As the previous entries in Backlog Bonanza Month were for newer games, I decided to take a look at something older, a NES game titled The Battle of Olympus which was published by Brøderbund and developed by Infinity. The combat is frustrating, there is plenty of tedious grind, you are likely to spent half your time getting hit into pits by various forms of wildlife, and it is still somehow a very enjoyable game.
But before looking at the game itself, it may be interesting to take a glance at the publisher and developer. The developer is Infinity, best known for...well, nothing really. Infinity is a company which is nearly impossible to find any information on and any information which I could find was sparse and often contradictory, although it does seem like the vast majority of their works were only released in Japan, so The Battle of Olympus is quite the outlier. Brøderbund on the other hand is far more well-known, or at least it was, as they were the developers of the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? series. While Brøderbund mainly stuck to publishing and developing computer games, and most of them education in nature, the list of their published NES games is overflowing with obscure delights. To name a few, the infamously maligned Deadly Towers, the loved/hated obscure/famous classic Spelunker, the impressive-for-its-time Lode Runner, the much-adored The Guardian Legend, and the also-adored-yet-way-more-obscure Legacy of the Wizard. As for The Battle of Olympus itself, it's a perfect fit for this list with its blend of impressive innovation and confusing frustration as well as its largely unknown status.
The plot of the game is simple enough as Orpheus must rescue his beloved Helene from Hades, but must first find the three nymphs which will give him fragments of Helene's love which, in turn, open the path to the underworld through the magic of NES logic. Of course, none of this is explained by the game itself and the male and female leads are both nameable without any default names in place. Oddly enough, this lack of in-game background information works in the game's favor.
The Battle of Olympus is a game which places a heavy emphasis upon exploring various locations in Greece (though Mount Olympus itself never makes an appearance) and this is where the bulk of the game's strength lies. Similar to games such as Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, there are various NPC's which give hints about secret locations or the effects of the many items players will collect. However, unlike most similar games from the NES era, NPC's are scattered all throughout the game and some of the ones with the most valuable information are outright hidden, which goes a long way towards encouraging players to explore everywhere. The hints themselves are also well-done as they are often somewhat vague or refer to items and places the player may not yet have encountered, but they are never overly obtuse nor outright useless; some hints even give pieces of the plot so players can gradually come to understand just what the goal is and what they have to do in order to achieve it even without the manual.
Items play a crucial role in The Battle of Olympus and are divided between weapons, support items, and items which grant passive benefits. Each area of this rather open game has one of the Greek gods in a temple and each god will either grant or sell a player something useful (they also give out passwords after you've taken their item). However, the temples themselves are often well-hidden and their entrances aren't marked, so it can take quite a bit of effort to find each god. There is no leveling up in this game either and instead players must find or buy pieces of Ambrosia to grant a hefty health boost while other passive items hidden throughout the game can do anything from helping to defend against fire to permanently doubling the protagonist's attack power. Of course, items themselves do not give descriptions and players will need to rely upon information gained from NPC's to discover just what each object even does and where to use it. The actual effects of many items are also frequently fun, such as an ocarina which summons a dolphin players can ride in order to cross water or some sandals from Hermes which not only increase jump height, but which also allow the player to outright flip in the air and start walking upside down on the ceiling.
As much fun as combat and exploration are in this game, the same cannot be said for the combat. The range of any given weapon is painfully small and Orpheus simply thrusts weapons in front of him instead of swinging in an arc, sort of like a sidescrolling equivalent of Lagoon. While there are plenty of mythological creatures, such as a harpy, a gorgon, a centaur, several cyclopes, and Hades himself, these are generally reserved as boss or miniboss fights (and their hitboxes tend to be painfully small anyway) and the vast majority of enemies instead consists of various forms of wildlife, such as bats, monkeys, caterpillars, birds which drop extremely-damaging rocks, many types of snakes, and the inevitable slime. Most of these enemies are also very small and either fly down from the ceiling or crawl along the ground, which is a problem since Orpheus lacks not only an overhead swing, but also any form form of downward attack. So, combat generally involves waiting for an enemy to either swoop down or leap up and then counterattacking right before it makes contact. This is somewhat alleviated by the Staff of Fennel, a very fun weapon which allows Orpheus to fling out fireballs in an arc which then proceed to slide along the ground, but the staff is acquired early in the game and never receives an upgrade after players learn how to fling fireballs from it, so it quickly becomes too weak to be a viable option against most enemies later on (though it always works wonders against bats). Otherwise, combat usually devolves into jamming on the attack button in a desperate attempt to land a few hits against small enemies attacking from every direction with the intent of knocking players into one of the many, many pits.
There is also the matter of the grind involved. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes items must be purchased from gods or other NPC's. The currency used in The Battle of Olympus is, for whatever reason, red orbs referred to as 'olives' and these sometimes drop from enemies. Most of the purchasable items also cost somewhere in the 60-80 olives range, which may not seem that bad. Unfortunately, even at the end of the game enemies never drop more than one olive per kill, resulting in a bare minimum of nearly 100 kills per item, but realistically 80 olives takes several hundred kills over the course of at least a half hour even at a good grind spot. Furthermore, dying (and it is very easy to die in this game thanks to all the pits) cuts the current amount of olives the player has in half, meaning players must either find a good general grinding spot and pray that they can make it to whichever NPC is selling the item they want without a bat/monkey/snake/slime/caterpillar/bird knocking them into a pit or stick to near the NPC's location and grind off of enemies which likely take longer to kill.
Despite these shortcomings, The Battle of Olympus is great choice for anyone looking for an old-fashioned action adventure game with a heavy emphasis on exploration and discovery.
The Battle of Olympus can currently be found on Amazon and eBay for as low as $2.71
The rather impressive 8-bit rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor which plays in each god's temple can be found here
As has become custom, here is a link to the Backloggery
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