You know what I really appreciate? Game demos. Not the kind of demos that you can download from a store, where you can get a good feel of a game that is coming out and decide whether or not you wanna get it for yourself, but instead, the gameplay demonstrations that can play on the title screen before you press start in a game. These are pretty neat to watch in action, not only because they show off what the developers wanted the players’ first impression of the game to be (at least, I hope that is their intention, anyway), but it also gives you a good idea as to how the game will be in terms of quality. For the longest time, I myself didn’t really take the time to appreciate the art of a gameplay demo, for obvious reasons, but now that I have played Athena, I have a whole new love and appreciation for them.

I had been interested in checking this game out for quite a while, not because of the almost naked woman on the poster (I prefer real women over fake women, thank you very much), but more so because it was one of SNK’s earliest titles, one that they have rereleased several times over the years, and as for Athena herself, she has been brought back plenty of times by the company for other games or collections that they have had over the years. So, surely it must be important to the company, and it must hold some level of quality, right? Then I went to play the game, and I watched the game demo play out, and from that point on, I knew that I made a horrible mistake. I then tried playing through the first level, died a million times to the tree boss, and gave up. You may criticize me for this, but trust me, based on that short experience, I had plenty of material for a review, because THIS GAME FUCKING SUCKS. Sure, there are some qualities about it I can admire, but over all of those qualities lies a bunch of problems, mistakes, and awkwardness that makes this one of the worst arcade games I have ever played in my life.

The story is at least self-aware, where one day, Athena, the princess of the Kingdom of Victory, was bored, and so decided to open the Door Which Shouldn’t Be Opened, which gets her sent to the Fantasy World, where she must now defeat the evil Dante and save the world from his evil reign, which is a generic set-up, but again, they are aware of how silly it is, which I can appreciate. The graphics are… interesting, looking decent enough for the time, but there are a lot of visual glitches and enemy designs that do look pretty… off, making it somewhat of an eyesore to look at, the music is ok, with there being some alright tunes that you can hear throughout, but it will all be hidden behind the obnoxious sound effects that make my ears bleed, the control is… something to behold, but I will get to that later, and the gameplay is pretty standard for the time, and yet, somehow, they manage to fuck it all up in the process.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Princess Athena, go through eight different levels, or worlds in this case, full of plenty of terrors for you to face, fight off many, and I do mean many, dangerous creatures that you will encounter using whatever you can find, gather plenty of weapons, armor, and magical items that will assist you in your quest, as well as giving you a much greater chance of survival, and fight plenty of intimidating bosses who will put up quite a fight, making sure that the only way that you will be proceeding through this game is when you are begging for mercy on your pitiful soul. Most of it is all what you have come to expect from an arcade platformer, and for what it is worth, it does have some neat ideas going on here that do make it an interesting title for the time… but right alongside that, you have the fact that, when the devs were making this game, they probably thought to themselves “Man, Ghosts ‘n Goblins was pretty easy, wasn’t it?”

What makes this game more unique compared to other platformers at the time was that, in several ways, it had RPG elements strewn within it, even before games like Cadash and Wonder Boy in Monster Land would hit the market. As you go about getting different weapons to try out, along with shields and armor to defend yourself with, there will be two bars that will either increase or decrease depending one what you grab, giving you either more strength or defense, which is always very much appreciated. In addition, the magical items that you can find throughout are practically essential to your quest, as each one can benefit you in various ways, such as allowing you to jump higher, or even shoot laser beams out of your sword (why does that sound familiar…). And these things can be pretty hidden too, encouraging the player to not only explore the levels to see what they can find, but also experiment with the weapons you can get, as some are able to break open blocks throughout the levels, and some cannot.

However, all of that is easier said and done, because the one thing that holds you back from doing that is the BALL STRANGLING DIFFICULTY. I know what you are thinking, like “Yeah, no shit Mega, arcade games are hard, and you should know that, given you basically live and breathe these games at this point”, but no, have you actually taken the time to PLAY this game? From the very first level, you start out with nothing, only being able to kick a short distance, which won’t help you that much against the dozens of enemies you immediately have to deal with. You can get weapons from them pretty quickly so that you can defend yourself, but that won’t help you all that much, given how they respawn so goddamn fast, and they want nothing more than to make sure that this princess becomes a horribly mangled corpse, especially with how quickly your health can be drained. I can’t confirm myself if this is like this for the entire game, but from what I did see, it seems to be that way, and needless to say, my hands are bleeding, and I want to make sure they don’t break off.

And speaking of my hands bleeding, that leads us to the controls, which feel AWFUL to use. You have pretty basic functions, just being able to move left to right, climb up things, jump, and attack, which you can get a handle on pretty quickly, but the problem is that the movement and the jumping feels horrible to pull off. There is no proper momentum to your movement, nor is there a proper amount of weight for your jump, making it feel like you are constantly restrained at all times, which for a platformer is one of the key essentials that you absolutely cannot fuck up. This especially becomes more clear when you get that magical power-up I mentioned earlier that allows you to jump higher, because then it gets even more confusing. You would think it would work where you would just have to hold down the jump for longer in order to go higher, but no, instead, you have to press the button once to do a normal jump, and then you have to hit it again to do the higher jump, and given how you already have enough to deal with when there are a million enemies coming for you, this is much easier said than done.

Overall, despite its innovative ideas and mechanics that were pretty unique for the time, nothing more can be said that can save Athena from being a frustrating, clunky mess of a game, one that I’m surprised SNK likes to bring back a lot, given how it ended up turning out at the end of the day. Do not play this, whether you are a fan of arcade platformers or not, because it absolutely does not deserve your time or attention whatsoever, no matter what the reason may be. But of course, since this is SNK we are talking about, this game did get sequels that I am gonna have to play at some point, which will be loads of fun, RIGHT?! HA HA HA HA HA…………………. help me...

Game #505

Extra points for the style and at least effort put into this game. Trust everyone who says this game is difficult. It's mainly the reason why this game get's low reviews. I mean the one thing that is holding the game back is its flawed design. The game just hammers any and everything at you while in Athena's barely nude form which is terrible since it's what you start with and she is at her weakest without any armor. So here you are looking for armor while killing enemies that could potentially kill you first before you even get a chance to even find any. You have to legit use hammers and clubs from the enemies to even be able to find where armor may be since you have to break down rock to uncover items. So it starts to get even more tedious as you go. And if you do get armor.....try not to die because the moment you die, you lose the armor and weapon you have and have to start over as Barely naked Athena again. The respawn points are ABYSMAL. Not only can you respawn in an area with an enemy that can straight kill you off rip but there is also a chance you'll be mid-way in the level so it'll be a little harder to gain a weapon again too.

Overall if you want to master Athena..... get past the first level without losing anything and seeing what does what and where goes where. You'll know what to do and what paths to take and not take once you get this down. It will help you understand Athena's gameplay loop much more. For one of SNK's 23 games pre-Neo Geo, it's definitely a leap forward. Especially since the game had a huge following behind it when it got ported to NES. I guess back then this type of challenge in games was desired. As of now though it leaves a lot to be desired even with that thought, you have to love the effort and at least the idea they were going for even if it's a bit rocky to play.

Stupidly cruel in its difficulty, Athena appears to be a bastard descendant of Ghosts 'n Goblins. This is a first try for SNK, which was rather used to creating top down shooters, such as Ikari Warriors, Vanguard or Alpha Mission, to name only a few. The switch to a 2D platformer brings its share of challenges that obviously posed major issues, at least for the NES port. The concept is not uninteresting though. The title features Athena, a disillusioned princess, who decides to open a "door that must not be opened". It transports her into a fantasy world populated by enemies. The game thus is divided into seven different stages, each represented by a particular environment (forest, cave, sea, etc.), as well as a final one that acts as a boss rush. In the vein of Ghosts 'n Goblins, our character starts out with no equipment and must build up an arsenal by killing enemies and breaking blocks that may contain upgrades. Each weapon follows its own upgrade tree, which specialises Athena towards a particular archetype. In addition to weapons, armour pieces and various other items that aid progression must also be found.

All of this sounds rather nice, but the problem is in the execution. Not unlike King Arthur, Athena is extremely rigid and refuses to attack and move at the same time, making any dodging extremely complex. This is anchored in a screen readability that is, in general, very poor. It often happens that we accidentally pick up a weapon dropped by an enemy, which sends us backwards in our progression, because the sprite is messily overlaid on the decor. There is also a general lack of feedback, especially on the final boss, where there is no indication that you hit your target or not. The game is very cryptic about how to progress: for the snowy world, it is necessary to equip Athena with a bow, the only weapon capable of hurting the boss; however, there is no hint about this, and the fact that an unenhanced bow is unable to break the blocks puts off the idea of equipping yourself with one. Similarly, in the labyrinth level, it is necessary to discover the statue of the goddess to obtain the Harp of Protection. But this is never made clear and it will be common to pick up a fake harp, which punctuates the level to trick the neophyte and downgrade their arsenal – a notable change from the arcade version. This arc of flaws adds to the already high difficulty of the title – the lack of invulnerability frames punishes the slightest mistake very heavily –, and makes it a particularly unpleasant experience, even though there is real potential and ambition.

Indeed, the scenery is particularly numerous and generally quite shimmering, which gives each stage an appeal. Of course, the whole thing remains a potpourri of western fantasy, which does not hesitate in mixing Greek ruins with submerged ziggurats or more technological spaces. The idea was certainly not to create a coherent universe, anyway, insofar as the title seeks above all to appeal to a male audience, with the character of Athena. If the American cover is set in the aesthetics of pulp films, the Japanese boxart literally features a teenage girl in a bikini. Athena was indeed published at a turning point of Japanese video games, where female anime characters were more liberally used – it was notably the case with Tenshitachi no Gogo (1985). We can thusly find the artistic style that flourished during the PC-88 era and that coincided with the success of Mamoru Oshii's adaptation of Urusei Yatsura (1981). As such, Athena appears to be a pragmatic and opportunistic attempt by SNK to expand its catalogue with other genres. If the attempt was unsuccessful here, due to a complete lack of quality control – the absence of the proper ending screen shows the little concern for quality –, the following years saw a diversification of genres, with fighting games (Street Smart, Gang Wars, Fatal Fury), RPGs (Crystalis) and numerous sports and simulation games. As for action-platformers, SNK published a sequel to Athena, called Psycho Soldier, but without real success. The formula was mostly reinvented with Blue's Journey (1991) and Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy (1994), which foreshadowed the success of Metal Slug. But that's another story.

This game is baffling. I admire the obvious ambition and effort that went into this, and at the same time I can't help but look at it from a certain distance because it feels like an artifact from a bygone era that only a couple otaku remember. On the one hand, it very clearly wants to be something between Mario, Megaman and Rygar, and to reach that, it offers long stages with tons of items and enemies and collectables that make for a very fun experience at first. The moment things break apart is when the dificulty kicks in, which makes you wonder why they didn't simplify this for a console game that didn't need to be difficult for the cabinets. But then I played the NES version of this and got burned, so I don't know. At any rate, I think this game is unfairly maligned, but I get why no one would want to play it today.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Este juego es desconcertante. Admiro la ambición y el esfuerzo que se dedicó para realizar esto y, al mismo tiempo, no puedo evitar abstraerme cada vez que juego porque se siente como un artefacto de una época que sólo la recuerdan un par de otakus. Por un lado, se trata de un esfuerzo por mezclar Mario, Megaman y Rygar en una obra, y para conseguirlo ofrece fases muy largas con toneladas de objetos, enemigos y coleccionables, que hacen que la experiencia sea muy divertida al principio. El momento en que las cosas se desmoronan es cuando aumenta la dificultad, lo que hace que te preguntes por qué no simplificaron esto para un juego de consola que no tuviera que tener en cuenta los cuartos del público arcade. Pero luego jugué la versión de NES de esto y me quemé, así que no sé. En cualquier caso, creo que este juego es injustamente difamado, pero entiendo por qué nadie querría jugarlo hoy.

Dropped at the Mondo boss because I forgot to grab the Pandora's Box in the previous level and I'm not playing this madness of enemies popping up whenever they want, unresponsive controls and more cryptic requirements than Ghost and Goblins all over again just to see further. Play Alex Kidd in Miracle World instead, has a similar art design, gameplay orientation and a cuter feeling of adventure (this was what I was expecting from this game). I've read this was made just to appeal to wider japanese audiences and that's why Athena is a loli, as if this was one of those weird machines they have in casinos with the scantily clad women. Well, your quarter muncher philosophy may have attracted ludopaths but not me.

Supposedly the NES version is even worse, I would explode if I played that