Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

"This game fails to live up to the show!"

Hercules is based on the popular TV series. The game is made by Titus and Player One. Anyways, you play as Hercules mainly but also as Iolaus, Herc's trusty companion, and Serena, the Centaur Archer. Each character has their own special attacks. Hercules his super strength, Iolaus his with his trusty staff, and Serena with her bow and arrows. It's a traditional RPG with the average find items, help people, and solve puzzles as well as defeating enemies and bosses to proceed. Time to get down to the basics.

Graphics: 5/10
Pretty blocky polygon characters. Pretty much reminds me of the same polygons used 007 Goldeneye. The faces don't look anything like the characters and not even the little pop-up faces in the dialogue boxes are good. The whole graphics rather stink and don't even show what the N64 is capable of.

Sound: 3/10
The characters don't even sound like they do from the series!! They obviously didn't use the actors to make the grunts or yells. Also the ''Hey!'' the enemy yells can get very annoying over time. Like any usual RPG, the sound effects are standard. Grunts, yells, hits...

Music: 4/10
The music fails to fit the scene sometimes. It has this fantasy-like theme sometimes and can really get on your nerves.

Controls: 6/10
Controls are rather simple. However it can take some practice hitting enemies with Hercules. He will have a tendency to miss or to start punching away from the enemy.

Gameplay: 6/10
Repetitive. All repetitive. Run around beating up baddies that usually spawn from nearby tents, find items to progress the story and to unlock certain areas. Hercules provides a good challenge in some areas and can be quite frustrating when several enemies gang up on you and you have a limited amount of health left. The camera can be of no help either when backed into a wall and it goes into the wall obscuring your view or gets stuck on a wall as you move and begins to pan away from your character as you get farther and farther away.

Replay Value: 2/10
If you ever survive the boringness of this game to beat it I can reassure you that you won't want to play it again anytime soon! I've never beat this game but after a short time of playing I get bored fast.

Summary:
Hercules as a show is an excellent TV program full of gods, myths, and excitement. Hercules as a game plain reeks. Perhaps if another company like Rare, Capcom, or THQ had created this game might be one of the most memorable RPG games for the N64. Titus and Player One rather made a mockery of the show. Not only does Hercules seem like an idiot when it comes to his speech, the animations for the characters also look retarded. Hercules walks like he's some big muscleman and runs as if he's prancing. What makes it worse is none of the graphics are smooth either. This game is mostly full of glitches and errors. I could go on forever picking this game apart but I'll wrap it up by simply saying this: Hercules - The Legendary Journeys is a good game to simply collect along with the Xena game made by Titus if you like the TV shows. But if you buy this game looking for fun, great graphics, and excitement, you're better off to buy Zelda - Ocarina Of Time.

The Knight gives Hercules - The Legendary Journeys for the Nintendo 64 an overall rating of 4/10. Legendary journeys, legendary crappy game.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/02, Updated 06/10/02