The Return of Heracles is a 1983 computer game released on the Apple II home computer series. It is set in Ancient Greece and features many characters from myths and legends. Gameplay is a top-down tile-based map view, with abstracted combat similar to an early RPG. The goal is to accomplish twelve tasks set by Zeus, many of which resemble those assigned to Heracles (though there are some exceptions). The player may choose some or all of a list of 20 heroes to begin the game, and the game is lost if all heroes are killed or lost in action and no more remain to spawn. Certain areas trigger additional heroes, as well as hidden events.
This game provides examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: Literally, as the ur-example (since Achilles is one of the heroes you can choose to control). His in-game stats do not make him outright invulnerable, but he does have very high armor rating with fire-toughened skin.
- More figuratively, one extremely difficult enemy has a weak spot: the Immortal Dragon in the Grove of Ares is statted to be nearly unbeatable in normal combat, but if a character stands on the tile north of a rock, the dragon will fall asleep for a randomly-determined amount of time. During its nap, any hit that successfully penetrates its armor will kill it.
- Adaptation Deviation: Understandably, some of the subtleties of Ancient Greek myths and legends didn't translate well into 1980s-era computer game format. Most obviously, the Labors of Heracles were changed into twelve heroic quests assigned by Zeus - although half of the Heracles tasks were included, some were changed. Kill the Nemean Lion, kill the Lernaean Hydra, kill (instead of tame) the Wild Mares of Diomedes in Thrace, Recover the Treasure in Stymphalus Swamp (instead of killing the Stymphalian Birds), Recover the Cattle of Geryon, Recover the Apples of the Hesperides.
- The six quests imported from non-Heracles tales include: Kill the Serpent of Ares to found Thebes (Cadmus' tale), answer the riddle of the Sphinx (Oedipus' tale), recover the Golden Fleece of Colchis (Jason and the Argonauts), rescue Helen of Troy, rescue Penelope in Ithaca (Odysseus' tale), and slay the Minotaur (Theseus' tale).
- Several noteworthy heroes from Greek myths are in the game, but the game's simplified mechanics are unable to properly reflect their famous abilities. Odysseus' cunning is not reflected by his in-game stats, and the giant Antaeus can be killed normally although he heals slowly over time (compared to being completely invincible while in contact with his mother Gaia the earth, in the older legends).
- All There in the Manual: Literally - the game's instruction manual contains spoilers of all stats of in-game characters, including secret or randomly spawned characters. A few of them are even revealed to have properties preassigned to them (such as treasure amounts and combat statistics) even though the characters themselves cannot be interacted with in any way, such as Queen Pasiphae, who appears in a set location near the exit of the Minotaur's Labyrinth and always assuredly moves to escape before the player or anybody else can get to her.
- Anachronism Stew: Although the game is fairly faithful to recorded Greek mythology as compiled by British scholar Roger Lancelyn Green (especially impressive given its release at the dawn of the age of computer gaming), several aspects are anachronistic. Weapon sellers will sell steel weapons to the player, several thousand years before they became technologically available.
- Anti-Frustration Features: the journey from Iolcus in Greece to Colchis (presumably Asia Minor) is suitably long. But once you complete the task there, the game provides you with an alternative route back home which is much faster than the outbound journey. Quite useful, especially as the task gives you vast amounts of treasures, which usually reduce your party's movement to a crawl.
- If your party is low on gold, it's possible to uncover more gold in the Lavreion Mines, in the far southeast of the Peloponnese map. As an added boost, every player-controlled hero that dies in the game will also create a hidden treasure in the mines, to give you a bit of a boost to re-equip replacement heroes.
- Artistic License – Geography: A very mild case, insofar as some mythological places can be said to have a geographical location at all - the game places some of them in potentially-confusing locations relative to each other. Thrace is well north of the Peloponnese, and can be reached through the Argonaut journey (which starts off in Iolcus, in the Northern Peloponnese). However, it can also be reached by going to the South Peloponnese, entering Athens, and traveling westward along the coastal defense of Strongwall to the port of Piraeus, where the southeastern exit will put you on a boat to Thrace... far to the north. The only exit from Thrace is to the southwest, and it takes you back to Piraeus again.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Some of the athletic training options are this. Swordfencing is a decent boost to hit probability, but it's quite expensive and there is a chance that your sword will break regardless of your skill level. After purchasing a new sword, there is a nonzero chance that you will lose the swordsmanship ability and have to relearn it again at original high cost. Arguably, the evasion skills and agility skills are also more cost than they're worth, since armor is relatively cheap.
- The secret titular hero, Heracles, is available only with a secret process involving the weakest starting character in the game. Although Heracles has the highest Strength and Vigor of any character in the game, as well as a very decent Agility, he is tied for slowest non-cursed character (with Cytisorus, a spawning character in Colchis) and he will routinely fall behind any group of heroes you send out together. Additionally, he doesn't have any special combat skills, and due to his high starting stats, it's very expensive to train him in swordfighting or dagger wrestling.
- The most powerful weapon in the game is the Minotaur's Axe, the Labrys, which rates at a mighty power level 10. (By comparison, the most powerful non-unique weapon you can normally acquire is a Zeus Blessed Fine Steel Sword at power level 8.) The catch? First, you have to kill the Minotaur to get it, and then second, you have to escape the Labyrinth. Given that the Labyrinth is a constantly-shifting maze partially dependent on random map generation, this is not a trivial task. (In fact, it's potentially gamestopping enough to that many players intentionally leave it to the end of the game so they get the victory screen without having to worry about escape.)
- Bittersweet Ending: The two last heroes listed in the roster are historical figures: Philipoemon, a Grecian general, and Polybius, a poet. Although neither is particularly impressive compared to the semi-divine heroes listed before them, they nevertheless represent the last of the Heroic Age. Philipoemon was known to Romans as "the last of the Greeks" and Polybius lived in the time of Greece's ceding of regional relevance to the new city-state of Rome to the West.
- Failing in your quests (i.e. having all selectable heroes in the starting roster die) brings up a nostalgic message that Greece has no more heroes left to birth - a callback to Rome's epitaph for Philipoemon as mentioned above.
- Breakable Weapons: for most human heroes, there is a nonzero chance of your sword or dagger shattering with any attack that is not a miss. If your dagger breaks, you may still engage in close combat with your bare hands, but if your sword breaks, you cannot engage in adjacent combat until you get a new one. A broken weapon also wastes any enhancement placed upon it, including enchantment and/or poisoning.
- This mechanic also gives rise to a frustrating result: heroes can take training in dagger or sword combat to improve their hit chance, but if the weapon shatters and they buy a new one, there's a chance that their old skill will be lost and they must repurchase the training. For certain characters such as Heracles, this can be very expensive (or the mentor may flat out tell you they cannot train you - a result that can occur if Heracles has even one or two additional training traits, or if any other hero has multiple training traits).
- Natural weapons never break.
- Butt-Monkey: in at least two cases, completing the tasks properly will usually result in a character (almost always a hero under your control) turning into a cursed beast. Some players pile both curses onto the same hero, thus having only one cursed hero instead of two.
- The tasks are: killing the Serpent of Ares will turn the killer into a snake, and being present in the Orchomenus Forest when the stag is killed (a very likely event on the way to Stymphalos Swamp) will turn one of the heroes present into a deer. If the Serpent killer then goes to nearby Orchomenus Forest and hangs around until the stag dies, it will end up as a deer instead of a snake - which, though frustratingly inept at combat, is still nevertheless very fast in movement and can often be useful in distracting enemies and collecting loot.
- Canon Discontinuity: Intentional, since the game designer pulled together many different Greek myths spanning multiple generations of heroes - and the Greek myths themselves could be circular regarding which heroes took part in which feats. A rough "canonical" runthrough, based on appearance in the mythical record, might be:
- Cadmus (canonically held to be the originator of Grecian written script) slaying the Serpent of Ares and founding the city of Thebes,
- Solving the Riddle of the Sphinx outside Thebes, although Oedipus is not in the game,
- Heracles completing six of his Labors: Killing the Nemean Lion, killing the Hydra, completing the task at Stymphalos, completing the wild mares task in Thrace, collecting the cattle of Geryon, and collecting the apples of Hesperides,
- Theseus completing the Labyrinth and killing the Minotaur,
- Jason recovering the Golden Fleece from Colchis - which some myths include Heracles and Theseus as participants,
- Achilles and company sacking Troy and freeing Helen,
- Odysseus returning to Ithaca to be reunited with his wife Penelope.
- Cassandra Truth: Literal example: Cassandra herself utters a warning about upcoming hazards, but the game tells you she is lying - she isn't. She warns you that all that glitters is not gold, and Aeaea is not safe. Immediately afterward, the gold pile in the Land of the Lotus Eaters will irrevocably turn any hero that collects it into a neutral character; the gold pile in Polyphemous' cave will spawn a powerful Cyclopes enemy at the mouth of the cave; Aeaea's Circe will potentially transform a hero into a hog unless another hero comes to save it; and Scylla and Charybdis guard a number of gold piles intended to tempt heroes into wandering too close to Charybdis and dying instantly.
- Guide Dang It!: The player receives little or no warning about certain lethal or severe hazards, often encountering them and losing a hero in the process. Insta-kill hazards are listed in Non Standard Game Over below; the less-lethal (but still severe) list of hazards includes: Being present in the Orchomenos Forest when the Stag is killed will result in one randomly chosen hero turning into a stag himself due to Artemis cursing him for seeing her naked bathing in a stream. Any character (neutral or player controlled) who deals the killing blow to the Serpent of Ares in the Plain of Panope will be turned into a snake.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Several monsters are intended to be this, based on their maxed-out stats, high damage, and the fact that non-combat options are clearly marked in-game to defeat them. These include: the Sphinx (where killing her will actually crash the game since you're meant to solve her riddle verbally); the Clashing Rocks at Symplegades; and the Immortal Dragon at the Grove of Ares in Colchis (although an intentional workaround allows the player to put it to sleep, which allows a one-hit-kill if they can penetrate its armor.
- Non-Standard Game Over: Several locations in-game feature specific squares that will instantly kill any hero who walks on them. These include: A square west of a treasure in the Lernaean Swamp causes the hero to drown in quicksand; a square north of a tree near the middle of Mt. Pontinus (Endymion's starting point) causes a hero to sleep forever; a square in a corner of the Pool of Pegae causes a hero to be drowned by nymphs, and any square too close to the whirlpool Charybdis causes the hero to drown instantly. Climbing too high on Mount Olympus also results in a dead hero.
- A few locations have certain escape clauses, but it's possible for these escape clauses to be unfulfillable if the player accidentally plays a certain way. These include: Troy, which seals its gates once a hero steps on the exit square of the Trojan Horse - if the player doesn't have enough manpower to reach the gates of Troy from the inside, Troy will remain a sealed city and the game could be unwinnable if Helen cannot be reached. Also, Circe in Aeaea turns one hero into a hog (removing it from player control) until a second hero walks into her home, whereupon she turns the first victim back into its usual form. A player who doesn't have a second hero to send in, may end up with the game unwinnable.
- Certain enemies in-game are intended to be unbeatable, and at least one of them will crash the game if the player does defeat it. the Sphinx of Thebes appears after the Serpent of Ares is killed and Thebes is built. It has the highest stats mathematically possible under the coding language, and turns hostile if you get its riddle answer wrong. The only way to complete its mission is to correctly answer its riddle. Although very difficult, it is possible to kill it if the player trains up multiple heroes with heavy weapons and high hit probabilities, and cycles them in and out of combat with Asclepius as a second-line healer. Killing the Sphinx causes the game to pop up a dialogue screen with no available dialogue, and no way of exiting the screen.
- Plot Armor: Played straight, via divine intervention. At the Trojan War, Aeneas (future founder of Rome and canonical survivor of the sack of Ilium) can be killed if the player is thorough enough in their extermination of enemy forces. The moment Aeneas is reduced to death, a popup message informs the player that Poseidon understands that Aeneas must survive and eventually found Rome, so he spirits him away to safety.
- Secret Character: Some characters (notably along the way to Colchis and after building the city of Thebes) spawn after you enter a farflung area or kill a key enemy. They are fully under player control just like any other hero, but are not listed in the starting roster of playable characters. Most notably, Heracles himself requires a specific set of conditions in order to appear in-game: The player must play as Palaemon, evade the two serpents sent to kill him, and then make his way to the Oracle at Delphi, which turns Palaemon into Heracles, one of the strongest and most powerful warriors available.
- Secret Level: The main map features gates that lead to smaller locales, and many of those have gates leading to new maps. A few have border gates that lead to hidden areas not indicated by the main map, but with treasures or other encounters. Some of the tasks vital to completing the game are hidden away in secret areas.
- Stymphalos is located off of a border gate at Orchomenus Forest. The Forest is visible on the South Peloponesse map, but the Stymphalos is not.
- Easily missed, Mt. Pontinus is usually known as the origin map for Endymion, but it's possible to regain access to it by exiting the Lernaean Swamp by its western border gate.
- Medea's Bedroom is a weird example. it's accessed by a normal gate in Colchis, but there is no map drawn for it. Instead, the player wanders around a dark unmapped area until they step on the correct tile to trigger an encounter with Medea. Perhaps due to a coding quirk, the player will remain in that darkened area even if the map reloads a different visible map, and the hero may become stuck. Moving the hero off the edge of the computer screen can hard-lock the game.
- Palaemon's starting area, Amphitryon's House, is a one-time location that opens out to the Plain of Panope, but can never be revisited once the player leaves it.
- The Trojan Horse is accessible one time only, after which the gate from Troad will disappear until Troy's gates are breached, after which it will link directly to Troy itself.
- The map locations of the Odyssey journey do not become accessible until after Helen of Troy has been rescued - the gate to begin the quest ( in the north border of Troad) simply doesn't exist if the condition precedent has not been met.
- Speedrun: The game gives you a (largely aesthetic) numerical score for each completed task based on speed and survival. Spending too many moves, or losing more than 2 players, can eliminate part or all of this bonus. Some players have taken speed running the game to extremes, completing the tasks as quickly as possible while avoiding common triggers (such as automatic new heroes joining your mission).
- The most common speedruns usually involve Achilles (movement 12) or Pegasus (movement 14), usually killing the Minotaur first to acquire its extremely powerful weapon, and then completing quests solo in order to keep move counts low. Certain quests, such as recovering the Golden Fleece and Founding Thebes, run a high risk of picking up auto-joining heroes, and some runthroughs intentionally game the mechanics so that the solo hero gets additional moves through the maps before the non-heroes have a chance to wake up and auto-join the party.
- Support Party Member: Asclepius, the healer, is the first hero in the list and has a special power - he can heal himself slowly (1 Vigor point per turn if he does not attack anybody) and he can instantly heal any one wounded character on a square where he ends his turn.
- Sometimes this can also result in him healing a hostile enemy, since the target of the healing is randomly determined if there are multiple potential targets in the square.
- Unbreakable Weapons: Natural weapons, and some monster weapons, cannot break under any circumstances. This can make Pegasus, Faithful Argus, or other animal heroes, somewhat more reliable than their human counterparts.
- Interestingly, a hero that kills the Lernaean Hydra will have its natural weapons poisoned permanently, adding a permanent per-hit damage bonus. Heracles can deal quite a bit of damage in unarmed combat this way, if his bare hands are permanently poisoned and can never break. This raises interesting contradictions with Heracles' cause of death in mythology, which stem directly from his skin contact with this specific poison source.
