Battle of Olympus review - Nintendo Entertainment System

Take a time warp back to ancient Greece, if you will. It was a time when men were men (even if they did wear girlie leather skirts), women were women (and always did the house work when they weren't getting kidnapped) and many-headed monsters and the undead were a common hazard on the dirt track to work.

The evil gods are angry, mainly because the good gods always seem to be getting one over them. So to vent their frustrations they decide to kidnap a beautiful princess. Zeus and the rest of the good gods don't seem particularly concerned, but one hero (who has the hots for said princess) does, and decides to mount a rescue bid.

His quest involves travelling the horizontally scrolling landscape that is Ancient Greece, picking up info on where special god-like powers are found. Using these powers, as well as a few loaned by Zeus and his pals, it's his job to hunt down his princess and knock the demons back into the satanic abyss from whence they rose. Hurrah!

What the Mean Machines staff thought

This looks pretty similar to the likes of Zelda and Faxanadu, and to b honest, if this kind o' thing is your cup of tea you'll probably find a massive and enjoyable task ahead of you. Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that didn't really appeal to me. First of all, the simplistic interaction with the other one-speech tape-recorder-like characters is a bit annoying. Another thing which hampered my enjoyment of this game somewhat was the pretty boring action sequences. Just running along a horizontally-scrolling landscape slashing your chopper at small enemy sprites isn't my idea of an excursion to Excitement Central. Zelda fans should have a look at this. Others will probably find it a bit of a bore no matter how much there is in it.

Battle of Olympus is a good example of the Faxanadu/Zelda II-type game, but it doesn't have enough new or interesting ideas to appeal to players who don't normally play something like this. The speech/interaction is a good idea, but unfortunately it's very limited and becomes completely predictable once you've played the game a few times. Another negative point is that the action is a bit tedious - the hero has only one attack move, and the baddie sprites aren't particularly exciting. Adventure/RPG fans will certainly enjoy this, but if it's fast action and thrills you're after, look elsewhere.