Herc’s Adventures (PS1)
The mighty demigod Hercules. The skilled huntress Atlanta. The up and coming young hero Jason. When an army of the undead threatens to expand their ranks by taking out all of Greece, only these three warriors are left to oppose their efforts. Once you and possibly a second player pick which of the three heroes you wish to play as in Herc’s Adventures, you set out on your quest to save the realm only to quickly see their wimpy swipes and slow arrows are unfortunately going to make this quest to save the world quite a challenge. With your basic attacks never increasing in power even as the danger grows you’ll always be unfortunately saddled with your surprisingly unsatisfying heroes, but there are some aspects of this goofy twist on Greek myth that mean you aren’t doomed by your weak weapons.
The specific reason our trio of heroes needs to save the world ties back to the lord of the underworld, Hades. Wanting to turn all the living into soldiers who serve under him, he snatches away the goddess of spring Persephone, and unfortunately the other gods don’t seem to be taking the threat all that seriously. They’ll toss some token assistance to passing heroes but also demand great feats of them while Hades’s forces run rampant over the land which at least explain why a hero like Hercules is both tasked with saving the world by his father Zeus but left with just a small club to get started. Right as you begin your quest though the game makes pretty clear both its appealing ideas and its issues with the first enemy you encounter. Herc’s Adventures is appropriately enough an action-adventure game, its world realized through hand-drawn art that leans towards cartoonish exaggeration and silly designs. Right off the bat you’ll encounter a large Cyclops, and should it grab you, it will squeeze your character like a dog toy before flattening you, only for the hero to pop right back up pretty quickly to continue the fight. Unfortunately this introduction to some of the sillier animations also will likely come because the Cyclops’s attack reach goes well beyond where his arms actually extend while your own attacks as either Herc or Jason require you to be very close to land a hit. Both pack a charge attack with some range and Atlanta’s basic bow attack also has some reach, but they always come with some drawback like being rough to aim or slow to use consistently as the enemy charges in close to batter you rapidly.
The basics of battle end up being you mashing the attack button in most cases and hoping that the creature or character you’re up against that is likely doing the same won’t be landing as many hits or isn’t much stronger than you. Even that starting Cyclops, just one of many you’ll encounter, can take a bit to wear down, and while you’ll face simpler foes like soldiers later down the line, they have their own annoyances to make you unhappy to be in almost any battle. Soldiers are going to try and get in close and can surround you, and even if you beat one, their armor shatters and they run around in their underwear as a block to your movement and attack options unless you take the time to slowly pick them up and throw them. Even the shorter battles feel like they’re meant to bother you more than entertain. Mermaids leap from the water and shoot bubbles that follow you persistently, fish in the water can only be hurt by bombs but you sometimes need to swim so you just have to let them constantly bite you and push you around unless slowly luring them to shore for bomb throwing is possible. Harpies, depicted as an unusual but memorable mix of a shrill young lady and fat bird, are certainly nuisances with how fast and strong their shrieking attacks are, your recourse being to hit them constantly so they have no gap to attack during and yet they move ever so slightly when hit so you’re pretty much guaranteed to get hurt by one before you even consider the group of fellow harpies they’re backed up by.
It becomes pretty hard to appreciate the silly touches in enemy animations when they can interfere with battles or mostly cap off tedious battles, but you thankfully aren’t just left with your standard weapon to fight with. A big focus is put on collecting special items around the world. One of your earliest acquisitions is a throwing spear that is stronger than your regular attacks and decently fast to throw, and while it is one of the most common items you’ll find, you can still easily exhaust your ammo reserves for it if you use it against every foe in your way. Picking which attack type to rely on becomes an important consideration and you gradually get more unique attack items. The earlier mentioned bombs are some of the best, quick and strong to throw, and things like Pepper Breath gives you firebreathing great for dealing quick constant damage. At the same time, throwing garbage is incredibly weak and often not worth the trouble and other attack types like hurling lightning bolts are likely too valuable to whip out save for boss battles, although boss battles can have their own problems. Like the enemies some are simply too fast for their own good, frequently bowling over the player and making them wait to recover or just traveling around the arena too much. One of the rare winners when it comes to design is a living statue where you can do a decent job dodging it and figuring out how to hurt it makes it feel like a proper battle with steps while others can be dragged out affairs where you lob all your items at them and hope you can deal more damage than they do.
Luckily, healing items can be found and saved until needed and other collectibles like money can be spent on it should you like a greater reserve. If you do die though, you aren’t necessarily going to be set back too far. You’ll be sent to the underworld to fight your way out, usually starting near the beginning of the area you’re in and only with what little nicks the weak skeletons of Hades managed to score on your way out. You can get a game over eventually though, each death sending you deeper into the underworld for your escape attempt, but you can get around this danger with game saves. Saving must be paid for too though and at spread out parts, the game world generally quite large and interconnected. You’ll usually be traveling by foot to get to your destinations, and while boats and catapults can speed up some parts, the world’s size can come back to bite you when a god or goddess sends you to do a task and reporting it requires covering some familiar ground. On the bright side, Herc’s Adventures manages to lean into its appeal some more with its choices in location and the strange sights you can find while traveling. Travel to the land of the Amazons and you’ll see big billboards proclaiming how they don’t want any men dropping by. While you’re in Athens you’ll need to watch out for the blindfolded lady, Cassandra’s predictions leading to strange plagues like a rain of pizzas or suddenly appearing clowns. There is some novelty to hearing the goddess Athena talk about Bingo, but the thrill in exploring to see the next unusual monster or weird interpretation of Greek myth is sometimes let down by repeated locked doors that send you bumbling about in search of keys or other items that throw you back into battle.
While your own attacks never get stronger, you can grow your health at least, and if you are fine with tedium, you can spend time acquiring an abundance of spears or other helpful tools to lessen the sting of enemy encounters. Cycling through your growing arsenal can be annoying in a pinch since it only lets you do so one way, so something like garbage can appropriately pollute your pool of tools. Facing down a foe like the minotaur might lead you to still taking a great amount of damage before you even understand the fight sadly, but things can and do shift away from your basic attack enough and in time your arsenal is at least expansive enough that if a regular foe bothers you, you can sometimes wipe them out with a rarer tool like Pandora’s Box and move along. Most fights feel a bit like a test of patience then. Do you use your standard attack to conserve good weapons, lean on the weak and repetitive strikes with something like a spear, or get it over with by using something you’d really rather save for some drawn out boss battles? You at least have a long time to ponder it traversing a large world that doesn’t always point you in the right direction the best or even makes necessary routes involve walking into walls or jumping near cliffsides where you can’t see the ledge you’re aiming for until you take that leap.
THE VERDICT: Herc’s Adventures has a wonderfully cartoonish twist to Greek mythology that is delivered in weak infrequent doses, the little spark of interest you’ll feel when a new goofy animation or strange character appears not able to prevent the tedium of the game’s battle systems from wearing you down. Your basic attack is never enjoyable to use and your better attack items involve a lot of resource management not helped by overly aggressive enemies and a bad cycling system for selecting them. Add in a large world that involves passing through areas filled with foes you didn’t wish to encounter again and it’s hard for a quick laugh or an occasional effective boss design to really hold your interest.
And so, I give Herc’s Adventures for PlayStation…
A TERRIBLE rating. I tried to find the good in Herc’s Adventures because I do like the cartoon style, silly twists to familiar myths, and even think the item attack system could have worked were it handled better. Unfortunately, it feels like it rarely puts together something worth experiencing that isn’t over in seconds. The conversations with the over-the-top gods are over so quickly and while it is amusing to have a wood nymph pop out from behind a tree and fire a pistol at you, it feels like something brushed over too quickly to get you back to running into soldiers or scrounging around for a key. The creativity is spread too thin and it doesn’t pack enough of a wallop to break up the tedium that comes from standard conflicts and trying to get around large spaces. With how many enemies can waste your time briefly incapacitating you while taking plenty of damage to take down, it doesn’t feel like Herc’s Adventures need to be so conservative with how effective its attack items are. If the basic attacks were designed to be pitiful and something best avoided then these items should have carried the weight of the experience and many have unique aspects that could have made them fun in a game that let you embrace them better. Instead, spaced out saves and the death gauntlets eventually leading to guaranteed game overs instead encourage careful play when possible and yet many enemies rely on crowding your hero. So many moments in Herc’s Adventures pretty much have guaranteed damage and that’s even if you run in with your best items, so a quick laugh at a comedic character design is hardly a salve for all the suffering you’ll go through to clear this game.
Two player with one player as Atlanta could potentially ease some of the difficulty but you’ll still have plenty of tedious encounters and long periods of unexciting traversal between the moments that Herc’s Adventures actually wants you to remember. In fact, leaning so hard on the delightful animations or comedic designs can also lead to being very underwhelmed when you see some of them. The wine god Dionysus feels like he could have had a kooky twist yet seems a bit unremarkable in his portrayal, and when the humor can’t always pull out the stops to invigorate Herc’s Adventures, you’re left to wonder why you’re trudging through so much in the hopes of seeing if it will actually land with its next joke in an hour or so.