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Name: Hercules 2
Developer: ???
Release Date: 1999
Console: Genesis/Mega Drive
I sort of have a "scale" when it comes to animated Disney movies(as I'm sure most people do.) For the sake of this review, let's lay it out as a regular 1-10 point scale, with treasures like Beauty and the Beast at 10, and straight-up trash like Home on the Range at 1*.
*Which I'd also put the Beauty and the Beast remake at, but we're talking animated movies here.
Hercules, for me, stands at about a 7.5. It's an above-average movie that's well-animated, a lot of fun, and has a memorable style and cast of characters(especially James Woods' Hades!) ...However, it's not something I put on that often. While it has its strong points, I think the story and humor are more "kid-oriented", in that kids would appreciate the simplified Superman-meets-Rocky-esque plot, odd facial expressions, and slapstick humor elements more than adults, like myself, who would more likely find them annoying. It's not a bad movie by any means, and definitely deserves high esteem in Disney history, but it's not a movie that's aged well, nor that successfully matures with its audience. It's great for kids, but adults will probably have trouble finding things to come back to.
What DOES still appeal to both kids and adults is the PC/PS1 tie-in video game of the same name!
The video game was released during an interesting time in the 90s, when a lot of licensed video game cash-ins meant to tie in to their movies were actually GOOD! ESPECIALLY those released for and based on Disney films! Aladdin, The Lion King, The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, Hercules, Toy Story, Tarzan, all REALLY good games(at least on the main 16/32-bit home console ports.) Not to mention the numerous Animated Storybooks, Activity Centers, the Mickey series, and most other games developed and/or directed by Disney itself under the Disney Interactive Studios name! From around 1993 to 1999, this was a name that could do no wrong, and made games as classic as the movies they were based on!
And then the awkward transition from 2D platforming to 3D adventure happened, and tie-ins went back to being mediocre. ...At best. ...With the quality mostly matching the state of Disney's animated features of the time...
The Hercules video game could be seen as a last hurrah to traditionally animated 2D platformers. When it was released in 1997, shortly before the movie, a lot of companies were already making the leap to 3D graphics. The N64 had been out for nearly a year at this point, and the PS1 was available since 2 years prior, not to mention the systems that were already using polygonal shapes and 3D computer generated landscapes before either of these consoles. Traditional animation and pre-rendered sprites were old hat by this point, not to mention a bit limiting when there's a entire world with a 360° view that can be created to explore. It's a fact that animation's expensive, so if you're going to create characters and environments, might as well give them the ability to freely move up, down, and in a circle! Disney Interactive and Virgin(the actual programmers) saw the writing on the wall, and knew that, in order for a traditional platformer to work, they'd have to pull out all the stops and end this era of gaming with a bang.
And end with a bang, they did! Using top notch 2D animation for the sprites and state-of-the-art 3D models for the environment, Disney and Virgin created a very immersive, super high-quality adventure to tie in with the movie! The game had everything! Scaling sprites, rotating models, a sense of depth, into-the-screen scrolling, movie-quality character designs and animations(including a few dozen designed specifically for the game), nearly flawless interaction between 2D and 3D objects, and gameplay that involved the very best elements of platformers(hidden pickups and paths, various weapons, sound clips, a multitude of enemies, reasonable difficulty, and an overall sense of fun and wonder.) This game is the swan song of traditional platforming, and it would be a LONG time before we saw anything as good as this again! It's a hidden gem, it stands out and above its peers, and it's easily a classic of the PS1, the 90s, and gaming in general! If you haven't already, check it out!
And I say all this... Despite never having played it myself. I was mostly a Nintendo guy growing up, and I didn't even own a PlayStation until I bought a PS2 in my late teens, during the era of the PS3... I never owned this game, nor had any friends who did, so I never got to play it when it was popular. Nowadays, I'm more of an Xbox guy, still with a PS2 as the newest PlayStation console I own, so I can't buy the HD version off the PlayStation Store, and the original discs go for a pretty high sum, so this is unfortunately something I might never get around to playing.
However, I DID watch longplays of the game prior to this review, so I'm blown away by how good the game looks and plays, and I'm prepared to compare and contrast with today's offering!
What exactly IS today's offering? Well, a scant two years after the game's release, Taiwan took notice and created their own port of the game. And, not to be outdone by those newfangled 32- and 64-bit consoles out at the time, they released it for the most modern of consoles: The Sega Genesis! ...Well, I guess they were technically ahead of their game, considering most pirates at the time still developed for the Famicom...
One of the REALLY nice things about Genesis pirate games is that, because most actual Genesis games were released like this, most of them also come in hard plastic cases with custom artwork! ...Sure, sometimes, you have to dig around for a game with its case, but they exist!
Apparently, they also exist for Famicom carts, but it's much more uncommon, and, to date, I haven't seen one in the flesh. ...The cardboard. Whatever.
Genesis games with boxes, on the other hand, are still manufactured to this day, and can be found aplenty if you know where to look! I've managed to find cases for nearly my entire pirate Genesis collection!
Some even come with manuals! ...I can't begin to tell you how exciting it is that Genesis games are not only still being manufactured and sold, but that even unofficial, underground pirate games are given THIS level of attention! ...But I'm getting ahead of myself...
The case art for this game is unfortunately subpar, especially compared to a lot of other pirate cases I've come across, with most of the art a poor copy and print job of two promotional images that literally only took me ten seconds to find.
I know that, being a pirate game, there are no standards for art quality, but compare it to this more common design I've gotten for these pirate Genesis cases. Sure, the artwork is also lifted here, but it's laid out in such a way that's almost indistinguishable from actual Genesis case designs! There's a Genesis banner across the spine and the left of the front image, it has an ESRB rating on the front humorously displaying the outdated "Kids to Adults" rating, it bears the Sega logos and even the small print "important information", and it even has a description of the game on the back! It's these cases that prove that, all because the game is unofficial, doesn't mean they can't give it a convincing, professionally done package! ...And yes, we'll be looking at this game at some point.
Oh, but they DID bother to cram the Hercules logo in the upper-right corner on the front, and give it a sequel number almost as convincing as the Tom and Jerry 3 job! Also, they want you to know this is the "Hi-Game" of "1999", and that it contains "64M". ...I'm assuming that's a serial number, because I highly doubt this game is 64MB(about the size of Conker's Bad Fur Day)...
Admittedly, we do get a good number of blurry screenshots of the game, with four of them giving a look at the 4 different main levels of the game! ...And then they ran out of ideas, since the other screenshots are the title screen, one of the level title cards, and the Options Menu. ...I don't think you're required to include a set number of screenshots, guys...
I do love the Sega sticker on the lip of the case keeping it closed, though.
The cartridge, which they decided to wrap in a dryer sheet, uses the same top half of the movie poster artwork as the front of the box, so nothing to comment on here. ...Except for the sticker that won't stick on the top. This is a more common problem than you'd think...
Now unfortunately, the cartridge I have no longer works. It worked when I first bought it, but, even after repeat inserts, cleanings, and different systems, I couldn't get it to work. I'll still keep it as a memento, since these are rare, but, since I couldn't play it for the review, that's where the story would have ended.
Thankfully, I found that it's one of the VERY few unofficial games that works with Firecore emulation, so I was able to find a ROM, stick it on an SD card, and play it on a portable atGames Genesis console with TV Out! Sure, there are graphical issues, and I'm not playing with a standard Genesis controller, but, unless someone wants to wait months to track down another cartridge, pay several figures for it, and send it on to me, this is as good as it gets.
While there's nothing in the game that confirms a developer/publisher, it's suggested on the Bootleg Games Wiki that it was programmed by what was formerly Chuanpu Technology. They were a small-time Taiwanese game developer that programmed a handful of games for the Mega Drive/Genesis, mostly RPGs.
They're the company behind Brave Battle Saga: Legend of the Magic Warrior, an unofficial Secret of Mana-esque RPG that's grown a bit of popularity in recent years. ...And which I don't own yet. ...But I WILL!
They closed down in 1996, three years before Hercules 2, but the staff remained very prolific in the unofficial gaming market, working with fellow developer Vast Fame to create RPGs for handheld systems. Whatever they're comfortable with, I guess.
The publisher is believed to be the Taiwanese X-Boy/Unite Lucky Technology company. Besides publishing your standard Famicom multicart, they're also responsible for distributing several other unofficial Disney Mega Drive/Genesis ports, including A Bug's Life, Mulan, The Lion King 3, Aladdin II, and even a platformer based on Pokemon simply known as Pocket Monster. ...And as somebody who owns all those titles, I can say that only half of them work... But we'll get to that when we get to that.
The game starts up with a pretty sweet version(that I've sped up slightly since the framerate is pretty low) of the Main Menu from the original game, with Hercules carrying the title screen on his back, then throwing it down, with the title, sequel number, and a couple rocks crashing into the screen. ...Which is all oddly set not to the movie's main theme, but a 16-bit rendition of the "single" from that movie: "Go the Distance". My guess is that the track is more internationally known than the movie's theme, so they went with what's actually charted on the radio instead of something exclusive to the movie. Plus it fits the darker(and somewhat bleaker) title design, as opposed to the flashy, colorful visuals of the original game. ...Of course, once again, I'm assuming all this under the assumption that they did any of this on purpose...
Still, it's more effort even than what I can give a lot of official Plug n Play games featured so far...
Despite my snark earlier, apparently the reason this is known as "Hercules 2" is because there's ANOTHER unofficial game under the name of Hercules, which is just a bootleg of the Japanese-only platformer Dahna: Megami Tanjō with the title changed. Basically, this is the equivalent of a company wanting to register an email or Twitter or other website or social media, but the name's taken by a 12-year-old who wanted to sound cool, and he refused to give it up, so they have to call themselves "The REAL X". ...I can't imagine why I'd be bringing something like this up. Maybe you can send me the answer. Email's on the sidebar.
The game's comprised of 4 simplified versions of levels from the original game, with a boss at the end of each, plus a final boss that's given its own title card:
Hero's Gauntlet
The Centaur's Forest
The Big Olive
Titan Flight
Vortex of Souls
Hero's Gauntlet is basically Hercules' training area, and shares a lot of elements with the first level of the original game, simply downgraded and with most of the "enhanced" features missing, such as background/foreground layers and paths, animated backgrounds, and most of the detail in the sprites. Unlike the original game, this version is just your standard action platformer. ...Only a LOT harder, and unfairly so!
The first problem you'll notice is that few enemies go down with one hit! Most of the obstacles in this game take 2-3 hits to finally go down, each one can't be hit multiple times in a row, AND they have temporary invincibility after being hit! Small animals, human enemies, even inanimate obstacles like these target dummies take FOREVER to defeat! Just looking at this line of obstacles that are there solely to BE obstacles makes me groan...
Normally that wouldn't be too bad. Tedious, but manageable. ...Except NONE of the mobile obstacles in this game follow a pattern! You know how enemies are supposed to have a pattern to them? Goombas move left, Octoroks move a few steps and fire a rock in your direction, Call of Dutyians duck for cover and get taken out by a sniper? NOT IN THIS GAME! Things like these bats follow a completely unpredictable pattern! Sometimes, they'll move a little left, sometimes a few MILES right, maybe they'll swoop once, maybe twice or three times in a row, etc.! It's IMPOSSIBLE to judge where they're coming from or where they're about to strike!
The difficulty is compounded by how hard it is to hit a lot of these smaller targets. The hit detection is so wonky, you'd swear they made the zone completely random just to troll players! If you're lucky, you'll hit the enemy while it's still in the barest resemblance of a pattern, and keep it there long enough to knock out. ...But more likely, they'll fly straight at you and only occasionally be hit by swinging wildly...
9 times out of 10, they'll duck out of the way of your swing and lodge themselves in your abdomen...
Oh, but the game apparently sees something in them that I don't because the entire game is SWARMING with these hard-to-hit/avoid hazards! Bats, birds, rats, sharks, goats, etc. ALWAYS come in packs in this game, all ready to swarm you and deplete your health down to zero in NO time! If you see one, chances are there are 3-6 more waiting to gnaw your face off and wear it to town!
And just to make things even more tedious and unfair, only ONE enemy at a time can be hit! If you swing the sword and there's both a bat and one of these training dummies in its arc, the only thing that will be hit is the first thing the sword meets(usually the dummy), while the other thing is free to fly into your stomach and chew your insides! It's an absolute anomaly of the very basics of programming that I am AMAZED they managed to screw up! If multiple enemies can't be hit, DON'T PUT MULTIPLE ENEMIES IN THE SAME SPACE! Game Programming 101!
At this point, you might be thinking "Ok, so the enemies suck. They're small, annoying, and don't drop anything. Just avoid them!" ...Well, you can't! Unlike the original game, this Hercules takes up a good chunk of screen space, and most of the flying enemies are centered right in the middle of the screen, with no way to get around them! Not to mention a lot are placed in the worst possible locations, like at the top of a ledge you need to climb up!
Add to that the previously mentioned swarms of enemies, and how flying swarms are usually grouped with ground swarms, and there's absolutely no way you can get past most enemies in this game without taking a hit! Whether you're fighting them or not!
When you take a hit or several, good luck recovering health! The only way to gain back hit points is through these bottles* of Herculade, and these are relatively uncommon, mostly showing up only after a long and tedious enemy-riddled section! And even then, they only recover 2(sometimes even just ONE) hearts, so if you've taken more than 2 points of damage in that last section(and it's likely you will have), you're likely going to be out of luck for the next zerg rush!
*I say bottles, but... What exactly ARE these things? I think the movie wants us to believe that plastic was a thing in this version of Ancient Greece, but then why is it shaped like a pillar? Is it actually made out of stone? Is it an elaborate vase? What is the practicality of serving drinks in stone tureens? ...Why is this my major question in a movie where all mythologies exist at the same time and Ancient Greece is apparently Las Vegas?
All these factors, and a few more, mean that, unless you're either VERY skilled or EXTREMELY lucky, you can easily find yourself dead before the first half of the level is over. ...Or even right after the first screen scroll!
As one final smack to the face with how easy it is to die in this game: There are NO checkpoints. When you lose a life, you start ALL OVER AGAIN! From the beginning of the level! With NO way to earn extra lives or continues throughout the entire game! If you end up losing a life on the first level(which you likely will on your first dozen or two playthroughs), you're better off just resetting the game, enduring the title screen, and playing from the beginning.
Otherwise, trust me when I say you'll be seeing this screen quite often before you're even out of the starting point...
It's because of this game's broken difficulty that I had to complete it on Beginner, instead of attempting it on Herculean. I always try to complete the games I feature on the highest difficulty setting possible, both for challenge and to fully accomplish everything the game has to offer, but in this case, I had no chance. ...Heck, playing it on Beginner, I still had practically no chance, as the only difference is that you can take 6 hits instead of Herculean's 3! But those extra hits were necessary to get anywhere in this game, let me tell you...
So now that I've gone into great detail about how you CAN'T play this game... Let's talk about how you play this game.
As I mentioned earlier, each level follows basically the same structure as the real incarnation, only without any of the bells and whistles. No 3D models, no objects with any depth, no parallel paths, no alternate weapons, and most of the background/foreground elements, frames of animation, and even nearly every enemy all missing. It's your basic "walk right, kill everything in your way, make it to the end" type of generic platformer. ...You know. Everything the first game WASN'T!
Your first Herculean(pun intended) task is simply getting past these training dummies! Like I said, very few obstacles go down with one hit, and these are no exception. Add to that the fact they HURT you if you walk into them, and right off the bat, you're given a taste of the pain and torment this game throws at you.
It gets even better when you're slicing at the dummies AND trying to dodge these nearly-unhittable bats! ...Which have another attribute to them, but I'll talk about that in a second.
Once you finally get past the bats and dummies that comprise a good chunk of the beginning of the level, you're then greeted by these other birds with unpredictable flight patterns, which will gladly wait around the tops of ledges or at the edge of the screen and fly right into you while you're trying to simply get to the top! Luckily, these are some of the few obstacles that only take one hit, so once you've somehow avoided their swooping, just swing your sword blindly until they fly into your arc. ...And "enjoy" this section while you can, for this is the only bit of mercy you'll encounter...
Especially since the very next ledge also features birds, only now they're unavoidable...
After making it past SIX bats in a row
You then come across these water pits containing large, leaping, man-eating sharks! Now this is a VERY challenging platforming segment, as you'll need to carefully judge where and when you can jump to avoid getting munched and losing precious health you'll need for the next wave of flying creatures!
Or you can slice them, they die in one hit, and you can jump across without fear. ...You know, if you want to do things the easy way...
I guess it's about as much of a challenge as it was in the movie...
Luckily, once you get past the sharks, there are no immediate enemies and you can make it pretty far without encountering anything wanting to kill you
Oh wait, I lied. As soon as you start running though this area, you get pulverized by FALLING TRAINING DUMMIES FROM THE SKY! There is literally NO way to tell that they're going to appear, nor any way to outrun them! You just have to know that this is the section where sacks of potatoes with angry faces will apparate from out of nowhere, AND where to stand to set them off without them going Negan* on your noggin!
*Actually, are we sure Negan himself didn't program this game?
Several restarts later, after you've found where to stand to let the bags harmlessly fall to the ground, you can triumphantly walk down the path, knowing you're smarter than a sack of feathers! ...Right into the first team-up between rats and birds the game serves you on a silver platter. Besides being unpredictable, they're both also too low/high to hit, so you'll just have to wildly swing your sword and run back and forth until the rats eventually decide to refrain from chewing off your toes and leap into your sword's arc. And by this point, you're so stressed, you're about ready to go out and slice an actual rat in half yourself! Call PETA! This game actually encourages players to partake in animal cruelty!
If you somehow survive that, and after you've unearthed yourself from all the rat carcasses, you finally reach one of the few sections where you'll need to use Herc's super punch. Hold down the button for a few seconds, let it charge, and Herc will smash the rock to pieces in a decidedly SNES fashion(and the best animation of the game.) It's annoying, but it's also annoying in the real game, AND there's far less of it in this game, so I guess I can give the demake ONE point over the real thing... I need to throw up now...
After going through several more sections filled with rats, birds, bats, and, no joke, ANOTHER dummy dive, you finally reach a "spinning pole" section, where Hercules needs to launch himself from pole to pole to reach the top of a ledge, which is pretty common for platformers that also incorporate acrobatics(like the Prince of Persia series or Disney's own Aladdin game for the SNES.) ...Now the game has been near-impossibly difficult already, but it's THIS section that nearly broke me...
Normally, these sections are some of the most fun and technically impressive parts of an acrobatic platformer. Seeing the character spin around like an Olympic gold-medalist, carefully timing your swing so it'll launch with enough force in the direction of the next pole, the character automatically grabbing the next pole when it's within range, it's pretty fun! It's a bit of a challenge, it gives us a new animation, and it's usually not so difficult that we dread these sections! It really shows off that the programmers and designers want their game to have a touch of uniqueness and excitement, and it's a welcome change-up from regular platform-to-platform jumping!
...Not the case here. With this game, it's EXCRUCIATINGLY difficult to make these jumps! The trigger area to latch onto each pole is extremely precise; one pixel off, and Hercules misses the jump and falls to the ground.
If simply jumping from the ground and latching onto the pole isn't difficult enough, you then have to repeat the action SIX more times, launching Herc from pole to pole, each time scrambling to find the EXACT spot where Hercules can grab the pole. You might get lucky and make the first three jumps, but unless you play this area enough times to know where to fall, you'll likely miss the next pillar.
If you fall, you can forget about immediately trying again, since the programmers were nice enough to include a swarm of rats right underneath the pillars! Make one mistake, and you have no hope of avoiding these rodents and their sharp, pointy teeth!
You could technically kill the rats before you start your vaulting, but, again, because of the random attack pattern and how the rats are nearly impossible to hit, you're just as likely, if not more, to kill yourself here as trying to normally jump from pole to pole! Even if you don't die, you're still left with a fraction of health too minuscule to survive the next section...
There are no flame spurts to save you from these ROUSs!
And again: Die once, get sent back to the beginning of the level! This is almost Donkey Kong Country 4-level of tedious, yet it's somehow even WORSE here! At least in Donkey Kong, you didn't fall through the platforms! ...Often...
This is actually a very common problem in demakes where the original contained a good amount of ledge-hopping and acrobatics, and it's not the worst offender I've ever seen. Remind me to dedicate a month to the The Lion King pirate games...
If you have patience on loan from a Saint, and a spare controller after you've snapped the first one in half, you'll FINALLY luck out, jump across each pillar, and reach the other side!
...Only to immediately be killed by a goat. ...Just to reiterate, this first level involves Hercules, the DEMIGOD, with strength that would put Superman to shame, being constantly taken out by rats, birds, bats, falling and stationary grain sacks, and now GOATS! ...How is this selling the game?! You have a movie where Hercules battles centaurs, giant pigs, multi-headed serpents, elemental titans, and eventually a GOD, each time emerging with barely a scratch, even WITHOUT powers! ...And in the tie-in, he can't even fight off a BAT without nearly killing himself!
I am DEAD serious when I say this makes Superman being defeated by rings in Superman 64 look like the better alternative! At least that game takes place in a virtual world being manipulated by Lex Luthor, who can alter the landscape to confuse and frustrate Superman. It's a reality that Superman(and the player) has to constantly adapt to, so it has an excuse why Superman is so easily taken out! ...Yes, I am SO frustrated, that I'm saying Superman 64 is the better game at this point!
You might think that's an unfair comparison, seeing as how Superman 64 was an official and professional project, while Hercules 2 is an unofficial, heavily dumbed-down port with no love or quality control... And you're probably right. Still, when ANY game convinces me that Superman 64 is more worth playing, you know there's something wrong here...
When you finally, FINALLY, get past all the level has thrown at you and arrive at the very end of this horrifying gauntlet(which took me FOUR hours of on-and-off playing, by the way), you FINALLY reach the end level boss, who is actually a repurposed enemy from the original game. And, believe it or not, after all the crap you've had to go through, the absolute AGONY it was to slog through every single near-invincible enemy, and the CONSTANT level restarts you had to endure to reach this point, the end level boss is EXCRUCIATINGLY ...EASY!
No joke! This is one of the few "large" enemies you encounter in this game, and, apparently, the larger the sprite, the larger the hit box! You can easily inch yourself close enough to him so that your blows hit, but his don't! Then it's just a matter of remembering to duck when he throws a fireball at you, which he does nearly every time you hit him AND he can't throw another one until the first is off the screen, giving you plenty of time to land a blow! Just keep out of arm's reach, then hit him, duck, repeat, and you'll eventually end him with barely a scratch! ...I really should be more upset at how easy the bosses are in this game, but, with how nearly unplayable the rest of the game is, I like to see it as a breath of relief. The game is absolutely relentless in everything else, so let's have a moment of accomplishment to finish it off.
Once the centaur is reduced back to the cartridge RAM that spawned it, Hercules heads on over to Zeus' lightning bolt and the level ends.
And that was the first level. ...And while I can say the rest of the game isn't as glitchy and "insane" as the first part, it's no less a Herculean effort to get through. Consider yourself a demigod yourself if you've managed to get this far! A demigod who has just completed a labor as mighty as Hercules' 12 Labors! ...And managed to find the TV remote on top of that. That's an ultimate accomplishment in itself...
Next is The Centaur's Forest, another level taken straight from the original. ...Except in this case, there's a grand total of ONE centaur in this forest! ...Which actually makes more sense, since the title's a singular possessive. But I digress.
Compared to the previous level, this area is much, MUCH easier to get through. The level is much more "level", most of the enemies are bigger and easier to hit, the smaller enemies aren't in large swarms, the obstacles are more spaced out and easier to avoid, there aren't any hidden traps, and there's only one instance of acrobatics, which itself isn't anywhere near as stressful as the previous one! It's actually a tolerable and fairly fun level, and far less difficult than the first level! ...Then again, Super Meat Boy is much easier than the first level, so take that for what it's worth...
Yes, the enemies still attack with no discernible pattern, and the majority of them still take 2-3 hits to destroy, but their attack and movement range is much smaller, and they're larger and easier to hit! You'll still be taking damage occasionally, but it's much easier to survive. I could get through the level on my first try, at least! ...Mostly because I was scared to have to go back and play the first level over again...
However, as you go through this level(or at least look at the screenshots), you may notice something a little out of place. Especially if you've played other really fun Disney games from around the same time. Games that even share a relation with game publisher/developer Virgin Interactive.
That's right! In an odd move, at least half of the enemies in this game are taken straight from the SNES version of Aladdin! More specifically, the unofficial Genesis port of the Capcom-developed game, titled "Aladdin II", which also has a pointless "2" in the name! This gives more ground to the theory that these two games were programmed and/or published by the same companies. ...And that the people behind Hercules 2 couldn't be bothered to rip more sprites from the actual Hercules game...
Or maybe we were wrong this whole time, and this isn't a demake of the Hercules game, but instead a completely new game based on the Aladdin/Hercules crossover episode "Hercules & The Arabian Night"! ...Which hey, that was an awesome crossover, so I'm down. You got your 1001 Nights in my Greek Mythology!
Since this level is very straightforward with no unpleasant surprises, there's not much to point out and you can get through it with relative ease. ...Until you reach Nessus, the eponymous centaur of "Centaur's Forest".
Nessus is a very difficult villain, if you're unfamiliar with the strategy. He's again a boss who just needs to be sliced and diced a number of times to take him down, but he requires a large amount of hits before he gives up. In the meantime, he's not stunned by Hercules' blows, continually runs over Herc, and is much faster than Herc, meaning that it's virtually impossible to beat him by simply running up to him and continually smacking him with your sword.
It's made even more difficult due to the fact that, if he goes offscreen, he disappears until you go back to the far left side of the screen, then he respawns when you head right, forcing you to fight him all over again! This means you can't hit him, then run from one platform to the other, as he needs to be onscreen for the entire fight! So if you don't know the strategy, you're a bit screwed...
Accurate parallel to the movie, come to think of it.
But once you know what to do, the fight becomes unfairly easy. What do you do? Like most pirate games, you stop thinking it plays like a regular game... Since most, if not all, pirate games boil down to one big glitch, you need to think outside the box and try things that would never work in an "actual" game! In this case, simply make your way to the platform on the other side of the map(slowly, so Nessus doesn't disappear and you need to start over again), then, as with the other centaur, position yourself far enough away that his blows won't hit, but yours will! Swing away until dead, then, since you're standing right on the lightning symbol, the level is over!
Again, pretty parallel to what happened in the movie. Not as funny a death, though...
The third level, The Big Olive, falls somewhere between the first and second levels in terms of difficulty. As you can see, smaller enemies like the rats have returned, and in LARGE numbers!
It seems like every other surface is completely covered with rodentia, waiting to gnaw you to the bone if you miss a platform or don't jump in time to the next! And, like I mentioned, they're nigh-impossible to hit! They have no visible pattern, they move at varying speeds, and the only point where they're high enough to hit is when they're leaping at you! Once again, we're looking at Hercules, demigod with the strength of ten thousand men, being taken out by RATS!
Oh, but rats aren't your only problem here. Besides the return of these flocks of birds(which thankfully still only take one hit)
We get the new addition of what I assume are Harpies! They're JUST like the bats, with completely unpredictable patterns and 3 hits to take them down, but they're BIGGER and there's more of them! This section, right here, unless you move VERY quickly and know roughly where each harpy is, you're likely to die even at full health!
Even enemies that are easier to avoid are much more of a problem here! Since this section is very platform-heavy, there are a few places where you need to launch yourself from these poles, again, and land on a narrow ledge. ...Where a monster is waiting with open arms to gut you as soon as you land... Again, this is why I had to go with "Beginner" difficulty for this game...
By now, you might have noticed a number of collectables throughout the game, and might be wondering why I haven't brought them up. ...Well, do you want to know what they do?
There are a number of pick-ups across each level that are taken from the original game. In the real thing, they serve as Extra Lives, Bonus Games, Rankings, etc. ...Here, they serve NO purpose. Picking them up still makes a sound(which, like all sounds, is a heavily bit-crushed version of the original game's), but since extra lives, bonus games, and end screens are all excluded from this version of the game, there's no point in picking them up!
Even collecting every letter of the Hercules name scattered across each level doesn't do anything! Programming and sprite-creation is a laborious process, so if they didn't have any plans to implement a purpose to these items, WHY PUT THEM IN?!
I have to give props to Donkey Kong Country 4 AGAIN! Even with all its features dumbed down or removed, they at least remembered to retain the extra lives! ...Which were almost instantly depleted due to how easy it was to die in that game as well, but still...
The ONLY items that do ANYTHING are the aforementioned Herculade health replenishers, and these Achilles helmets, which grant Herc temporary invincibility. ...Though in most cases, it doesn't last long enough to do any good.
Actually, Achilles is an apt metaphor for what it feels like playing this game...
Despite how easy it is to get hit in this level, you still HAVE to finish with as much health as you can for the boss! Here, the boss is a Minotaur, who throws stone blocks in random directions. Since he doesn't react or change his pattern depending on where you're standing, he's technically* the easiest boss of them all! Just run up to him and keep hitting him(which for some reason doesn't always register.)
*If you played fairly and didn't use the "glitch" strategy on the other two bosses. ...Which you probably did use, since I don't know if it's possible to win without it...
...However, you're not out of danger, as, like I said, his throws are completely random, meaning he can still throw blocks at you even if you're right next to him, and you can still take damage. Plus, this guy takes more hits than the previous two bosses, so you can very easily get impatient and focus completely on swinging your sword. Combined, even if you somehow get here with full health, you can still end up dead by forgetting to avoid the blocks he throws your way!
Still, I guess it's not as hard as it sounds, and the major source of stress is thinking about starting the game over from the beginning if your life bank is depleted, so just keep at it, remember to watch for the arcs that kill, and you'll eventually go Theseus on his face! ...Just remember to return on a ship with white sails so your father won't kill himself. This has been your obscure Greek Mythology lesson for the day.
The (technically)final level, Titan Flight, is surprisingly different from the other levels. Instead of a platformer, it's a side-scrolling shooter, featuring Hercules riding Pegasus to Mount Olympus, where he must free his father, then destroy Hades and his evil band of Titans! ...Or at least that first one, since the Titans never appear in this game. ...I guess, unlike James Woods, they're not as crazy about working for scale...
This section is a more-than-welcome change from the platforming levels. Not only is it a lot easier(which, considering the masochistic level structures, isn't too hard to pull off), but it's a different genre! This is a good opportunity to destress from the hours of work you've put into trying to get past the first stage, and just fly through waves of enemies, blasting through all in your path! ...Though don't relax too much, as this is still a level that requires your undivided attention.
The enemies in this level are just bizarre, and that's saying something after seeing levels mostly comprised of Aladdin enemies. Besides the new addition of what I assume are Chimeras, we also have the return of harpies, plus Aladdin's bats, flying swords, wolves(?), and flying birds in jars.
And, seeing as how they're the same size as they were when we were slicing them up in the previous levels, apparently, Mount Olympus is the size of a Legoland Miniland, and mounting a Pegasus triggers the same effect as Scott Lang's shrinking suit... Well, this IS Disney. It's a small world after all...
...But then you have... THESE projectile-throwing enemies, which I can only describe as Succubi. I have NO idea where these things came from, nor why they're included in this game! With how much smaller and more "realistic" they are, they don't even look like they belong in the same universe!
Same goes for these fairies riding beetles that throw spears at you. They look like they belong in something completely unrelated to Disney, like the Final Fantasy series!
...You know what I mean!
Like the rest of the game, this level is absolutely SWARMING with ceiling-to-floor enemies, with unpredictable movement patterns, and the majority of them still take 2-3 hits to destroy, so fighting them is still as much of a chore as it was in the platforming levels. This is why I mentioned this game still requires your attention and you can't just rapidly press one button or hit the Turbo while you eat a Hot Pocket(or gyro, if you want to be accurate) with the other.
However, since you're granted free movement through the skies, you can simply fly over or under most of the swarms you don't want to fight! In fact, I'd recommend this is what you do. As with all previous levels, the enemies don't drop anything, and there's no form of score counter, so there's no reason to fight anything in your way! If there's a clear space, just fly into it! Sure, you may take damage trying to avoid the enemies, but you'll take MORE damage trying to fight them, so might as well act the coward, but keep your eyes on the main prize! ...Whatever that means...
This is the only level I was able to get through without losing a single life! After only about 3 minutes, I reached the end of the level and freed Zeus, the only god that needs freeing in this level! Go forth, Zeus! Go forth and think about how you can avoid being cast in Men in Black III!
And that brings us to the final boss, which they decided to split from the end of the previous level into the actual game's zone Vortex of Souls. As you can probably guess, this is where the first and final face-off against Hades takes place, and, believe it or not, it's EXACTLY like the confrontation in the actual game! ...Except for the parts they took out or simplified! ...Meaning the end result is NOT exactly like the actual game! ...Meaning I was lying! What a credible journalist I am!
Once again, the battle boils down to "hit until dead", with the various attacks and obstacles from the original game absent. Hades rapidly and repeatedly hovers left and right, throwing fireballs at you, which can hit even if you're standing on a platform! And since he's so fast and he once again lacks any pattern, he can be a bit of a challenge if you don't know what to do.
But by this point, you probably DO know what to do, as it's the exact same strategy as with Nessus! Simply stand on the platform, wait for Hades to come within reach, and strike until dead. Remember to dodge Hades' fireballs by jumping over them, and you'll eventually deliver the final blow! ...Eventually...
Once again, the movie provides an apt metaphor for what this level feels like...
Finally, after a good amount of time just jumping in place and swinging your sword aimlessly, Hades dissolves into... Whatever gods are made of, and the game is officially over!
Hercules and Megara kiss, then stand on Mount Olympus, looking forward to the future with promise and wonder. And, you know, I REALLY like this! It's a much better ending than we've seen with other pirate games on this blog. ...Heck, it IS an ending! And for a pirate game, that's as magical as Disney itself.
And with the end of this game, we can finally sigh in relief and join Herc and Meg in looking toward to bright future ahead, knowing that, like Hercules himself, his legend will forever live on, with promise and untainted creativity!
At least until 2014... If Zeus decides to destroy the world with his mighty lightning bolts, we'll know why...
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Design: Both the case and the cartridge are simply covered in promotional art for the movie, which was blown up and printed out with a pretty cheap printer, and with the only actual additions being a few nonsense bits of text added in standard fonts. There are MUCH nicer pirate Genesis carts and cases out there, and I can't wait to show you them! Until then, don't let this stand as the standard for pirate Genesis art.
Controls: They're responsive and straightforward enough, I guess. The directional pad takes you in a direction, while one button swings Herc's sword and another activates his super punch. However, because of how taxing the graphics are on the system, and how low the frame rate is, there is a slight lag between pressing a button and something happening, so don't put yourself in a tight situation that'll require a quick response. Thankfully, there are no areas that require quick actions, so this shouldn't be an issue. So while the controls have a slight issue, they still work fine for the type of game this is.
Graphics: The footage I captured that you've seen in the screenshots and/or video was from a pretty glitchy emulator, so there were a LOT of corrupted sprites. Thankfully, this isn't part of the actual game. I'm actually pretty impressed with how well they managed to copy sprites and backgrounds from the original game and create Genesis-compatible characters and layouts with them! The quality is quite high for a Genesis game(at least early Genesis), and we have a good amount of colors, art, and various items and enemies that all look nice and accurate to the original source. On top of that, I like the animations for the beginning and end sequences, as they're not something I've come across that often with pirate games, and they look great given the hardware and how much space they were given. ...Unfortunately, for some reason, they decided to blow up most of the assets, making most of the elements, especially from the original Hercules, making them roughly twice as big as they were! Not only does this make the game significantly harder, but it makes the graphics look blurry and pixellated, at some points rendering the sprite completely indiscernible! Like I pointed out, a lot of the sprites are taken from other games. For the Aladdin sprites, they seem out of place, but they're still drawn in a similar enough style to fit in with the Disney aesthetics. ...However, the enemies that debut in the side-scrolling level don't even look like they belong in the same genre, much less the same game! It fits as well as Donkey Kong enemies in The Lion King! ...And yes, that happened... Besides the design work, the frame rate has been significantly lowered for the Hercules sprites, resulting in pretty choppy movement and a slight lag as actions are performed. Overall, it's pretty impressive the amount of PS1 elements they managed to fit into an early 16-bit console, and it's a welcome changeup from the single-color palettes of most 8-bit pirate games. ...I just wish they modified the sprite sizes to work better with the system, and they didn't have such an overreliance on other games' graphics...
Music & Sound: Only the "Go the Distance" track from the original source is used in this game, which plays during the title and end sequences. I can't recognize the rest of the music, but I'm assuming it was taken either from other low-profile SNES games or previous Chuanpu games. Wherever they got it, it's actually REALLY good, and fits the tone of the game really well, being cartoonishly cheerful, yet with a sense of determination behind it, as the Hercules movie was. Each level is given its own track, with each sharing the same overall tone, and I can actually remember the beats for most of them, which is more than I can say for most other pirate games I've played! So while I would have preferred the score from the original game(especially with how well they handled the "Go the Distance" track), what they put in sounds just fine. Like Donkey Kong Country 4, all the sounds are taken from the original game, only this time, there's a lot of them. Punching, swinging the sword, throwing things, collecting items, enemy grunts, even Hercules' voice clips are all present, just heavily bit crushed. You can still make out when he says "Herculade" and "Yeah", when he performs certain actions, but a lot of the other expressions have been compressed to the point of static. Still, it's pretty impressive that they managed to fit it all in. ...Even if it does make the game unbearably sound-cluttered at some points, and I ended up eventually muting the TV. ...Still, that's just my preference.
Gameplay: I think I've ranted enough about how unfairly hard and monotonous this game is in the main body of the review. Enemies are placed in ridiculous locations, with no discernible movement patterns, and take more hits than necessary to kill off. It's almost a guarantee that you'll take a hit with every other obstacle you come across, and health replenishers are very few and far between. Not to mention how often these enemies appear in swarms, and are usually either above or below your sword level, making it EXTREMELY difficult to hit anything, especially without taking a hit! This makes getting past the first level virtually impossible, and a Herculean task in itself, even with the difficulty set to Beginner! Thankfully, the number of enemies is toned down in later levels(or at least they're placed in less frustrating areas), and the bosses, though difficult, can be taken out easily if you know what you're doing. ...However, without the controller-destroyingly frustrating enemies and unfair level designs, you're left with a pretty bare-bones action platformer. The gameplay's simply "Run to the right and survive the onslaught", slashing at everything in your way. There are no secrets, no enemies that require different strategies, no fast action sequences, not even any pickups! Sure, they have coins, Herc dolls, and Hercules letters from the original game, but they don't DO anything! There's literally no purpose to going out of your way to pick up anything but the Herculade(and the helmets if you think they'll last long enough to get past a certain enemy group.) I'd give it credit for keeping the acrobatic portions, but, seeing as how broken they are, it's more a hindrance than a change of pace! I think the only section I could convince myself I like is the side-scrolling Titan Flight. It's different, it's straightforward, it has a wide range of movement, it has a number of different enemies to shoot at, and it's not hair-pullingly difficult! Even then, the random enemy sprites made it hard to get sucked into the level's aesthetics and just made me question what I was even playing... To recap: The level layouts are too difficult, the bosses are too easy, there's nothing that defines this game, and completing it feels more like the welcome end of a slogfest than any actual accomplishment. Sort of like LA Noire. ...Only this game is better...
Replay Value: On a scale of Zero to Hero... ZERO!
Overall:
Even with everything I've already gone over in this review, I can't begin to tell you how much of a boring, painful headache this game is to play! It looks and sounds nice, and huge props for converting assets from a 32-bit system to a 16-bit system, but the gameplay is AWFUL! When it's not stupefying hard, it's mind-numbingly BORING, with the entire game serving solely as an unrewarding endurance test on your skills and patience. It's an unbalanced mess with a lot of elements that just make me question game design as a whole, and not an appropriate game for kids, adults, or anyone in between! My advice is to stay away from this game, unless you're so bored with life, you need an ultimate challenge. ...In which case, just go perform the 12 Labors of Hercules. You'll get a lot more done, and get some exercise for once...
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