Olympia Rising’s an indie platforming game from the relatively new studio, Paleozoic. A nod to the platforming games of old Olympia Rising retains the old school charm and adds its own fresh ideas and mechanics into the gameplay.
The game takes place in Ancient Greece where you play as Iola, a heroine who was killed, but has now been reawakened in the underworld, and she doesn’t know why. You have to make your way through the underworld in order to get to Mount Olympus and find out why you were revived from Zeus himself. To do that, you have to collect coins to pay the ferryman of the river Styx, Charon, so that he’ll let you pass to the next area.
The controls are simple enough; emulating old-style 2 button controls, you have one button being jump and the other your sword, as well as your directional buttons. This might at first seem to make the game simple, but the complexity comes with the different mechanics that have been added to the game. One of the most prominent features of Olympia Rising is the ability to chain kills together in to multiply the amount of coins you receive. Not only does this give you more coins, but it also resets your double jump.
This makes sections where you have to climb become a whole lot easier and a lot of fun as you chain enemy kills together to continue moving upwards. Getting hit resets your multiplier and makes you lose your extra jumps so being careful and making sure you don’t get hit is important. I wish that you had the ability to look down though since you will be faced with instances where you need to descend and you can’t see below you. This makes descending a hazard as you can run into a lot of enemies suddenly.
Your life’s represented with hearts, a la Zelda, and you also have a magic meter which can be used for different powerups or to give yourself additional jumps, which becomes critical if you want to keep your kill multiplier going. All the powerups are useful for different things; fire magic lets you hit enemies from far away, the water shield makes you invulnerable to projectiles, and the lightning blade lets you easily defeat enemies that take multiple hits. They all serve their own functions and no power-up really feels useless, although you do need certain powerups more than others in specific areas.
The game divides its levels into 3 different types of areas: There are the acid levels, where you must progress upward as fast as possible in order to avoid the acid that fills up from the bottom of the level. This is where killing enemies to reset your jump comes in handy, as you can use them as kind of stepping stones to move yourself upwards. There’s then also what I like to call exploration/coin collecting levels, where you have to collect a large amount of coins in order to progress and there are a ton of enemies and treasure drops to pick up. These rooms seem to always have enough coins to progress whether you chain kills or not, so retaining your life becomes crucial.
Even if you do die, you start back at the beginning of the current area – you don’t have to worry about lives and can just have fun, which is one of the games strengths. Finally, there are the boss rooms. Every area has a boss that you have to beat and all of them are cleverly made, requiring you to memorize their patterns to succeed. They feel just like platformer bosses should. Anytime you get hit, it’s your mistake for not knowing the pattern.
The game’s graphics are artfully crafted in pixel style and lends to the game very well, with animations looking awesome and very smooth, while still retaining that old school charm that they are going for. I’m a sucker for pixel art, and while this art style was simplistic, it looks well polished. Everything about the smooth animation’s well-made and it’s one of my favorite things about the game.
The sound’s fantastic, with 8-bit style sound and music tracks that make me wish that the soundtrack was purchasable so I could listen to it all the time. The tracks are fantastic, and never did they once get old. The sound effects are great as well – although I did have a problem with how similarly the sound of killing an enemy and the sound of getting hit were, as I wouldn’t realize I was getting hit at times until I was down to one heart.
The game itself will probably take you around six hours to beat the first time through and while I wish it had some more replay ability, the game’s only $5 on Steam, so you’re getting incredible value for what you are paying. The game has a lot of heart and soul poured into it from the developers and I can’t honestly wait to see what Paleozoic makes next.
Olympia Rising is a love letter to the platformers of old, while also adding its own unique touches, like the combo system and the use of magic jumps. The art and music are incredible, and the game has really tight controls. You’re getting more than your money’s worth with this title, and any fan of old school platformers or platformers in general should try it out.
It’s easy enough that anyone can enjoy it, but difficult enough that it feels like a challenge. Olympia Rising‘s a fantastic game that I can say I would wholeheartedly recommend to any fan of the genre, and I look forward to any of Iola’s adventures in the future.
A code for Olympia Rising was provided by Paleozoic for review purposes.