In Retrospect: The Battle of Olympus

Of the classic NES games that I never had but absolutely loved, The Battle of Olympus really stands out to me. When I was younger, one of my friends owned this hidden gem. We started it a few times, but he was one of those people who got frustrated at video games and would start screaming and throwing stuff around to the point where it was actually frightening, or would turn a game off as soon as he started to lose, so we never managed to get far. Later on in life though, he managed to mellow out a little bit and we finally got through the game together. After that, I borrowed it from him and played through it a few more times, absolutely loving everything about the game. I've always been awed by the structures and ruins of ancient Greece, the various (awesome) mythical beasts of Greek legend, and the heroes that arose to smash them into dust.

So for a person like myself, what isn't there to like about The Battle of Olympus? Judging a book by the cover (or a cartridge by its artwork) yielded nothing to dislike about this game whatsoever. There were Greek statues and columns surrounded by badass-looking serpents! If that's not an instant win, I don't know what is! Luckily, like the cover art, the guts of this game also happen to be fantastic.

Like a good majority of my absolute favourite video games, The Battle of Olympus is a sidescroller. It's one of those sweet, open-ended ones though...you're not traversing your way through the game on a level-by-level basis, but rather finding items and powers that let you access new parts of areas that you were previously unable to explore. In that respect, Battle of Olympus isn't unlike the Metroid series or the non-linear Castlevania games. In addition to this, the entire style of the game is obviously inspired by Zelda II: The Adventure of Link...in fact, I'm adamant that it uses the same basic engine and programming of Z2 as its foundation. The way your character moves and jumps, and the way enemies attack...it's all feels incredibly similar to Zelda II. This is a damn good thing.

You play as a Greek hero named Orpheus. The funny thing is that when you name your character, it only allows up to 6 letters...so you can't even give the bastard his full proper name! A little bit of an oversight, but obviously not a huge deal. You traverse the lands of ancient Greece in an effort to rescue your girlfriend (Helene) from the clutches of Hades, who has taken her away to the depths of the Underworld. This is actually somewhat similar to the Greek legend based around Orpheus, which involved him traveling to the Underworld to reattain his wife, Eurydice...which is pretty cool! Anyway, in order to access Hades' stronghold and save your true love, you need to search out and gather the power of three nymphs that are hidden throughout the land. Along the way, you meet up with various Greek gods who grant you powers and items. These often let you access new areas, tackle new bosses and guardians, and generally make you feel like a badass.

Eh? *nudge* EH?!

Unlike Zelda II, there is no overhead component to Battle of Olympus aside from a quick pull-back of the country when you travel from one region to the next to show you what area you're in. The entirety of the gameplay takes place as a sidescrolling action game, which is damn fine with me! Like just about every NES sidescroller, A causes Orpheus to jump and B swings his weapon. When Orpheus is standing still, he holds his shield in front of him (very much like Link in Z2), and crouching lets you block lower projectiles. Pressing Start brings up an item screen, allowing you to equip a weapon of choice, as well as extra pieces of equipment that are activated by pressing Select. One such equipment item is the harp, which allows you to warp between areas by summoning Pegasus and makes exploring the lands and areas a bit quicker. You've also got a health meter which can be increased in maximum size so you can survive against your tougher adversaries.

Now, Battle of Olympus isn't the most straightforward game...but you never feel completely clueless either, which is a tough thing to accomplish. A notorious game that had trouble for this was Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, in which you had to crouch near a wall or a lake for 10-15 seconds straight, at which point a tornado would whisk you away to a faraway land or something. What was more, Castlevania II was horribly translated, and so characters that gave you hints to do these ridiculous actions were probably destroyed by the language barrier. Battle of Olympus doesn't suffer from that, which is a damn relief! NPCs are clear when you speak to them, and if you do happen to get yourself stuck, you can ACTUALLY rely on them to provide helpful advice. This is the benefit of an NES game being released later in the system's cycle.

Overview of the map.

The land that you traverse is made up of different areas. You start off in Arcadia, and eventually make your way to areas like Crete, Argolis, and Peleponnesia, which all have their own unique structure. For instance, Crete is an imposing labyrinth where you have to hunt down the Minotaur, much like it was in the Greek tales of legend, and Phthia is a tall mountainous area that's loaded with enemies just waiting to knock you off of a safe platform to your death. As I mentioned before though, you can't make it through all of these areas right off the bat. For example, in order to get past the Peleponnesian forest you need to gather a weapon from another area called the Staff of Fennel. This (fucking sweet) weapon lets you launch fireballs out of the end of the staff and set fire to ivy that blocks your way through the forest. You'll find tons of cool items along your quest...but some of them aren't free.

One of the hilarious things about The Battle of Olympus is that it uses olives as currency! Olives are dropped by enemies one at a time, and later on in the game you will have to grind out some olives in order to get the items you need to continue. Usually, you're handing these things to the Greek gods so they'll hand over equipment. It's funny to think that the gods, who also want Hades to get his ass kicked, would charge you for items to help you along your quest...and would charge you in the form of small, black, salty fruits...right? Olives are technically fruits, aren't they? It's fine, of course...the game needed something Greek themed to function as ancient money so I suppose olives work. I just always laugh at the fact that Poseidon won't hand over an ocarina until you give him 60 olives to scarf down his greedy stupid throat! Luckily, enemies drop olives pretty frequently...but you'd better make sure you're grinding them out on easy prey and being extremely careful along the way to your destination. This is because whenever you get killed, the number of olives you're carrying drops by half! Pretty harsh punishment at some times, but it's good to have a consequence that makes you value your life so you learn the ins and outs of the game.

There's an awful lot of wood in this picture...

On the topic of enemies, they're pretty cool. The minor enemies are pretty standard...slimes, bats, and snakes, for example. Larger ones eventually show up though, which have Greek background to them. You'll run into things like Fawns and Centaurs at certain parts of the game which help to keep the Greek theme going. One of the only problems with enemies is some of their placement. There are definitely a few rare occasions where you can't avoid getting hit as you enter a screen. Luckily, this is usually by an enemy that does a small amount of damage, but it's still a tad irritating. Along with the various standard enemies, you'll engage in boss battles with tons of awesome creatures from Greek myth! Such creatures include Lamias, Sirens, Cyclops, Cerberus, and the Hydra. These fights are often challenging and it's rare that you can beat them on your first shot unless you're extremely cautious (with a few exceptions)...as a result, it's very satisfying when you finally take these guys down.

The graphics for Battle of Olympus are solid and vibrant, with detailed environments and enemies and some good animation, particularly on Orpheus. The sound effects are awesome, and the soundtrack has some particularly catchy tracks, with standout ones being the Argolis and Peleponnesia themes. They all seem to fit their respective areas very well, too! Overall, I have no complaints at all with respect to visuals and audio production...everything here is well done!

Bats and snakes: mainstays of video game enemy lineups.

However, there are some things you should be wary of. First of all, like most NES games, Battle of Olympus is a tough game until you get the hang of things. That's not to say it's the absolute toughest game out there, but it's far from the easiest as well. There are enemies that are deviously placed to knock you into bottomless pits if you're not careful, and some bosses can absolutely crush you until you're used to their patterns. Couple this with losing half of your cash (olives!) upon death, and you can see how some would become frustrated easily. The second thing you should know is that Battle of Olympus doesn't have a save function, but instead uses a password system. You receive passwords from the gods when you visit their temples, and they call passwords "The Word of the Gods. Passwords aren't the most terrible things, BUT this Battle of Olympus' font is littered with some letters and numbers that look VERY similar to one another! I remember when I was younger and writing down all my passwords for this game, there were a lot of instances where I wrote one letter wrong and buggered myself! At this point in time, I'd like to say that cellphone cameras are the best goddamned things for passwords in classic games. Just snap pictures of the password when you receive one and you're good to go!

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The Bottom Line

The Battle of Olympus is a sweet, sweet classic game. It's well-made and has very few flaws, has a great layout, and a solid presentation to boot. I recommend this one to any classic gamer if they've never checked it out before, as it's definitely one of the best games on the NES that very few know about. I've yet to meet anyone else, aside from my childhood friend (who I don't even talk to anymore...blessing in disguise, I'm sure) who's played this game...and that's just damn unfortunate. If you have a fascination with ancient Greece, own an NES, and you happen to see this somewhere be sure to pick it up! Hell, snag it even if you're not crazy about ancient Greece, because it's still a well-made and well-thought out game...especially for its time. It's not an easy one to find, but it's worth every cent.

Battle of Olympus gets a 9/10 from me. One point's subtracted for small flaws, but there's nothing game-breaking at all and no significant glitches. PLAY THIS GAME, IT'S FUN!