Game:

The Battle of Olympus (1988)

Duration: 2:00:33

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5

Game: The Battle of Olympus
Platform: NES
Completed: November 18, 2023
Rules: Beat the game after collecting every ambrosia, weapon, and item, all without losing a single life. Just to make it more interesting, leaving dropped items from enemies on the ground to prevent them from respawning is disallowed, as is using the crouching Power of Argus against Hades. Oh and no turbo either!

This was a Retro Achievements challenge to beat The Battle of Olympus while collecting every ambrosia, weapon, and item, all without losing a single life. This was the first time I had beaten the game deathless and might be a bit sloppy at times but the goal was achieved, even with a crazy glitch at the end! For those who are interested, here is the link to the Battle of Olympus subset on Retro Achievements:

https://retroachievements.org/game/22872

And here are some highlights of the video:

2 minutes, 10 seconds - Typically players will go straight to Lamia here (possibly getting the Shield of Athena first) but I decided to show how the first ambrosia and Sandals of Hermes could be acquired beforehand to make that battle a bit easier since this is a sticking point for some people. It takes longer to do it this way though.

12 minutes, 10 seconds - Generally if you continue to hold right in the Argolis caves, even if you get hit in midair by a bat, you will safely bounce back and land on a platform. This does not apply when heading left though. Also, a bat will only swoop down as far as the height of your character so if you activate the bat while you're in midair, the bat will not swoop all the way down.

13 minutes - The achievement badge that vanishes once I grab the ambrosia is one that only allowed you to pick up items that were given by gods. I got that achievement on a later date since both that one and the 100% deathless one couldn't be gotten during the same run.

16 minutes, 15 seconds - If you push Lamia far enough back, she just levitates over the water! Humorously in the Game Boy version she actually falls and you have to leave the screen in order to get her to return so she can be defeated.

17 minutes, 20 seconds - There is absolutely no reason to leave an item behind like this. I just wanted to demonstrate that if you leave them, they can be gotten again.

33 minutes, 50 seconds - The drop rates seemed really bad so I left Laconia and re-entered. It may not have helped at that point but the enemies do start dropping items less frequently once they've dropped a certain amount so you may have to do that from time to time. Also, you can pick olives and bay leaves up simply by jumping on them if you'd rather not crouch to grab them. This is useful if they happen to land at the top of a staircase since pressing down to crouch would instead cause you to descend the stairs.

58 minutes, 30 seconds - As far as I know there's no possible way to avoid getting hit by this monkey when you go up the stairs. If anyone knows how to dodge it then I'd love to know.

1 hour, 7 minutes, 20 seconds - This is a pretty cool place to farm for olives and bay leaves if you're in between Arcadia and Argolis.

1 hour, 40 minutes, 40 seconds - You could just walk down the stairs to fight this snake but you will definitely get hit by the fire. If you take the risky jump like I did then you can avoid taking damage (sometimes) but it may not be worth the risk. If you're going to do it, make sure you enter the door while walking left or else you'll get hit for sure when you enter the room.

1 hour, 47 minutes, 10 seconds - This bat is dangerous. I find that it's safer to let it hit you up against the left wall as many times as you need, until it starts to do a slow swoop. Then either kill it or run to the right.

1 hour, 54 minutes, 40 seconds - I found a way to glitch out the ending and potentially softlock yourself just inches away from victory. This is what happens when you won't stop goofing around! As far as I know, the only way to break out of this glitch is to drink your nectar from the Trojan Pitcher so if you don't have any on hand then you might be doomed. The long delay here was me hurling oaths at the game and wondering if I was going to have to do another entire deathless run to get the achievements because of the glitch. I am curious how far back you can go with that silly victory music playing. I'm guessing it plays until you leave the Temple of Hades. The world may never know.

1 hour, 58 minutes, 50 seconds - During the ending sequence, if you push start when it says "The End" on the screen, you can rewatch the credits. This is amazing.

Final thoughts:
Excellent game here. Really impressive that only three people worked on it. The achievement sets were great as well so big thanks to cIymax, ladynadiad, and Viktorhark for putting them together!

"Battle of Olympus - Deathless 100 Percent 111823"

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