 SNANNNN. That's drunk! Action RPGs and adventure games were still finding their footing on the NES. There were some bumps in the road with Castlevania II's Simons Quest, which is filled with absurd cryptic nonsense, and Zelda II, which is a great game, hampered by some flaws that are major deal-breakers for a lot of people, like the lack of checkpoints, and the Crazy Difficulty. By the time the 80s were getting to a close, these kinds of games were starting to get a bit more polished, starting with stuff like Fezzanidu, and Battle of Olympus, which is a nice combination of the best parts of Castlevania 2 and Zelda 2. It looks and plays a lot like the latter, but it has a structure that's closer to the former, because there's no overworld here. You just move from place to place by continuing on to the left or right, up or down, or by heading through doors here and there. That's right, it's the rare NES game that's non-linear. You can wander around anywhere, although I will say, you'll know pretty quickly when you've arrived at a place you're not supposed to be, because you'll run into a horde of overpowered enemies. And even if you manage to survive and get past them, you'll find you'll need some kind of item to unlock the next area. Or in some cases, you'll get unlucky and run into a boss fight and get destroyed in like 5 seconds. So, you gotta backtrack and talk to everyone until you're pointed in the right direction, to the shield or the spell or item or whatever you need to get to the next area. Your attack and range of motion is very much like Link in Zelda 2, and it's A to jump and B to attack, but if you hold the jump button, you'll jump ever so slightly higher, it's honestly kind of frustrating at times. Come on, get up there! You start with a club as your weapon, but of course, you can upgrade it later on to a staff and a sword. There's also a harp that allows you to fly, shields that protect you from certain elements like fire and water, crystal balls that grant you magic, and a jump upgrade, among other things. Nothing particularly unique here, just the usual stuff you'd expect, and that's fine. There is a map, kind of. The upper left of the screen indicates what city you're in, and you'll see a larger version of that map when you move from one city to another, but that's as far as that function goes. The rest is up to you to wander around freely and fight whatever comes your way across eight different worlds, and there is a password system here, although they're pretty dang long. There's also unlimited continues, and you can either continue at the beginning of the city where you just came in, or you can retry where you last visited a temple, which is what generates a password. Bear in mind, each time you continue, it halves the number of these red gems, which the game refers to as olives? They're this game's currency, and you can also pick up bay leaves to replenish health. Geez, they really went all out with the Greek motif here. And yeah, as you might expect, the story is full on Greek mythology, although not totally accurate and true to the source material, but who cares? You play as Orpheus, and you have to rescue your lady friend who's been kidnapped by Hades, and you run into other Greek mythology staples along the way, from Athena to Zeus. Normally with a game like this, especially for the time, you're left at the mercy of the villagers telling you what to do and where to go, going into this one I was expecting the worst. But surprise surprise, the dialogue here is actually useful sometimes, unlike some other NES adventure games. It's not always totally direct, but still, it's definitely functional. There is some wonky stuff here and there, like needing to collect salamander skins to buy something from the Witch of Crete Islands since she won't accept olives? Man, what a weird sentence that is. What I found odd about researching this game is that there's hardly a word of it in Nintendo Power. There's just a one-page preview in early 1990 before the game came out, and that's it. And this is despite the game showing up on their top 30 list for months afterward. Heck, even the manual just tells you the controls, what the items are, and who the people are from Greek mythology, and that's the end of it. I just find that interesting, since despite the similarities to Zelda II and Castlevania II, I can definitely see people needing help progressing with this one, especially back then. But anyway, Battle of Olympus is worth playing today. The big thing it has going for it is that it's non-linear, which is pretty cool for an NES game, but of course it's only open-ended to a certain extent. I mean, obviously, this game was made in 1988, it's not exactly Skyrim. Still, the structure as it is is totally fine, and I admire how the game just throws you out there. Even the manual encourages you to stop researching and just play the freaking game. I would definitely recommend checking this one out, but just keep in mind the password system is kind of a pain, and definitely expect to get lost at least three or four times. But still, this is a solidly made game that has a lot going for it. And I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.