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jp's Heracles: Battle with the Gods (DS)

[September 5, 2022 07:43:14 PM]

This is definitely not the same Heracles as the one in the JRPG I recently finished playing.

It's a platformer! And it's wonky in terms of the controls and general feel. And I was ready to dismiss it entirely - when I took a look at the credits and saw that the game was made by a really small team! It might have been one programmer!

The more I think about it, the more I realize that these "B" quality DS games are great examples of what students can do NOW with existing tools and in small teams. This is mostly a testament to how much improvement we've seen in the tools available for game development. In other words, a bunch of students (and here I mean people with little experience and a limited amount of time). My guess is that the team that made this game probably had some experience, but worse tools and a similarly limited time frame in which to deliver the game.

All that being said, the game does have a litle twist in its mechanics as a platforming game. Heracles can jump and shoot stuff - but, he can also build a little arch he can walk up (allowing a bit of extra height needed to reach platforms). He can even build an arch on top of an existing arch for even more height! It took me a while to wrap my head around this, how it worked, how to best use it, and what button to press...but I got there and made my way through a few of the areas (there's a boss fight at the end of each one - the first one was laughably easy - it's a giant flying centaur that drops spears you must dodge until he drops to the ground at which time you can hit it once before it flies away)

The game makes nice use of the DS dual screens - the levels are vertical across both screens which is nice (also a bit unusual) and it was interesting to navigate the levels (once I was used to the controls and general feel for the jumps and such).