.
legendary games didn’t rely on others as they set their own bar
That's how I feel too, but unfortunately, I've played a few of them where they expect you to come in with all this foreknowledge to start the game running instead of struggling.
Had this game as a kid and I couldn't understand any English but somehow I made it to the crete maze and beat the boss as the last thing I remember doing. One of my top favourite NES games.
I suppose there's only so many places you can go before you might stumble into the way to progress, even without the hints! Nice!
This was a game I think that as a kid, I would have really struggled with. But watching you play it I fell in love with not only the tracks but also I really enjoyed the game play. This looks like a great game, looking forward to it myself someday.
I can't wait to watch a fresh playthrough in you!
I remember liking this game as a kid but just couldn't get far because it was so hard, and took me a long time to accept going in a tree was a new area. So instead of playing it I just watched my brother play it. Still can't believe he actually finished it. And yeah to this day when I try playing it, still hard, and still can't accept going in a tree taking me to another area lol. Love the music and graphics though.
Haha I can understand not wanting to come to terms with the navigation strangeness. I really struggled with it too.
Although I knew about your channel through erinplays (and her through legendary AVGN), I had lurked a bit in your channel until you started playing this. First time I said hi in chat, and I was hooked to this day 😄 I loved revisiting this one now and this review. Have a great Sunday HG!
Hey thanks so much for saying so! I appreciate you stopping in here, and in the streams as well.
most people say it´s just an zelda 2 clone, but for me it is the favorite game since childhood :-) everytime when i spend my vacation in greece I have to think about that game.
I think it's a pretty shallow comparison. The Battle of Olympus has some similarities but it's vastly different in many core ways. I think this game's pretty close to a masterpiece.
what gorgeous art. look at that shield rotating as you walk..
It's a great-looking game!
great video! thanks! i played thru Battle of Olympus and enjoyed it. You’re right- the mazes were tough but making maps was fun. i only wish i knew the Continue/Retry tip you explained- that wouldve helped a lot.
I'm glad you enjoyed it too. With respect to continue/retry, at least now you know! If you replay it again sometime, it'll be even more fun.
This is one of my favorite action role playing games from the NES era
There's no question that it's one of the best!