Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods

Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods is a continuation of Peter Molyneux's and his Bullfrog studio's original strategy game from 1989. The title uses the ideas known from the original but also adds new ones. The first game, according to popular opinion, is considered to be the prototype of the genre called god game.

Plot

In Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods, we play the role of a descendant of Zeus, who, before reaching the top of Olympus, must fight for his place, facing the strongest deities in the Greek pantheon. The essence of the game has remained the same here, and our goal is to take care of the development and prosperity of our followers and to cause harm to tribes worshipping other gods. Contrary to the original in which we played the role of an undefined deity, this time the whole was based on the Greek mythology.

Mechanics

We use our deity's powers to have an impact on the game world. The number of available powers has increased from eight to thirty. They are further divided into six main categories, such as earth, water, wind, fire, plants, and people. The use of each power depends on the individual mana indicator generated by the growing population of our worshipers. The larger the population, the more often we can use individual powers. As in the original, we can select a hero who leads members of our community against hostiles. In Populous II, we can create six such heroes (one for each power category), modeled on the famous Greek heroes.

Populous II: The Trials of the Olympian Gods not only looks better in terms of graphics but also surprises with its size - the game offers 1,000 different maps. We move between them depending on the result obtained in the previous skirmish. On each map, we can earn a total of five points of experience, and aspects such as the scale of victory, the number and type of power used or the length of the battle are taken into account. If we do exceptionally well, it is possible to advance even a few maps in one go.

Other

It is worth noting that Populous II received an additional disk with missions called Populous II: The Challenge Games. It offers several new challenges set in Japanese mythology.

Last updated on January 15, 2020