Apotheon

I've been playing Apotheon on PS4, an indie game free for PSPlus users.  It has its own charm and merits, least of all that it isn't yet another stupidly dumbed down retrogame with huge boulder-like pixels on screen.

You see, many pseudo retrogames get it all wrong.  First, they assume the thing about classic games is all about large, blocky pixels on screen.

today's retrogaming: the bastard of Atari and NES

This is plain fucking wrong: back then, these games ran on lowres crt screens. Aside from blocky bitmaps from atari games, pixels were a match to screen resolution and besides, crt blurred the borders, giving them a natural antialiasing of sorts. It was just when younger people began playing old games on emulators in large HD screens that pixels were zoomed and enlarged. Thus they called it pixel art and started all this crazed "retrogaming" scene.

The problem I have with most of these indie retrogames is that they only scratch the surface. The ugly block pixels I didn't care back then are back with a vengeance on our large screens - or in small HD displays. And the thing I really cared about in old games is completely off: rich gameplay, that real mean hardcore difficulty. Today's indie retrogames look like NES on crack and play like Animal Crossing on honey.

This is why some indie games fare far better than most: they get it right on what made old games rock and improve all the rest. Apotheon does just that, with crisp and stylish HD graphics and fluid animations.

Ever played Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link for the NES?  No, I suppose not.  It's the only side-scrolling adventure, complete with real jumping, that Link has ever been to.  Apotheon plays exactly like that, which is curious given that another greek-inspired game for the NES also copied from Zelda 2.  There's combat with lots of weapons found on the way (which you may exchange in real time), same shield mechanics, but it really focus on adventure and exploration on the free roaming maps from side view (side-scrolling didn't make more sense ever since Sonic, huh).  It brings its own gameplay enhancements, such as using the right analog directional to aim both weapons and shield. Ah, the luxuries of going all vector instead of bitmap.

Apotheon plays and looks great

Yep, the game is all about Greek myths.  Should you expect God of War mayhem?  Of course not, combat is more about right timing here and resource management (your weapons get worn) than frantic button mashing. Besides, you don't play a pissed off, anti-hero demigod, just a mortal hero. Zeus is in some domestic content with Hera and war has ensued on Earth as a consequence. Mortal men are found without guidance because some key items from the gods are missing. It's up to you to find them.

The most striking aspect of the game is the strict adherence to old Greek literature and arts: not only the game quotes directly Homer, Hesiod and Orphic hymns, the whole graphical style is straight from ancient vases in glorified black drawings of people in profile with large nutty eyes and all geometric patterns, even for things as clouds and grass. It's a marvel to behold, it looks like a vase rotating and unfolding a story. There's also plenty of subdued modern graphical effects such as multilayered translucent graphisms playing over, focal blur and vignetting.

art direction is lavish

My only major gripe with it is actually a minor one: the LotR voice over. Have you ever noticed how so many fantasy games try really hard to reproduce Galadriel's voice intonation from the prologue of the first movie? I've heard it in the prologue of the first Dark Souls and listening to Hera here using the same style was annoying. I also wonder what's the point of voice and text together. To show people still enjoy reading so much that they will both read and hear? Get rid of one them, don't try to pretend fake literacy...

Addendum: as the game progresses it definitely takes the same route of God of War, putting your petty hero against the gods.  Oh well... :/

Summing up: it gets retrogaming right, with hardcore play mechanics in place and gets rid of all the lame pixels in favor of lavish graphical style that looks clean and stunning.  This is what would make my mouth water if you showed it to me back in 1987.  You show it to some minecrafters today and they yawn and go back to their silly reconstruction of a 3D 8-bit landscape that never was.