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.
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.