Lost in time and space: The Battle of Olympus / The Guardian Legend / Exile - Metroidvania Works 16
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- A triple shot of action this week. Wait, "triple shot" suggests more "vania" than is actually present here. The Battle of Olympus draws directly on the action RPG concepts of Zelda II rather than owing anything at all to Metroid or Castlevania; it's not so much "inspired by Zelda II" as "not quite legally actionable Zelda II clone." But one that lends its own ideas to the genre!
The Guardian Legend does owe a bit to Metroid, in that it has shooty sci-fi themes and you play as a cool mechanical warrior that turns out to have a woman inside. Or rather, turns out to be a woman. In motion, though, The Guardian Legend plays like a sci-fi offshoot of the original Zelda spiced up with sequences from Zanac. Weird, but good.
And Exile... well, that one very much nails the "wandering lost through caverns on another planet" element of Metroid. But still no Castlevania. So instead of saying "triple shot," let's go with "hat trick." A laurel wreath counts as a hat, right?
Production notes:
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NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister.
I still remember your interview with Yukio Horimoto about Battle of Olympus back in the day, it was very inspring since the developers (Infinity) were a husband and wife duo who loves Greek mythology.
One of my favorite interviews! I love when I talk to someone about a passion project from their past and they really open up.
@@JeremyParishIs the interview available somewhere? I’d love to read it.
@@JeremyParish what a beautiful article that is
Rygar, Battle of Olympus, Crystalis and Faxanadu were the best 3rd party action adventure games on the NES I loved every one of them as a kid. Wish we got more games like them today.
All of those are great, but I would add Guardian Legend and Blaster Master to the list, personally. Those two may be hybrids, but I think their quality puts them on even footing.
11:10 This reminds me of one of my favorite hidden gems, "Sigma Star Saga" on GBA. It was made by Wayforward and also manages to mash up Zelda with shmups, and with a surprisingly good space opera story. Now I'm wondering if it was inspired by Guardian Legend.
It was! They’ve said as much.
I played Sigma Star Saga way back but didn't know that was Wayforward.
Exile on the C64 was one of the most impressive 8-bit titles I ever played back in the day. It's a crime that it's so forgotten.
I hope they make the mini x68000 classic they teased a while back
It's a crime that the C64 as a whole is so forgotten. A gaming computer that did its job so well, you found them everywhere, even in warehouses and manufacturing centers where they used them as sturdy work computers
@@m.a.packer5450 anything jack tremeil was part of just reminds me of a big loser with some stupid brothers that pulled the original intellivsion amico scam. They probably fathered Tommy tallarico out of wedlock
The Battle of Olympus has one of the greatest NES soundtracks ever. I was terrible at the game but loved playing it just to be able to hear the tunes.
Exile reminds me a lot of Noita, both in style and execution- exploring procedurally generated areas, extensive physical simulation. I wasn't even aware of Exile! And you're totally right- the Brits could optimize their code to squeeze every last cycle from a jumped-up calculator like the ZX Spectrum or the Amstrad CPC. Programmers in the US did it to show off- the Brits did it because they had to!
Try coding for the 2600 before you claim it's only about showing off.
Not that they aren't showing off, but it was a Pong/Combat dedicated hardware before anyone realized what was possible with the complete lack of a frame buffer.
Early IBM PC games were also dealing with a hostile territory. Beating the odds, or at least making creative use of the limitations, was mandatory.
The Battle of Olympus is one of my favorite games on the NES. It definitely wears its inspiration on its sleeve freely, but since I like Zelda 2, this never bothered me. I always loved the music and mythology involved, feeling that the bit I already read about as a kid, gave me a slight edge in moving through things (whether it did or not is up for debate). The Guardian Legend is also a game that is overlooked often and has a really ambitious way of presentation.
Ah ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’ my parents played the soundtrack a lot around the time it came out, which was around the same time I was playing Kid Icarus.
I can’t think of one without the other.
The Guardian Legend has been my favorite NES game since my grandfather bought it back in 1990. The hybrid shooter/adventure style has always really appealed to me.
The Guardian Legend is easily one of my favorite NES games. One of the few that I’ve played and beaten multiple times. I’ve always been disappointed that it never got more entries on future consoles.
Shadow of naju is a fanmade sequel and it's hella tough on normal. I liked it a fair bit.
The Guardian Legend Japanese box art is a lovely piece of work- on that note, you can't really blame a generation for being fixated on sleek fighter craft that transform into cybernetic armor-clad bikini girls
I was fortunate enough to work with the artist (Naoyuki Katoh) on Axiom Verge 2. His work is still amazing even in his 70s.
True.
@@JeremyParishNice!
@@JeremyParishWow, that is super cool! 😀❤
@@JeremyParish What was your involvement in Axiom Verge 2, out of curiosity?
I love Battle of Olympus. It’s my favorite NES games.
I can’t get enough content on it.
I would appreciate an even deeper dive someday.
Thanks for the excellent content.
The Guardian Legend was my jam back during the winter of 1989-1990. I never owned the game but I rented it a bunch of times and did manage to finish it. The spikes in difficulty were frustrating but the game as a whole was just so good I kept coming back for more time and time again! Plus the "TGL" password that sent you through a boss rush was a real trip to try and complete. I even played through the entire game again via emulation during the summer of 2021. Good times!
_The Guardian Legend_ and _The Battle of Olympus_ are two of my all-time favorite games. It's really cool to see them featured together like this.
The Battle of Olympus has fantastic pacing. It's clearly following Zelda II but there's plenty of room for 2D sidescrolling adventures. Love this soundtrack!
The Guardian Legend, a true underrated game. Its music is so good too.
MY FAVORITE GAME. I still have a passcode index card I made from 93
Battle of Olympus was something I never played but maybe I should seek it out. Nice to see Compile continue doing great games with the Guardian Legend. I've never heard of Exile but it's concept sounds cool.
I’ve tried to check it out a few times over the course of the 21st century and I find it hard to get into. I think I need a strategy guide or to read the instruction manual or some thing.
I tend to comment before I even watch the video because I'm at work, but I love Metroidvania Works. I'm assuming I'll love this episode JP... plenty of data.
Good to see someone finally giving Exile it's due. It was extraordinarily ahead of it's time.
Nobody asked martin kove which rambo game was his favorite
I've told this story elsewhere, but Battle of Olympus will always hold a special place in my memory for being a big part of why I learned to read. I was really young when my parents bought it, and I "helped" (that is, sat next to and offered my expert advice to) my dad as he played through it over the course of many weekends. But I didn't know who any of these Greek gods were, and, because my parents weren't experts themselves, they got me this giant book of Greek myths for kids to read so I could learn about them myself, and, with a lot of help and frequent trips to the dictionary, that's what I did. I still have that book in my basement somewhere.
I'm sure I'd have gotten the hang of reading eventually anyway, but this game is still what made me read through the biggest book of my life up to that point.
Dude! I played so much Golvellius and so much Guardian Legend and this is the first time I learned that they're by the same developer. As soon as you said that, the similarities became so clear. Love this content!
Exile on Acorn Electron! Phew! That’s some pulls form the deep back catalog, but I certainly appreciate it. Japanese devs don’t have a monopoly on original ideas.
8:10 - “Myria the Transforming Cyborg Bikini Girl” - lol, no mentions of her in the manual, art, or even the Nintendo Power article. Characters and theme are an important part of the game. I like GL but it feels like there's nothing to latch onto in between the crowds of bugs and alien fish the game throws at you.
For all the 2D side-on Metroidvanias out there, the only modern take I can think of of Guardian Legend is maybe Blaster Master Zero, but that’s isn’t delivering the “Giant maze with no clear goals” experience that Guardian is doing.
I want a twin stick shooter / metroidvania!
American video game publishers were SO AFRAID to cop to the possibility that women could be something besides hostages back then.
5:29 - The gradient they managed here looks so gorgeous. Can't wait to see what that moment looks like on a blurry CRT.
The Guardian Legend was a childhood favorite! 😍
TGL was a bullet hell game on a system that could not handle bullet hell. Honestly, the most impressive part about it was that it ran at all.
That's the Compile way, baby. Wait 'til we get to Gun•Nac.
The Guardian Legend is a standout game on the NES. It's difficult, but in a good way like Dark Souls. It gives the player plenty of options to overcome its challenges.
Two Metroidvania Works in the same week? You spoil us, Jeremy
Excellent episode! Battle of Olympus and Guardian Legend are two of the best and most advanced NES games.
About 8 years ago a friend and I played through Battle of Olympus on original hardware, we met several times to complete it. It was such a fun experience.
Another great episode Jeremy. You covered two (or maybe three) underrepresented classics here. Somehow I got my hands on B.O.O. back in the day by trading (which is what we used to call borrowing for some reason) carts with buddies back then. It falls just short of perfection for me, mostly for the over importance they put on grinding for olives (and those damned salamander skins), coupled with how quickly you lose them when you die (unless you get wise to using Retry).
Guardian Legend is one my buddy touted to me in my young adult years as I hadn't played it as a kid. A bit strange when you first dive in, but it quickly endears itself to you and strikes a great balance between the overworld exploring and shooter aspects. I'm sure you know about the plagiarized box art from the 80s movie Creature.
Exile looks quite cool and reminded me a bit of Solar Jetman on NES. Shout out to Golvelius on SMS. I bought an SMS a few years back and randomly bumped into that title. Once I got playing it was a surprisingly competent and fun experience with those mixed in vertical levels reminiscent of Guardian Legend; they both used Zenny as their currency as well! An SMS must-play!
The Guardian Legend is one of the best games of the 8 bit era in my opinion. I used to play it so so much
While I really like The Battle of Olympus, I think that The Guardian Legend remains one of my favorite games that I've ever played.
This is one of my favorite YT series
guardic gaiden was and still is one of my favorite games -- love it
Wow! Using clips from Jim Henson’s ‘The Storyteller’! Epic!
It’d be interesting to someday see a study of how early video games so often used Greco-Roman mythology to varying degrees of accuracy or rewriting of them, like Kid Icarus or even Altered Beast.
I had The Battle of Olympus as a kid (but never Zelda 2...). It was so challenging for me and I have this weird memory of telling my mom I needed to find the Moonstone and her laughing about the idea of that because I didn't know what "mooning" was.
Wish you had made a mention about Battle of Olympus's banger ost!
oh yes! more of this series!
I think I only played The Guardian Legend once in a weekend rental, and I would have sworn it was closer to 1990. That’s an impressive hodgepodge of a package for 1987/88 (and I love this series for learning about MSX origins of series)
It’s kind of impressive that the black sheep of the Zelda family, and the one closest to B/b- range (give or take a skyward sword and twilight Princess) would have such an impact
Thanks for this series such great perspective
Battle of Olympus and Guardian Legend are two of the best games on the NES.
A fantastic trio of games this time around! Olympus and Guardian Legend were favorites when I was smol, though the latter I never actually managed to get very far in the latter until I was much older. That kind of makes me reflect on how much more comfortable I was as a child being a fan of a game I couldn't actually play very well. I liked the shooting and I liked the exploration and that was good enough for me. I guess that's not too different from being impressed by Exile, which I've only been able to try it a handful of times and I didn't make much progress.
The Guardian Legend has RPG health upgrade actually! With every like 100k score you get +1 health bar expansion. Score act like experience points.
Wow, TIL.
I had Exile on the Atari ST as a kid but I could never get very far, though I returned to it a lot for the atmosphere.
Oh cool, Battle of Olympus. I love that game.
Battle of Olympus is a good time! Though, I do find it more challenging than Zelda II overall. And thanks for the reminder on Guardian Legend. I need to play that one sometime.
I guess those European microcomputer multi screen maze games could occasionally have Metroidvania-ish aspects. Even something like the Cauldron games had some items that were required to reach other places...
Ooh I remember playing Exile on my Amiga. It was cool, unique.. and confusing!
I have exile for the Amiga CD 32. It’s awesome but man are those physics tricky!
It came in the big box too.
Man, I love me some Battle of Olympus. Great game.
In German we have "zur Salzsäure erstarren" instead of "zur Salzsäule erstarren" [to turn into hydrochloric acid ≠ to turn into a column of salt (like Lot's wife)], "etwas auf Trapez bringen" instead of "etwas aufs Tapet bringen" [bring it on the trapeze ≠ bring it on (the covering) of a conference table]... My grandma often says "Ich werde dich Moses lehren" [I will you teach you (the way of) Moses] instead of " Ich werde dich Mores lehren" [I will teach you 'mores']. "Mores" (singular 'mos') is latin for 'costumes and traditions'. It is related to "morals". And there is also "Osterporöse" instead of Osteoporose (easter porous ≠ osteoporisis).
The Guardian Legend is among my favorite NES games.
I really wish Compile's Famicom stuff was more easily available these days. A friend of mine had Guardian Legend as a kid, but would never lend it to anyone.
In hindsight, Battle of Olympus really missed a trick not having a Metroid-style "post-final boss escape sequence" ending with the classic Orpheus blunder.
That would have been so mean to the children of that time, and realizing this makes me regret that it didn't happen even more.
@@goranisacson2502 Games were nothing if not mean to the children of that time, so it would be on brand.
you had to search "is olive a fruit?" for this one, don´t lie!... man i love your content, thanks for the hard work, it shows.
It’s absolutely a fruit! What are they teaching you in school these days?!
Battle of Olympus, one of my favorite games of the NES...
The battle of olympus and The Guardian Legend are great. 😀👍🎮
Oh! What a feeling/Greek dude on the ceiling
Didn't think I'd hear of Hollow Knight on this series! Think I will check out if I can emulate Exile.
Looking at Exile in the video it vaguely reminds me of Solar Jetman. Perhaps due to the physics-based flight and the space theme. There may have been some direct influence considering it came from British developers as well.
UK programmers were up to some serious shenanigans on 8-bit micros. Like they were single-handedly trying to win back computing dominance for the U.S. for Turing’s sake
Holy cow, the brief bit showing the shmup intro of the Guardian Legend turned my stomach! That is not something that has happened to me since Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy.
Axiom Verge 1 and 2 are in my too 5 games list along Warcraft 1, 2 and 3.
Battle of Olympus: One I remember renting back in the day but never owned... really should rectify it I remember it being a fun zelda 2-like. TGL I know all my friends go crazy over, but I get it. great shmup action in between some zelda-like exploration. I did pick this one up somewhat recently gonna have to hook the nintendo back up one of these days and get back to it! Exile.... I'm not familiar with, so nothing to really say about it... but it looks pretty vast for a game that old!
I don't know where you ended up afterward, but trust me, you did yourself a huge favor by leaving Talking Time.
Oh yeah, that place degenerated into a toxic cesspool long before I relinquished the keys to it. Breaks my heart, but that's the internet in a nutshell... everything you build eventually turns to rot.
I liked Battle of Olympus, but didn't dig the early "take the longest possible backtracking paths to pad the game", but it was one of a few titles my mother ordered from Home Shopping Club, that somehow all would become well played games (the other two were both Camerica games: Big Nose Caveman and The Adventures of Dizzy).
TGL was, and still is, one of my favorite NES games ever. Never really thought of it in the vein of a MetroidVania, but with hindsight, I don't see how I missed linking the concept.
However, this was my first exposure of Exile.
Huh I thought you were done at the this series with your last episode. Cool to see you continue
I had never even heard of Exile whereas I've seen a fair share of stuff about Battle of Olympos and Guardian, so I'm really intrigued by this mysterious exploratory action-game - who killed him? Who made the skeleton-man? Would we ever know? No clue, I just thought it was funny to speculate.
You said that Compile developed The Guardian Legend as well as Golvellius and Legacy of the Wizard, but in Japan Legacy of the Wizard is Dragon Slayer 4 and was definitely developed by Falcom.
However it was, like The Guardian Legend and The Battle of Olympus, published in NA on the NES by Broderbund. Perhaps that was the intended reference and things got mixed up during an editing shuffle?
Sorry to be "that person" in the comments, but this seemed like a worthy correction. Still a great video as always!
Compile developed the NES version of Dragon Slayer based on the MSX version by Falcon.
2 of the NES’ best IMO
Wow, praise for Ys 3, I knew I liked you! Lol
Well... moderate praise. Oath in Felghana is really good, though!
@@JeremyParish Oath is probably my favorite Ys game; but SNES Ys 3 was my introduction to the series, and I loved it. I had to spend my entire childhood defending that game against my older brother, lol.
I mean it's not a fantastic game, but I always had a good time with it.
The level balancing is... something.
I miss the side scrolling ARPG. I still enjoy the top-down ARPG, though. Glad there are several of them and the genre still is being made.
Another one I miss is the turn-based JRPG. It's sad no one wants to make those anymore, at least not big budget companies (Dragon Quest XI aside).
Yeaaahhhhh buddy
I think Battle of Olympus does a hell of a lot more with its Greek inspiration than Glory of Heracles.
The hidden God of War Prequel.
Prediction: Next episode will be about Xexyz, a personal favorite of mine. I'm probably wrong, though.
Neat game but not really relevant to this series, I'm afraid.
@@JeremyParish Darn. But thanks for replying! I'm a big fan of your work!
The Guardian Legend is fantastic im glad I gave it a shot despite the awful box art
Is there a connection between Guardian Legend and Golvelius? Because that blue dude looks familiar.
Randar is a sort of Compile mascot and shows up in a bunch of their games.
I always thought Dragon Slayer/Legacy of the Wizard was developed by Falcom? Or have I been wrong all this time...
Ported to NES by Compile.
@@JeremyParish OOHH that makes a lot of sense, I'm surprised I never knew that one. Thanks!
I liked Battle of Olympus, but felt the hit detection was off. (Ys 3 perfecting the Zelda II format though? Not sure if serious. No offense or arguing meant.)
Has Guardian Legend seriously never been ported to any other system, even as a Virtual Console release?
People call every action adventure "Metroidvania" now?
Battle of Olympus is such a frustrating platformer. I would have enjoyed it more had the player’s weapons had more reach
Why do we accept these called “Metroidvanias” rather than Metroidlikes? By the point that SotN came out, the term roguelike had been used for years… why do people continue to use the term Metroidvania to give an oversized credit to Castlevania SotN (and its follow ups), yet another Metroid copycat?
You’re going to be OK, I promise.
@@JeremyParishI know you came up with the term but technically he's right. These should be called Metroid likes or Metroid clones.
I didn’t come up with the name.
The actual galaxy brain take is that no genre should be called *game title*-like
@@Xhalonick agreed… thought mr parish might actually give a real response, but nah
Algorithm comment
I heard so many positive things about Battle of Olympus over the years, but when I finally played it I was disappointed. The combat can't hold a candle to Zelda 2, and the platforming was annoying too.
I love that your name was Metroi
Helene of Metroy, the face that launched a thousand double-jumps