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Take a time warp back to ancient Greece, if you will. It was a time when men were men (even if they did wear girlie leather skirts), women were women (and always did the house work when they weren't getting kidnapped!) and many-headed monsters and the undead were a common hazard on the dirt-track to work.

The evil gods are angry, mainly because the good gods always seem to be getting one over them. So to vent their frustrations they decide to kidnap a beautiful princess. Zeus and the rest of the good gods don't seem particularly concerned, but one hero (who has the hots for the said princess) does, and decides to mount a rescue bid.

His quest involves travelling the horizontally scrolling landscape that is Ancient Greece, picking up info on where special god-like powers, as well as a few loaned by Zeus and his pals, it's his job to hunt down his princess and knock the demons back into the satanic abyss from whence they rose. Hurrah!

The first job of the player is to find out more about his quest from the god of gods, Zeus himself! He's found simply by going right from the start location to a white house. Go through this and walk left and you'll be right next to Zeus' palace.

Unfortunately, before you can hear his words of enlightenment, you must take on a psychotic bull that's positioned itself in front of the temple!

As the hero progresses through Ancient Greece, the chances are that he'll meet some local peasants on the way. Conversation however is quite limited. The only way to evoke any kind of response out of them is to push UP and button B on the joypad, whereupon they say their piece.

You can't say anything back however, and the characters always say the same thing!

Ancient Greece is a pretty vast place, as you can tell by the map pictured. Each of the indicated cities is a place that our hero visits during the game. In order to complete some mini-quests, going back to previous levels is also necessary.

Pressing START takes the player to a sub-screen where various items and weapons are selected for use. Items included in the game are the likes of clubs, harps, staffs, shields, bracelets and swords.

This looks pretty similar to the likes of Zelda and Faxanadu, and, to be honest, if this kind o' thing is your cup of tea you'll probably find a massive and enjoyable task ahead of you.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that didn't really appeal to me. First of all, the simplistic interaction with the other one-speech tape-recorder-like characters is a bit annoying.

Another thing which hampered my enjoyment of this game somewhat was the pretty boring action sequences. Just running along a horizontally-scrolling landscape slashing your chopper at small enemy sprites isn't my idea of an excursion to Excitement Central.

Zelda fans should have a look at this. Others will probably find it a bit of a bore, no matter how much there is in it.

Battle Of Olympus is a good example of the Faxanadu/Zelda II-type game, but doesn't have enough new or interesting ideas to appeal to players who don't normally play something like this.

The speech/interaction is a good idea, but unfortunately it's very limited and becomes completely predictable once you've played the game a few times.

Another negative point is that the action is a bit tedious - the hero has only one attack move, and the baddie sprites aren't particularly exciting. Adventure/RPG fans will certainly enjoy this, but if it's fast action and thrills you're after, look elsewhere.

Presentation 82%
Well-presented on all levels and easy to get into without reading through the instructions.

Graphics 70%
Pretty simplistic backdrops and small sprites.

Sound 69%
Pretty jolly tunes and effects add something to the atmosphere.

Playability 77%
Easy to get into and quite entertaining from the outset.

Lastability 85%
Plenty of mini-quests to conquer mean that if you like this sort of thing, you'll be at it for months (oo-er).

Overall 79%
A decent enough RPG that will go down well with fans of the genre.