Blew us away when it first appeared two years ago. Originally developed for the iPhone, it was one of the App Store's boldest and most visually striking 3D action games - we liked it so much that it earned a 9.0 rating and an Editor's Choice Award. Then, spurred on by that success, started shipping the game around for some encore appearances - it came to the PSP the following year, then it hit the iPad a few months ago. Both of those ports were still impressive in their own way, but not as impactful as the original. And now, for its fourth appearance, the game has finally arrived on a Nintendo system. But though we can still remember how much we loved it back in 2008, it's looking a little road weary here in 2010.The design of owes a ton to the God of War franchise, as it's a hack-and-slash brawler with a Greek mythology theme. You control Argos, a lone warrior king separated from his people, and quest through mostly 2D levels while dispatching endless hordes of skeletons, minotaurs and other ancient beasts with button-mashing sword techniques.
There are occasional real-time action events that come up, tasking you to input a proper sequence of on-screen buttons do something like finish off an enemy or keep a giant cyclops from squashing you - but most of the time it's just running forward and cutting up anything that gets in your way. The visuals - which were one of the game's biggest selling points back on the iPhone - aren't nearly as impressive here on the DSi.
Hero of Sparta is an action-adventure game developed and published by Spanish studio Gameloft Iberica for iOS, Nintendo DS, Android, and PSP. Hero of Sparta is an action-adventure game developed and published by Spanish studio Gameloft Iberica for iOS, Nintendo DS, Android, and PSP. Although there are lists of the earlier purported Kings of Sparta, there is little evidence for the existence of any kings before the middle of the sixth century BC or so. Spartan kings received a recurring posthumous hero cult like that of the Doric kings of Cyrene.
And the repetitive gameplay that ends up boiling down to just hitting the sword button over and over again doesn't do much to redeem that. The game is still decently long and has a few memorable encounters with larger-than-life monsters, though, so it's not a total wash in this edition - and if you're a player who's never experienced one of the previous versions, you might still consider giving it a chance. Your perspective won't be as poisoned by the comparison, and you'd be able to enjoy it more for what it is than what it used to be.