Hercules (pirate game)

This a bootleg original SNES game, which is an attempt to port the PS1 Hercules game to the SNES Thanks to Edgar "Mcfly" Gonzalez for sending in the pictures of the bootleg, and to Jason from Game-Rave for sending me the PS1 screenshots! By: Evan G Last updated: September 15, 2022

This is an original bootleg game that attempts to port the PS1 Hercules game to the SNES. For what it is, I actually think the pirates did a fairly decent job. They even copied the effect of Hercules carrying out the title screen! The graphics (obviously lifted from the PS1 game) and the sound are pretty good. Some of the sound effects are clearly lifted from Street Fighter II, and I wonder if they used parts of the Aladdin game engine as a template. The gameplay suffers due to the horrid frame rate, poor hit detection and long period of invincibility frames for the enemies. The difficulty in defeating the flying enemies makes it hard to get past the first level without taking it really slowly. Here are some screenshots, including comparisons of the pirate and the source material.

Title screen in the pirate, obviously lifting the font	PS1 title screen

Action scene. As can be seen, the sprite is definitely based on the PS1 game.	PS1 action scene

Swinging around. Taken from Aladdin?	These bats suck and are so hard to kill.

Options screen	Level intro screen

The pirate cart has many flaws on the label, including the serial code "SNS-TN-USA", which is for The Terminator. Amusingly, the game is called "Action Game Featuring Hercules", Compared with the PS1 title which is "Disney's Hercules: Action Game". Yeah, that is weird too.

Front of the pirate cart.

Back of the pirate cart

Close up of the label.

For comparison, here is the front of the PS1 game, which clearly was used as the basis for the bootleg.

PS1 front, from Game-Rave

Close up of the top of the label

Front of the pirate PCB

Back of the pirate PCB