However, "The Battle of Olympus" does have a sword later in the game that can shoot beams, but doing so damages the health bar if a certain item is not found first. "The Battle of Olympus" is somewhat non-linear and there are some optional side quests that can make the game easier in the long run, leading to a secret item or power-up from one of the gods. The final battle brings to the Temple of Hades in fight with the ruler of the underworld in a two-stage event. The first is a blind fight against a shadow reflection, and then the final form is of Hades himself. It was developed by Infinity, and was the first game from the company. The dev team for the game was quite small, with only three members. Yokio Horimoto served as designer and programmer for the game. Kazuo Sawa was the composer, and Reiko Oshida did story and graphics. Designer Hoshimoto drew inspiration from "" for gameplay. Similarities include a final confrontation with a shadow, and similar skills, and general appearance of the game. It was one of several NES games inspired by "Zelda II", which include "Moon Crystal", and "Faxanadu". It was published by Imagineer as "Olympus no Tatakai" and released in Japan on March 28, 1988. In North America it was released in December 1989, and published by Brøderbund. It was released in Europe in 1991 and published by Nintendo. There's also a 1993 Game Boy port of the same game that was published by Imagineer for the European market. Despite its strong resemblance to the NES original, Infinity had no involvement in that version and was instead ported by the Canadian developer Radical Entertainment. Japanese game magazine "Famitsu" gave it a score of 28 out of 40. Reviewers noted similarities between the game and to the earlier game, "".