Video Game / Glory of Heracles (DS)

1 Following

The plot of the game follows an amnesiac man, who finds himself washed up on the shores of Crete. He soon finds out that he is immortal, and meets several nymphs, who identify him as none other than the great hero Heracles himself. He also meets another immortal, a woman pretending to be a man, named Leucos. Leucos, convinced that meeting another immortal was surely fated, offers the main character to search for the reason why both of them were granted immortality in the first place. However, soon the party finds out that the hero is not the only one man around who is said to be Heracles...

The game provides examples of:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: All characters in the party gain plot-related power-ups near the end of the game. Axios undergoes Fusion Dance with Arnos, and gains back some of Oceanus' power, Heracles joins the party in place of his brother's ghost, who you knew as Heracles previously, Eris regains her true form as one of The Old Gods, and the hero with Leucos gain powered-up Titan weapons in what's literally third-to-last screen of the game.
• Action Commands: Entirely optional. Doing short touch screen power-ups will boost your skills or magic notably though.
• Adaptational Villainy: The whole game actually turns out to be orchestrated by Prometheus, of all people! The Nice Guy of the Greek mythology, The Champion of humanity, here he wants to get revenge on Zeus for betraying Oceanus, the Titan who fought on his side in Titanomachy. Prometheus' gift to humanity (changed from fire to magic here) becomes a part of his plan to resurrect Typhon, Titans' living weapon, by feeding it Dark ether, a byproduct of elemental magic. He's mostly indifferent to deaths of humans it would entail, a far cry from his original motivation. He does appear to be somewhat hesitant by the time you reach him, but it doesn't really excuse his previous actions.
• Anti-True Sight: Taphus stone is the only thing able to block the godly sight. Thus, descending into a Taphus is a good way to hide from their attention.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The "Heroic Strike" skill uses all non-dark Ether and all of the user's MP and barely does more damage than the Hero's personal super attack unless the ether is REALLY high. Then it hits a bit more, but is still far from worth the cost.
• Beating a Dead Player: In the DS game, this goes both ways. When the enemies do it, there's no real point other than a non-fainted ally avoiding a hit. When the players do it, there's a chance of "Overkill" which turns Deader than Dead enemies into ether and potential MP. In addition, some enemies have an "Undead" skill which forces you to Overkill or kill every enemy to win the battle or they'll keep reviving.
• Been There, Shaped History: The game actually takes place in the closing days of the Trojan War. The party gets to ride the Trojan Horse which turns out to be a moving fortress manned by Undead soldiers. The party then fights their way through Troy after General Heracles rams the Horse into Troy's gates, and then destroy the local Crasis, that also produces Undead soldiers. Achilles' death is also changed, as he is tackled and stabbed in the heel by Agon, rather than getting shot with an arrow by Paris.
• Behemoth Battle: In the climax of the game Axios and Arnos use a Crasis to place their souls, originally parts of Oceanus' soul, into Oceanus' body to fight Typhon on equal footing. They fail due to lacking the third person, Agon, who fed his soul to Typhon, but manage to damage Typhon's core and disable his regeneration. The battle itself mostly consists of both fighters exchanging magic bolts.
• Bittersweet Ending: The game ends with the party disbanding and Icarus playing his flute alone. The unseen, implied epilogue, where Zeus is impressed with his flute skills and lets him live longer, is more upbeat though.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Look no further than Heracles, Heracles, Heracles, Heracles... Did I mention Heracles?
• Boring, but Practical: Multishot. A ho-hum skill that hits all enemies in the front or back rank. You'll use it A LOT.
• Boss Rush: The hero and Heracles are on trial to prove whether they're capable of being heroes, and thus they're tasked to battle weaker versions of the game's bosses up to that point (four in all).
• Cassandra Truth: A prophecy delivered by the actual Cassandra. Axios tries to use a loophole to listen to it anyway, but in turn her words just become unintelligible.
• Cast from Hit Points: Trying to cast a spell from an overworked Ether Pool (or several in the case of Light Magic) can cause an Ether Reflux, which is a punishment for getting too careless with Magic and any spell will damage the user proportionally to the deficiency. If the user is affected with "Reflux Trap", then they won't be able to access ether, and will be damaged as if all required ether pools were completely empty. If you weren't immortal, you could kill yourself several times over as the reflux damage can reach 10000+ while you still have only about 800 or so HP max.
• Character Portrait: There's a handful of dialogues that use cropped official art of party members to provide a portrait fir them. Oddly, this technique is used very sparingly, and there's only one NPC with a portrait, that being Piazza.
• Cognizant Limbs: The final boss, Typhon, has four arms that will cast support spells and use knockback attacks. They are all Undead, forcing you to abuse overkill if you want to get rid of them.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Every foe's name is colored for each element: White for Light, Purple-Gray for Dark, Red for Fire, Blue for Water, Yellow for Earth and Green for Wind.
• Crossdresser: Leucos is a woman who dresses like a man. Most people see right through it, though.
• Dead All Along:
  • The big laughing Heracles in your party is actually Iphicles, the real Heracles's younger brother, who died before the game. He came back to life with amnesia and believing himself to be Heracles, due to the Crasis and his grieving brother's wish to resurrect him.
  • The main character is also revealed to be this. However, his story is mostly covered in mystery until the end game. However, one very tiny reference in the Take That! listed below gives a hint to who he is.
• Doomsday Device: Played with in regards to Taphoi. They are not harmful by themselves, but they collect Dark ether and direct it towards Typhon - a Living Weapon of the Titans. Once it has enough ether, it will resurrect and probably destroy the world.
• Dreadful Musician: Some consider the main character's music skills to be awful and some politely note that he needs some practice. At the very end, he gets a little better.
• Dual Boss: There's two cores in Di-Taphus, and the party fights both at the same time. They are counted as Undead, meaning that you'll have to kill both in the same turn.
• Dungeon Town: Troy is full of random encounters, although shops and other facilities will still serve you.
• Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors: Light beats Dark, which in turn beats the four main elements. The main elements, meanwhile, go like this: Water > Fire > Earth > Wind > Water.
• Encounter Repellant: Sybll's Balm can be used to lower enemy encounter rates.
• Escort Mission: Several Guest Star Party Members are just along for the ride and are in no real danger, and often times, they're even at a higher level then you and have skills you can't get barring cheating (you also can't mess with their equipment anyway...)
• Extra Turn: Variations of this are in the game through a number of skills that let your allies attack outside of their turns. Enemies and bosses get skill and non-skill based versions of this.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: The big guy calling himself "Heracles" is actually his younger brother Iphicles who was brought back to life.
• Fight Woosh: There's the normal version and a red variant. The red one features tougher battles, which are likely to kill you if you aren't careful early on. Later, when you're much stronger, they're more like medium-risk Metal Slime fights.
• The Fog of Ages: The protagonist is an amnesiac immortal, later revealed to be Icarus.
• Forced Tutorial: Used to the point of ridiculousness. The game interrupts you constantly to tell you what Status Effects are, even though any kid with even a passing knowledge of Dragon Quest should know how RPG mechanics work. Though you don't have to sit through lengthy explanations. Tap B and move on.
• Gender Flip: Patroclus is a man in all accounts of the Trojan War. Here, Patroclus is a woman instead.
• Girl in the Tower: Princess Piazza is introduced locked in the tower and guarded by Undead soldiers. When the party reaches her, she doesn't believe that you're here to help her, and Heracles punches her out to make her come with the party. "This might be the worst rescue ever", indeed.
• Glass Cannon: Eris. Her Intelligence is high, and her Strength isn't anything to sneeze at, but she can't take a hit worth a damn without some good armor. She's also fairly slow.
• Good Morning, Crono: The game starts with the hero waking up on the beach, with his memories missing.
• Insistent Terminology: When the party first encounters the Undead soldiers, the living soldiers that serve alongside them tell that these are not Undead, but rather "Divine Warriors", as their commander insists on calling them such. In the end, however, everyone concludes that there is nothing divine about these abominations.
• Jack of All Stats: The main character is one, as his stats are pretty good, but never the best. And he doesn't really specialize in magic.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Upon level up, all of your HP and MP are restored.
• Load-Bearing Boss: All Taphus' cores violently explode after you defeat them, taking the entire structure with them. Unusually, you don't escape the explosion - there's too little time to escape from the 4th underground floor of the building. Rather, your heroes, being immortal, simply take the explosion in the face, and get thrown into another region by the immense force of the blast.
• Magic Knight: Axios is one. He even supes up his blade into a BFS with the "Magic Sword" skill.
• Mana Meter: Done twofold. Besides your normal MP, there's also five types of ether - four elemental and the Dark one. All ether is shared between all fighters - both the party and the enemies. Elemental spells consume corresponding ether and produce Dark ether, while Dark spells do this in reverse. If there's not enough ether on the battlefield, the spell can still be used, but it will damage the caster proportionally to the ether deficiency.
• My Name Is ???: The hero starts out this way until you name him.
• Mysterious Waif: Eris has no memory of her past, and she's also pretty sarcastic to people around her. Turns out she is the wife of Prometheus who lost her memory.
• New Game Plus: A Survival Mode is unlocked when you beat the game the first time. From the second cycle onwards, you can set up upgrades, such as Double Cash (among other unknowns...), and (from an interview) certain areas are unlocked for further exploration...
• One-Steve Limit: Averted: there's no less than 3 characters that call themselves Heracles, 2 of them being playable characters. For convenience's sake, the first one is a Silent Protagonist and goes by ??? until the player gives him a nickname that doubles as his real name for the rest of the game and the third is a NPC with a title of General Heracles. However it IS a cause of concern for Leucos when you find out the Crasis' functions though...
• Prophecy Twist: Cassandra (who else?) made a prophecy that she will change Achilles' destiny. It then turns out that Agon has tricked her into revealing Achilles' weakness, and uses it to kill him. In a sense, Cassandra did change Achilles' destiny, that's for sure.
• Pun: A few subtle jokes about mythology pop up here and there. For instance:
  "Don't be a heel, Achilles."
• Regional Bonus: Japanese publications, such as Famitsu, commented on how sluggish combat was in the Japanese version. Nintendo and Paon responded by speeding it up in the North American version.
• Reincarnation: Based on the eschatology (Doctrine of the Afterlife/End Times) of Greek lore regarding the soul quite faithfully. All souls must undergo purification through drinking from Lethe to abandon their memories.
• The Reveal: The Hero is Daedalus' son and thus, Icarus. Or a marionette. Leucos is Piazza's half-sister who was granted immortality by Prometheus. Axios is a third of the titan Oceanus, the others being Arnos and Agon. Heracles is Iphicles, the REAL Heracles' brother. Eris is Prometheus' amnesic wife. And General Heracles is Daedalus, the Hero's father. Whew!
• Sdrawkcab Alias: General Agon is first met under the name Noga.
• Shield Bash: There is a skill with the same name that allows the hero to bash the enemy with his shield.
• Shout-Out: Mostly to Nintendo games:
  • When you name the hero, Leucos will suggest the name Pit.
  • There's lines "A secret to everyone" and "Archanea? Never heard of it." appearing in the dialogue.
  • One of Heracles' battle lines after you recruit the real one is "How about a TKO from Olympus?"
  • Spoofed by Heracles' "I love the smell of a battlefield in the... What time is it? Midafternoon?"
• Spell Levels: The game has three levels of spells in each set. For instance, the single heal spell is Pow, Powra and Powtes. For offensive spells, the effects changes the higher the level: the level I spell (the base) targets a single enemy, the level II spell targets a row of enemy, and the level III spell targets all enemies. Each spell also has three upgradable levels based on a minigame event in the touch screen, but that is extra and not really relevant to this trope.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: Battles utilize polygonal environments and spells, mixed with Digitized Sprites.
• Surplus Damage Bonus: If you overkill an enemy, it will "turn into ether", replenishing MP of the party member who dealt the final blow. Oddly, overkills don't increase the actual ether on the battlefield.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Leucos initially dresses as a man, although the game pulverizes the fourth wall to let you know that her disguise sucks.
• Take That!: When it is first suggested the amnesiac hero comes up with an alias, Leucos suggests Pit. Axios' response amounts to, "What kind of name is that? It doesn't even sound Greek!". Doubly funny as the hero is Icarus, or rather a clone of him. It's complex.
• Theme Naming:
  • The 3 parts of Oceanus. Arnos, Axios, and Agon. Notice that the last one doesn't have an "S".
  • The playable characters Leucos, Hercules, Axios, and Eris. Bonus points if you name the hero something that ends with "S", too.
    • And speaking of the hero, even if you don't give him one, he still technically counts due to the implications that he is either a resurrected Icarus or a living puppet created in an attempt to revive Icarus.
    • It goes one step further when you realize Guest Star Party Members Patroclus, Eudorus, and Arnos apply. The only one who doesn't fit is Captain Gazuth.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The only way to prevent Undead enemies from reviving is overkilling them. It means either striking them very hard, or beating up the corpse. Overkilled enemies literally dissolve into ether, leaving no body to rise again. Story-wise this technique is used to make sure that Typhon, the Final Boss, is really dead and is not coming back.
• Those Two Guys: Eudorus and Patroclus, thought they're more like "that guy and that chick".
• Title Drop: By Heracles in what is almost a throwaway line: "All I'm saying is the muscles don't seem to make the man theses days. So much for the glory of Heracles, eh?"
• Took a Level in Badass: Axios after fusing with Agon. He gets a massive power boost to go along with his new, muscular build, and his attack patterns- especially with a bow- display the confidence of a battle-forged warrior.
• The Undead: Multiple parties use Undead soldiers, corpses of fallen soldiers, reanimated by souls of monsters, locked in Crasei - an invention of Daedalus. They are almost unstoppable, being able to rise over and over after being defeated. In gameplay terms, any enemy marked as an Undead will revive at the start of each combat round, unless you destroy the corpse by overkill the enemy.
• Unknown Item Identification: Sometimes you'll find rusted items, that technically can be used, but will only give +1 in the relevant stat. To actually make use of them, you'll need to find a polisher (who may not even be present in the next town) and clean it for a symbolic price.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • Orthrus. The freaking thing multiplies itself each turn. The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard, indeed. Its copies are fragile and thus can be Overkilled for MP Recovery, but most players won't actually know they can do that by this point.
  • Then there's the Sphinx. Cast a spell, it mimics it. Attack it physically, it counterattacks. Expect to try this one over a few times.
• Warrior Monk: Heracles is one, similar to Reion in the third game. He's the only one who naturally learns the melee skill Powtesma, and he has some decent healing spells too.
• Wham Episode: There's so many in the DS game, it's more of a Wham Train. None of the party members are who what they initially seem. Yet nearly every time, you'll likely walk in not expecting them.