Let’s Play The Battle of Olympus! My first multi-part let’s play, I remember discussing the merits with Matt of leaving videos intact as a single entity versus splitting them up for additional views. Oh back when I cared about views. Let’s talk about Battle of Olympus. Some games meant a lot more to my brother and I growing up, and this was on our shortlist for favorite NES game. I beat it for him every time we get together (which admittedly isn’t that much for those of you wondering if I’m collecting olives every other week).
We love the music, we love the gameplay, we love the story, and probably more than anything else we love the memories associated with it. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
Anyway, yes I always kind of thought of this as an unofficial Zelda 3. The gameplay and graphics are very similar to Zelda 2. Actually, as a side note, the more games I go back and play for the NES on this channel, the more I see how many games were just ripoffs of successful Nintendo games (cough Rambo, cough).
This game is also one of the most frustrating and unforgiving games for both making you grind to collect olives to appease the damn gods/buy their crap but also for making these gods perched above dozens of pits with precarious jumps to be made and countless enemies just waiting to spawn off the side of the screen and knock you in, cutting your olive total in half. It gets very grindy near the end when you need an ever increasing ridiculous amount of olives (70, 80, 90!).
The game is much more enjoyable nowadays when you have the power of save states for cheap moments like that. Anyone who knows me know that I think pits as a means of making the game more challenging is garbage, and this game is notorious for them. It’s one thing to include them, but to raise the stakes by cutting into your olive inventory…
Okay, getting worked up, still a great classic and I love the Greek mythology which I always appreciated learning about in history class way back in the day. Then I’d reference this game when we’d learn about Prometheus and everyone would just give me a blank stare. Definitely one of those hidden gems for the NES.