Game Day: Role-playing game takes combatants to ancient Greece
Sony Computer Entertainment "Little Big Planet" allows gamers to create and upload levels of play themselves and download others' levels.
"Glory of Heracles" is set in a version of ancient Greece, an uncommon locale for a Japanese RPG.
This is actually the fifth game in the series; the other four have been released only in Japan, the last one in 1994. But this one feels like a good jumping-in point.
The game opens with an amnesiac young man washed up on a Cretan beach. He's found by a young warrior named Leucos, who not only figures out that this bit of driftwood is an immortal but who is, in fact, one herself (or is it himself?).
Surmising that the mysterious wash-up is none other than the legendary Heracles, Leucos joins him, and before long, they've gathered several other immortals to their band.
The presumed Heracles adopts an assumed name, and the group resolves to journey to Mount Olympus to find out why they've been made immortal – it's no treat, apparently. Heracles, of course, wants to have his memories restored.
The basic structure of the game is very familiar: Travel on a map to reach the next town, temple, dungeon or other location, talk to people, battle monsters in random encounters and so on. It's fine, but nothing that hasn't been done a hundred times before. The stylus controls pretty much everything, and sometimes it's a little finicky.
The battle system is a treat, however. It feels a lot like the combat from the older "Suikoden" games, with fast-paced attacks, lots of reactive and complementary abilities, and a quick progression that for the most part keeps individual fights from dragging on. Party members will act effectively if instructed to fight automatically, which keeps things moving along for low-stakes battles.
Heracles, Leucos and the rest can learn new abilities at various statues of the gods scattered about Greece.
Skills and abilities can range from special attacks using certain weapon types to protective abilities, attack and healing magic, and support skills. There are two rows of combatants on either side of a fight, and some abilities affect the entire front or rear rows, or can be used to reach enemies hiding in the back, or move enemies from one row to another.
Magic is the most complex aspect of the battle system.
Characters each have a pool of magic points they draw from to cast spells, but each battlefield also has a stock of ether, ambient magical energy that corresponds to the magical elements.
Each spell can change the balance of ether, and casting a spell of a certain kind – say, fire – when that element's ether is depleted will damage the caster.
The visuals are something of a mixed bag. They tend to look pixelated and low-resolution, especially during the quick zooms and camera movements of heated battles, but the sprites are detailed and fluidly animated. The game looks much better in motion than in stills.
GLORY OF HERACLES
3 stars
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
SYSTEM: Nintendo DS
PRICE: $39.99
AGE RATING: 10-plusSmall World
There's not enough space to go around in "Small World," a fun, light territory-control strategy game with a silly fantasy flavor.
Two to five players each pick a fantasy race, such as Elves, Halflings, Orcs, Skeletons or Trolls, and take turns conquering patches of land. It takes two of a race's limited stock of markers to conquer an empty territory, plus one for each enemy piece or other marker there.
Each controlled territory gives a victory point to its controller at turn's end; whoever has the most at the end of the last turn wins.
Each race has an innate power: Skeletons gain a new marker for every two occupied territories they conquer, Humans get an extra point for each region of farmland they occupy, and so on. Races are randomly paired with special powers for an additional bonus. Commando Orcs can conquer with one less marker than usual, for example.
No matter the race and power combo, eventually a race will be unable to expand any longer. At this point, the savvy player forces that race into decline, remaining in control of territories already conquered by the race but unable to fortify its defenses or use its powers. The player then chooses a fresh race and power combo to begin conquering anew.
