Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Review (N64)

     A Journalistic Review by DefiantParrot      03/16/2016

*Warning Contains Spoilers* (But Trust Me on this… It doesn’t matter)

Developer: Player 1

Publisher: Titus Software

Platform: Nintendo 64

Genre: Action-Adventure

Release: November 16, 2000

(1) There's no way this will be bad right?

            Hercules: The Legendary Journeys was one of my favorite television shows as a child. I have fond memories of watching the show with my stepfather and as recently as last year, I binge watched the show on Netflix with my wife and daughter. This was the show that started my fascination with Greek Mythology and to this day Kevin Sorbo is who I picture when I think of the hero Hercules. He was my idol and years later my man crush. (Oh Yeah)

I knew there was a game based on this series for a long time now, and aside from a very brief rental as a child, I had never played it, and it’s always been one of my biggest curiosities. After all between the characters from the show and Greek Mythology as a whole all the ingredients were here for a great adventure game.

Then I played it.

This game was released four years after Super Mario 64 and two years after Ocarina of Time. Both revolutionary 3D games that, you would think, the developers would’ve looked to when making this game. And they didn’t.

(2) Transgender Titan?

In this game the plot is that Ares, the God of War and half-brother to Hercules. Has imprisoned Zeus the King of the Gods and released the Titan Mnemosyne, who is looking much different here than her(?) appearance in the animated movie. And now Ares is ruling Mt. Olympus.

At least I believe that’s the plot, it sort of comes out of nowhere, at one point Hercules and Iolaus are in a deserted town and Hercules flat out states it’s Ares doing, even though nothing in the game up to that point had pointed to Ares at all.

(3) Enemy variety is decent

And so your mission is to travel the land of Greece, going from town to town helping folks, defeating enemies, and thwarting the sinister plans of Ares. The combat in this game is a glorified beat’em up with attacks the game doesn’t tell you how to perform, and work whenever they feel like it.

For instance as Hercules, there is a running diving attack, that is very useful to knocking down enemies and can even hit multiple foes at once if done correctly. Well first, the game never tells you that this move even exists. At least in Super Mario 64 there were signs around the castle informing the player of these moves. No in this game you’re just supposed to know, and this isn’t the only move they do this with.

And the second problem, to perform this attack, while running you must press the R and B button simultaneously. The problem here is that R is also the jump button so half the time you want Hercules to do an awesome Superman-like dive attack, he instead starts hopping up and down like a bunny in a hot skillet.

(4) Herc doesn't show off his strength much in this game

There are three playable characters on this journey. The first obviously being Hercules. Who beats enemies with his superpowered Kevin Sorbo fists, and can throw dazed enemies to finish them off. Hercules can also purchase magic potions from any innkeep in the game. And although they are all spread out across all of Greece they are somehow all ran by Hercules friend Salmoneus, simultaneously.

And admittedly these potions Earth, Fire, Lighting, and Ice are really cool and a lot of fun to use. Easily the best part of this game.

(5) Although he does look like a melting Heath Ledger

There will be certain times in the game where Hercules cannot progress and must have aid from one of his allies. The second playable character is Iolaus. Hercules’ best friend and my personal favorite character from the show. Iolaus is not as strong as Hercules (Obvs) and cannot use potions. He however utilizes a staff in combat and in my opinion is much more fun to use in combat than Herc. With his staff Iolaus can hit multiple enemies sometimes and in my opinion just controls better all around. I never got swarmed with enemies as Iolaus as I did when I was playing as Herc due to his better control.

The third playable character is Serena; The Golden Hind. Serena is in this game for one reason, padding. She is only here to make the game longer, and she is only controlled twice. She even has a pointless boss fight against a dragon right before the final fight with Ares! There’s no reason for this, no context at all. She just says.

“Hey Herc I sense evil.”

And he’s all like “Kay.”

And next thing you know you’re firing arrows at Spyro’s evil stepfather!!

 She is also absolutely the worst character here. And although she is Hercules second wife there is nothing shown between these two at all!

She utilizes her bow and arrow but instead of maybe using a first person mode to fire at enemies. She has a meter on the side of the screen that tells how high an enemy is. Ok, you might be thinking, just press the B button and when the meter rises press it again to stop it where you want to fire. And to that I say, how dare you try to have these controls make sense!

Instead you have to press B, then manually control the meter to match the enemies height and then press it again to fire, And this meter is so pixel precise that if you’re not perfect your arrow will either fly off into the heavens or will fall pitifully to the ground like a caught trout. And controls like these make her boss fights the most frustrating thing I have ever played.

Now that’s not fair you can actually go into a first person mode, which is key to beating the dragon I mentioned. But when she battles Mnemosyne, they take that away from you and you’re forced to play their horrible meter game. This boss fight, is so broken and terrible I was forced to utilize a game shark to get past it. Yes I cheated, and no I don’t care. I dare you to try and beat this boss without it.

(6) You'll need this to beat this game

Also am I the only one to find it weird that the golden cow is the one to battle the terrifying Titan and not, oh I don’t know Hercules! Y’know the motherfucker whose name is on the freakin’ title screen?! Why on earth does she get to kill the titan? Is Hercules being punished because he broke curfew or something?

My explaining it will never do justice to how terrible Serena controls, you would have to play this game yourself to understand. But don’t do that, you don’t need this kind of negativity in your life.

(7) This was pretty fun actually

The other boss fights weren’t much better though. The first one is against a Cyclops and it’s not bad actually. There’s a wide open arena to fight it in so it’s easy to outmaneuver him and take him down. And the final fight with Ares wasn’t bad either. Although it barely could be considered a boss fight you kind of just fight a bunch of regular enemies. However, there is a boss fight in this game that is recycled three times. These are minotaurs, you have to make your way through their labyrinth and then defeat them. These enemies are annoying and relentless and unlike the Cyclops boss fight, there’s much less room to fight these bumbling bovines.

And did I mention that these Labyrinths are filled to the brim with enemies? You will take copious amounts of damage from the enemies in these segments, and there are very few healing items sprinkled throughout.

“Why don’t you just leave the dungeon and heal?”

Well I would senor smartass, but you can’t leave the dungeon once you’ve entered! It’s like that Cyclops from earlier decided to come take a nap by the entrance every time I go in!

The graphics in this game aren’t that great either. Save for some environments that are ok, the beach setting of San Tomanicus being my favorite. And the character models for Herc and Iolaus are decent. Everything else looks like garbage, including the character portraits, with Hercules resembling a chewed up dog biscuit.

(8) "Master, teach me to play better games"

The audio in this game would be good if it didn’t cut out half the time. The music is nothing to write home about but it never got annoying with every area in the game having it’s own musical background. But the sound effects in this game are unbearably buggy. Punch a wall and you may hear the sound effect, other times there’ll be nothing. I’ve had whole combat sections with no sound whatsoever.

The worst sound in the game however is an overly long sound effect when the game is paused. This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that you have to equip keys for doors and chests before they’ll open. So on top of having to pause the game every time you need to open something, you’ll hear this overpowered sound as you pause the game, change screens to get to your inventory, and again when you unpause the game. Jesus Christ it’s like the game is having an orgasm every time I push a button!

In between the combat sections are many people who all look alike and need Hercules’ help. From delivering a letter to their cousin, to freeing their magically prisoned mayor, to helping a grown man find his teddy bear. There are plenty of these to do here. But these are required to progress through the game and some of these are so obscure I would consider this a guide game. But again, don’t play this game. There are people who love you.

There’s also lots of backtracking in this game as well, which can be confusing. If you forget where someplace is and how to get there, don’t rely on the map because it’s worthless!

This game also crashed on me twice. I couldn’t see a reason for this and restarting the game fixed the problem but this was before the days of autosaving folks. Hence there was much frustration when this happened and many foul words were spoken that day.

And then there is the Sacred Garden of Shrines. In each town there are disciples of gods who request 200 Dinars in exchange for a medallion of their deity. These are required to finish the game. You must collect each one of these representing the gods Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Persephone, and finally Zeus to reach Mt. Olympus and face Ares.

How do you get Dinars you may ask? By defeating enemies with these terrible controls and camera of course, thus forcing you to grind for basically pocket change!

This game is an absolute disappointment and an insult to the series I love so much. It is hands down the worse game I have ever played. I shudder to think of the children that attempted to play this abomination. Do not buy this game, Don’t look at it, think about it, rent it. This game deserves one thing and one thing only.

And that is my

Stamp of DESTRUCTION!!

This game is inherently awful, the extremely few things in this game that aren’t terrible cannot make this game playable. I’m glad so few have experienced this and hope this game burns for all eternity in the depths of Hades!!!

(9) You said it kingslayer

References Pics:

1. https://www.gamefaqs.com/n64/197546-hercules-the-legendary-journeys/images/150304   (2017)

2. http://www.theisozone.com/downloads/other-consoles/n64/hercules-the-legendary-journeys/

3. http://www.just-gamers.fr/nintendo-64/hercules-the-legendary-journeys.html    (2013-2016)

4. https://rottenink.wordpress.com/tag/hercules-the-legendary-journeys/  

5. http://www.mobygames.com/game/n64/hercules-the-legendary-journeys/screenshots/gameShotId,177951/     (1999-2017)

6. http://micro-64.com/features/gsrepair1.shtml     (2013)

7. http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/177957-hercules-the-legendary-journeys-nintendo-64-screenshot-the.png

8. http://www.just-gamers.fr/nintendo-64/hercules-the-legendary-journeys.html     (2013-2016)

9. https://giphy.com/search/destroy-it