3.5/5 ★ – CartridgeDust's review of Heracles no Eikou II: Titan no Metsubou.

This is a light, breezy old-school experience with just enough atmosphere and storytelling to justify its quick runtime. Nojima's involvement is obviously the most notable aspect of the game. He certainly loves his bummers, including a slain love interest (this one after being transformed into a griffin) and a dead kid who longed to fly but never did, plus a late-game "oh shit, it's the apocalypse" moment a la FFVII's meteor. (This time around, the sea turns black and water becomes toxic.) Grinding's not required and the encounter rate isn't insufferable, especially for the era. (Then again, I played this right after Shin Megami Tensei...) Quality of life failures abound, though, like excessively evasive enemies, vast amounts of items and spells and gear with no descriptions at all, and a baffling mechanic wherein some enemies can randomly break your equipment. Without the benefit of modern emulation and savestates, parts of the game would have been much more frustrating. For a DQ clone it's very playable, but it's still a prickly beast. Difficulty has some teeth, too, and the last boss is a surprisingly satisfying fight. Still, constantly missing enemies during random encounters feels cheap and obnoxious. The little bits of storytelling allowed by the constraints of the NES are quite nice. Your two main teammates, a living statue and a cowardly centaur, both get unique introduction scenarios. The living statue is stuck in a room full of treasure, signifying the way her captor views her; the centaur tricks you into fighting a Cerberus for no other reason than to see if you're brave. And, of course, when you finally get Herakles it's after a must-lose scripted battle; he whoops on the monster that just annihilated the party. For a NES game, these are clever details. The music is often pleasantly pensive and melancholy, just how I like it in my JRPGs, and the world map is surprisingly expansive. Mythological elements and Greek historical figures are mostly just window dressing and nods, although Homer as the roaming quest-giving bard who's actually Zeus is a nice touch, and your airship is a pegasus, which kicks ass. The strongest storytelling in the game deals with your home kingdom, Nana. Repeat visits throughout the game prove rewarding. Your caregiving grandmother, your childhood friend, these are characters you grow close to and who the game treats pretty mercilessly, which is surprisingly affecting. Of course, technical limits are technical limits. You meet your childhood friend in "Heaven" (Olympus, ostensibly) and she just kinda says hello. But when you summon her monstrous form with the flute she gifted you, or when your cursed town repulses its citizens due to the Dark Lord's curse, or when you fight a demon king on the slain Queen's throne - those moments land, and they're surprisingly memorable. Those, and the overall cruelty of the suffering & struggling world, are much more affecting than the hammy Dark Lord villain who spouts cheesy bad guy one liners.