I love retro gaming, and one of my favorites old-school games to revisit every once in a while is The Return of Heracles, my partial introduction to heroic Greek mythology.
(Originally posted on Channel Awesome on June 16, 2014) I love retro gaming, and one of my favorites old-school games to revisit every once in a while is The Return of Heracles, my partial introduction to heroic Greek mythology. The Return of Heracles, released for the Apple II, Atari 8-Bit and Commodore 64,was developed by Stuart Smith, one of the earliest designers of adventure video games. I haven't been able to find out all that much about him, but he was apparently really into classic mythology and folklore and developed games that would educate players about it. His other games include Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, loosely based on the Arabian Nights stories, and Rivers of Light, inspired by the story of Gilgamesh. Rivers of Light was a module for Smith's Adventure Construction Set (it's exactly what it sounds like - a program for designing your own adventure games), which was one of Electronic Arts's early big hits. I unfortunately never played Adventure Construction Set, but I'm sure I would've loved it if I'd had the chance to. Despite the title, The Return of Heracles isn't exclusively about Heracles. You have an entire roster of nineteen heroes to choose from, as many at a time as you want whenever you want (although they all have fixed starting points). Obviously Heracles is among them (he starts off as the infant Palaemon - Smith really did his homework), but you can also play as A-list heroes of Greek mythology such as Jason, Theseus, Perseus, Achilles, Hippolyta, Odysseus, even Pegasus. Lesser known heroes you can control include Asclepius the physician, Autolycus, Cadmus, and the amazon Melanippe. Some of these heroes have special abilities. For instance, Achilles has natural armor (a power he loses if he buys normal armor - it isn't worth it), Asclepius can heal wounded heroes if he lands on their space (as long as he doesn't attack anyone during his turn), and Autolycus and Polydeuces are exceptionally skilled at close quarters combat. The basic object of the game is to perform twelve particular heroic feats and make sure as many heroes as possible live to tell about it. Some of these are the same ones Heracles was charged with completing in the original myths, killing monsters such as the Nemean Lion, the Hydra (complete with the crab Hera sent to attack Heracles while he was fighting it), and the flesh-eating horses of Diomedes. Others include finding the Golden Fleece, solving the Riddle of the Sphinx, destroying the Minotaur, and rescuing Helen from Troy. These can mostly be done in any order, although a couple of quests require you to finish other quests first. You can also visit the Oracle of Delphi to get hints on how to complete these missions (for a price, naturally). Completing quests can either get you loads of cash or exceptional weapons and armor - defeating the Nemean Lion gets you the best and lightest armor in the game, and killing the Hydra poisons your weapons of the character that delivers the death blow. The gameplay is pretty straightforward. You just move around the screen, and you have a certain number of moves you can make during your turn (partially dependent on your speed, the weight of your armor, and how much gold you're carrying). Once your turn is done, if any other NPCs or enemies are on the screen, it's their move - and if there are a lot of these around, waiting for them all to finish moving until you can move again can be tortuously slow, even if you do crank the movement speed. This is easily the worst and most annoying part of the game. The best part, however, is the freedom to explore and choose which quests you want to complete first - and there's plenty of adventure and danger to be found without them (you won't be able to complete the game if you don't finish the twelve tasks, though). You get point bonuses for completing the Twelve Labors within a certain number of moves and without losing any (or too many) heroes, but I never paid any attention to the whole scoring thing in this game. The Greek mythology nut in me loves how the programmers stayed extremely faithful to the original legends when designing the levels and the perils populating ancient Greece - within the limits of what the game mechanics were able to achieve. (Although you can have your heroes survive battles and encounters they didn't survive in the original myths, or have them complete quests achieved by another hero in the source material.) For certain characters, you even get some backstory on them mixed in with describing their special abilities. However, it wouldn't be a game about Greek mythology without the gods taking the opportunity to screw you over. One mission, killing the serpent of Ares, will unlock the city of Thebes; however, a ticked-off Ares will irreversibly turn your character into a snake (so be careful which hero you sacrifice for that quest). Also, among the environmental perils is an invisible spot where you meet Aphrodite, who falls in love with you and induces a never-ending sleep. It won't matter if your character is a man, woman, or creature (I'd be shocked at this if I hadn't read as much Greek mythology as I have) - the effect is the same. On that same note, when the stag in the Orchomenus Forest is killed, you'll inevitably see Artemis bathing and get turned into a stag (again, no matter your gender or species) - and then get killed by the pack of dogs hunting the original, newly-departed stag. And whatever you do, don't go all the way to the top of Mount Olympus (unless you're deliberately trying to get rid of a character). You spend a lot of time in combat, which is all turn-based. If you're standing next to an enemy, you swing at him with a sword, and you engage in dagger-grappling when both characters occupy the same spot. In actuality, you don't really get to do anything except tell your character whether to attack or defend, and you just have to hope you hit the target (and do enough damage to win the fight). Weapon and armor choices are pretty limited, but there are places where you can have your weapons either enchanted or poisoned to do extra damage or get extra protection. There are also training halls where you can improve your strength, speed, and fighting skills. Other than that, you're simply taking turns swinging at each other, which can get pretty tedious after a while. It takes a LOT of patience to get through this game, and it is a bit on the long side. We're not talking a 40+ hour game or anything like that, but it'll take a few hours at least. The graphics are obviously simplistic, as you can tell from the screenshots, but remember when this came out. (Besides, sometimes I'm more in the mood for simplified graphics and gameplay without anything too elaborate.) It does require a bit of imagination to picture a big yellow face is a lion, or a horse's head is the majestic Pegasus. Still, as nice as it would be for each hero to have his or her own individual design, I don't think it was technically possible to pull that off at the time. I think some versions of the game have animated sprites, but the Apple II version (the only one I ever played) definitely doesn't. If you have an Apple II emulator on your computer, you can download and play a ROM of this game, and I've also come across a Flash version of the Apple version on at least one website. I think the Atari and Commodore versions have also been emulated, but I haven't tried it. But however you do get a hold of it, give it a try. This is a great game, even if it can be slow at times and requires lots of patience to complete. If you're really into Greek mythology and/or retro gaming, The Return of Heracles will fit the bill.
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