Herc’s Adventures Overview: Herc’s Adventures is a FANTASTIC multi-player adventure game that flew under nearly every radar. With a Greek mythology setting you start your adventure by picking one of three playable characters: Hercules (Herc), Jason (from Jason and the Argonauts), or Atalanta (the fastest woman in the world, that got distracted by golden apples). Each character has their own “style†of play, Herc is powerhouse, Jason is well rounded, and Atalanta is quick. Each character also has their regular attack and a charge attack. Both Herc and Jason’s regular attack are melee attacks with their charged attack being ranged, while Atalanta’s regular attack is ranged and her charged attack is a group of arrows that rain from above. The game is set-up where you wander around the lands and do certain tasks for the different God’s of the time; Zeus, Hera, Dionysus, Poseidon, Athena, and yes, even Hades. Once you complete a quest from one of the God’s they’ll give you a key with their initial on it to allow access to different areas of the gigantic map. Since I mentioned the “gigantic map†I’m now going to elaborate just a little about it. The map, like I said, is pretty large considering all the content in the game. Including, Egypt, Athens, Crete, The Amazon Village, Circe Island, Ellis, The World’s Edge, Troy, and The Underworld, and all places in between. The travel times between certain points in the game can be kind of tedious, especially if you’ve made the trip more than once, but not horribly long (like Morrowind without the silt striders). Speaking of the Underworld, this game handles your character losing all of your hit points quite differently than I’ve seen in pretty much every other game. When you “die†it’s not “game over†like in most games, you’ll be sent to the Underworld where you’ll have full hit points and stamina and you’ll have to fight your way out. If you make it out, you’ll be started on the normal map with however many hit points you had when you left the Underworld, however if you die in the Underworld while trying to make your way out, then it’s “game over.†On your journey you’ll encounter a slew of different enemies ranging from cyclopses (yes, that’s plural but wasn’t sure what the plural of “cyclops†was), harpies, skeletons, humans, wild boars, man eating fish, minotaur, hydra, Medussa, amazons, and even aliens. Now of course I didn’t list all the enemies in the game, but you get the point. Now I’m trying to keep this review as “spoiler free†as I possibly can, thus I’m leaving out the primary storyline and overall objective of the game. I will tell you that there is in fact a very large twist in the story and on your final “quest.†I will also tell you this, there is one particular item in the game that if you give it to a certain God that you cannot beat the game. Basically, you totally screw yourself out of hours of gameplay with no ending. Now, on with the review. Along your journey you will find all sorts of items to aid you. From garbage to flaming spears to inflatable cows to bombs to alien ray guns, and many, many more. Each character starts out with their base HP and stamina, for example Hercules can pick up houses in the very beginning, where as Jason and Atalanta can’t. You can find hearts throughout the game to increase your max HP and also there are body builders littered throughout the lands to increase your strength/stamina, for a price. So the picking up of houses, isn’t really an issue since you can pay the body builder and eventually be able to lift up a house, or other large item with any character. Another great thing about this game, quite possibly the best thing about this game, is the fact that I said “multi-player.†Yes, multi-player. Not versus mode or anything like that. You and your buddy can each pick a character and roll through the mythological world together, as a team. Like I said, quite possibly the best feature of this gem of a game. Another thing that really surprised me about this game, was the voice overs. All of the God’s in the game have their own unique voice and actually use it. The way the God’s assign their task to you, is by actually speaking to you. There are no sub-titles or unnecesary reading. So pay attention when the God’s are talking. Otherwise, you’ll be wandering around the map aimlessly. Now I personally see everything I’ve said so far as a good thing, I’ll transfer now to the bad things, even though there aren’t many. The first bad thing, and the worst in my opinion. The map isn’t very helpful on HOW to get where you’re going, it’s good to set you in the general direction, but it doesn’t show you a detailed path to anywhere. So there is a lot of guess work and exploration in finding the correct path to get where you need to be. Another thing I found quite annoying and time consuming, some of the places aren’t very clear on whether you’re supposed to back track, or go forward. Sometimes going forward will put you ahead of yourself and you won’t have the necessary key to open a door to continue and you’ll either have to backtrack or if the way you came is a “one way†and you can’t backtrack...find an alternate route, which there aren’t many. There are also a few spots in the game where it turns into quite an annoying platformer, but don’t let this turn you off of the game because the platformer parts don’t last long and there aren’t that many in the game. But the ones that are there, are REALLY troublesome. Now as I am a huge fan of the voice overs in this game, I will admit that there are some issues about the voice being cued up to the animation of the mouth, not a big deal, but if you’re a stickler then you’ll definitely notice. It’s definitely something you can over look and it doesn’t take away from the game at all. Another minor annoyance of the game is there are a very few parts where an NPC will “show the exit for X amount of gold†when the exit is EXTREMELY obvious...you still have to pay the guy for him to “show it to you.†Saving your progress is another issue in this game. I’m not a huge fan of the way you have to do it, you have to pay a scribe your hard earned gold to record your progress. Not an issue if you’re playing it on an emulator since you can use save states, but if you’re playing this game on a console then make sure you always keep 1-3 gold in your pocket, your location on the map dictates how much you pay for a save. There’s basically all the good and the bad of Herc’s Adventures. In a nutshell, I guess it would be a cross between Zombies Ate My Neighbors and The Legend of Zelda. Two of the greatest games...mashed together. Graphics 10/10: Considering this is a Playstation One game, don’t expect it to be like a movie. It’s BETTER than a movie...it’s a cartoon!!! The graphics are exactly like you’d see on a Saturday morning cartoon and work EXTREMELY well for this game. Gameplay 9/10: The gameplay is fantastic. Multi-player co-op is always good, and VERY rare now a days, unless it’s “online.†Nothing beats sitting down with a friend and completely owning a game. The only issue it has, the charge attacks take a little too long to execute and unless you’re using Atalanta the charge attacks are pointless (in my opinion). Controls 8/10: Controls are very good. The only thing I would say against it, is Atalanta has a hard time aiming normal attack and if you’re not pointed DIRECTLY at the target you’re not going to hit it. Sometimes the jumping can be a little late from the button press, hence the platforming parts are VERY annoying. Sound 8/10: The sounds fit the game VERY well, style wise. The only issue is that some of the sounds/voice overs don’t cue up with the animations. Replayability 7/10: Lowest score, mainly because the game is pretty long, and you won’t get an extremely different game experience by playing through with another character. Definitely worth another play through if you’ve got the time. Or if you played it through once and made the wrong decision at the end, FORCING you to play through it again. Or from an earlier save point. Overall 42/50: Overall this game is in my opinion one of the best gaming experiences one can have. If you’re a fan of The Legend of Zelda and/or Zombies Ate My Neighbors then this is the game for you!! Especially if you like sitting down with a friend and tag teaming a game. Definitely a must-have for any PSX fan, the cartoon like style makes it enjoyable for the kids, or even the goofy adult. I highly recommend playing this game through at least once, it’s totally worth the time. Note: Thanks to MobyGames for the screenshots!! The map screen shot is not the entire map, that is just a portion, there is more to the map than what the screen shot shows.
Re: (PSX) Herc's Adventures~~Shamus486 Paragraphs!!! I knew there was something from school I totally forgot about! Thanks again for the feedback!!
Re: (PSX) Herc's Adventures~~Shamus486 Good review you can add some images to main post though, it'll look much better.
Re: [PSX] Herc's Adventures-Shamus486 are you talking about the IMG tags? because they don't show up in your post. [ IMG ] without the spaces. [/ IMG ] to end the tag. also, linking it from another site is considered bandwidth stealing and if the original source found out, they can replace that image with a not-so-nice one. use photobucket and use the IMG tags that they give you. edit: i hate that pay to save crap that they had in Donkey Kong 2, and they have it in this game as well.
Re: [PSX] Herc's Adventures-Shamus486 nice, much better than your first review, take a look at mine I just recently put up. its kinda that style you want and that IMG trick that insanecrazy07 said, its useful, its how I got the pics up in all my reviews. Keep on trucking, you're getting better
Re: [PSX] Herc's Adventures-Shamus486 I must say that World of Warcraft has ruined my life. when someone says to save 1-3 gold, I think damn! that's a lot! 1-3 gold is probably chump change in this game.
Re: [PSX] Herc's Adventures-Shamus486 To respond to InsaneCrazy's 1-3 gold being "chump change" in this game...that couldn't be further from the truth. especially when factoring in the gold it costs to by gyros (healing) and your strength upgrades....1-3 is a ridiculous sum to pay to save your progress! Thank goodness for the emulator save states...even though that's kinda cheating, but totally worth it. I don't think you should have to pay to save your game!
Re: [PSX] Herc's Adventures-Shamus486 nice review totally ranked the game in the same way except for the 8/10 score on the controls i thought jumping was hard to do and not being able to jump over enemies while you could clearly jump that high hahaha good job ;D
