Glory of Heracles

 Glory of Heracles definitely seems to fit the mold of being someone's first RPG, neatly fitting Nintendo's business model of accessibility. The cell-shaded art style, and well-animated sprites are nice, yet when met with a boring storyline, confined overworld, and an under-achieving battle system makes this something to avoid, and hard to recommend to even the openly naive of the genre.
    The story follows the journey of an immortal warrior Heracles, the son of Zeus, and his band of fellow immortals trekking to Mount Olympus to discover their fates. The supporting cast consists of a narcissistic pretty boy, a tomboy, a wise cracking brute, and another girl devoid of personality. There's really no reason to define them any other way, the characters are all pretty shallow. The only real dilemma I could ascertain was that two of the cast claim to be the true Heracles, yet the main character seems to remain borderline comatose, only speaking to confirm that there's really nothing else keeping this story from falling completely flat.
    The score spans about 4 songs. So, by the end of the game you'll be quite tired of hearing it, regardless of how competent and reminiscent the victory music is of Final Fantasy's "Fanfare".
    As one comes to expect, the combat is turn-based with abilities and spells obtained through altars and equipment. The spellcasting system consists of minigames varying in difficulty depending on the strength of the spell. Each piece of equipment can bear 3 traits: an active, combat ability, a passive ability, and a spell. Items and equipment can be synthesized, and rusty equipment can be found out in the field and forged anew or sold for scrap. There's a wide array of strategies to be taken, allowing for each character to assume a certain role in battle, whether it be supportive, or as a tank. Yet, a lot of it goes to waste since the combat is so easy, leading you to relying on a handful of abilities and spells for the sake of expediency.
    Glory of Heracles is competent at best, with a middling story and combat mechanics that aren't fully utilized due to the pushover difficulty, with its visuals being the only arguably redeeming quality. There's really no way I could recommend a game that seems to require a minimal amount of engagement to actually play.