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
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
3 Comments
I can't say I blame you for stopping at the first level. I think I played until about the third stage like five years ago (or whenever the SNK collection for switch came out) where Athena turns into a mermaid or something and that's where I called it quits. I was hoping for a semi-decent Wonderboy alike but this definitely wasn't it. I'd highly advise against playing the NES port- it's even worse.
😳😈
SlasherMcGirk
2 months ago