The Return of Heracles

The Return of Heracles is an adventure game for the Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64 and Apple II computers, originally written by Stuart Smith and published by Quality Software in 1983.[1] Built on an engine that was a precursor to Adventure Construction Set, The Return of Heracles is set in the age of Greek myth and allows the player to assume the role of one or more heroes and attempt various quests.

The game has also been sold under the names The Return of Herakles; it was also bundled with another adventure game of Smith's, Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves, in a compilation called Age of Adventure, published by Electronic Arts.[2]

Characters

The game allows you to play any of the following heroes from Greek myth. You may play more than one hero at once, but since the game awards bonuses if you complete a quest in less than 200 turns, having multiple heroes in play at once makes it harder to earn such bonuses.

It is also possible to find other characters that will join the player's hero or group of heroes. The player gains three Spartes after killing the Serpent of Ares for example.

A few of the heroic characters have unique abilities or specifics, listed below:

Quests

The selected hero(es) are given twelve tasks to complete (many of which overlap with the Twelve Labors of Heracles). They may be done in any order, although if you visit the Oracle of Zeus twice without completing the task assigned during the first visit, Zeus will only assign a new task after seriously wounding your hero with a lightning bolt. After most quests, you gain some sort of tangible benefit for the hero who completes it.

Two of these quests require that another quest be completed first. You cannot attempt to solve the Riddle of the Sphinx until after you build the city of Thebes, and you cannot attempt to rescue Penelope until after you have rescued Helen.

While Greek myth speaks of a specific hero (or group of heroes) completing each of these quests, the game allows any hero to complete any quest.

A hero may visit the Oracle of Delphi to receive a hint as to how to complete a quest, although the quality of the hint depends on how much gold the hero is carrying (a character with no gold will be turned away).

Gameplay

The Return of Heracles was an RPG-like adventure game. Each character was defined by three basic characteristics: strength, dexterity, and speed. Strength and dexterity determine how effective a character is in combat, while speed determines how many squares you can move in one turn. Characters may also have special training in defensive techniques, use of the sword, and use of the dagger.

Each character may carry a sword, a dagger, armor, and wealth (measured in gold drachmas). Swords and daggers have two basic properties, relating to how well-made they are and how effective they are. The workmanship of the weapon may be "cheap" or "fine", with cheap weapons more likely to break in the middle of combat than fine weapons. The effectiveness of a weapon may be "lousy", "mediocre", "mighty", "terrific" or "Zeus-blessed", each one able to do progressively more damage. The Labrys (the axe of the minotaur) is treated as a sword for game purposes.

Weapons and armor may be replaced over the course of the game, but items so replaced may not be recovered later.

Characters lacking a sword may not engage in combat with a foe in an adjacent square. Characters lacking a dagger may still wrestle a foe, but must use their fists (which do minimal damage).

All swords and daggers have a risk of breaking in the middle of an attack. Only natural weapons (such as bare hands, or the natural weapons of monsters) do not risk breaking when used in an attack.

Armor protects a character by reducing the amount of damage dealt by a successful blow (occasionally negating a blow entirely), but reduces the character's dexterity. In general, the more protection a piece of armor provides, the greater the penalty to dexterity. The skin of the Nemean lion is an exception to this rule (it is simultaneously the most protective and the lightest armor in the game).

Weapons may be poisoned, and do additional damage with each hit. Poison on weapons wears off after a few hits (unless the poison came from the Hydra), but monsters with poisonous natural weapons (such as snakes) never run out of poison. Unlike in other RPG-like games, the damage caused by poison is instantaneous; no additional damage is suffered in later turns.

Characters may possess any amount of wealth (measured in drachmas). However, large amounts of wealth weigh down a hero, reducing his speed. It is possible for a character to possess so much wealth that he is unable to move until he drops some or all of it.

Technical limitations

Some heroes, especially Jason, Odysseus, and Polybius, were heroes more because of their minds than their physical prowess. The rules of the game do not take a hero's intelligence or wisdom into account; as a result, these heroes are significantly weaker than some of the others.

Some heroes were also described in Greek myth as being skilled with weapons other than the sword and dagger, but the game doesn't support any other weapons. This also precludes players, for example, from defeating the Nemean lion by the means used in legend by Heracles (since its skin was impervious to all piercing and cutting weapons, he strangled it).

Some monsters were described in legend as being impossible to kill unless a certain tactic was used. Antaeus, for example, was supposed to automatically heal any injury as long as he was touching the earth. Since the game rules lacked the flexibility to allow such tactics, these monsters were instead made to be subject to normal attacks but otherwise very powerful.

Perils

In addition to the perils one might expect to encounter while performing the aforementioned quests (such as a lion with armor-like skin or a minotaur with a devastating axe), there are a few unusual perils, some of which can instantly and without warning kill a hero. For example:

Discontinuities

While the game is mostly true to Greek myth, it does deviate in some ways, not all of which can be explained by technical limitations of the computer games of the time.

Reception

Softline called Heracles "Lively and colorful ... truly a must" for gamers.[3] Computer Gaming World praised the game's transparency, stating "The rules explain themselves. Although documentation comes with it, you'll never have to read it." Although the magazine found the game very enjoyable, several flaws were noted, particularly the inaccuracies pertaining to Greek mythology.[4]

References

  1. The Return of Heracles, GameSpot
  2. Moby Games, Age of Adventure, retrieved 2007-10-03
  3. Lesser, Hartley G. (Jan–Feb 1984). "The Return of Heracles". Softline. p. 50. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  4. Andre, Ken (December 1984), "Micro-Reviews: Return of Heracles", Computer Gaming World, p. 36
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