athena

athena

Arcade, 1986

Athena is one of SNK’S most notable early characters, going on to appear in Psycho Soldier and numerous fighting games such as Neogeo Battle Coliseum. Her debut self-titled game remains an interesting hodgepodge of mechanics, cleverly straddling both the platformer and action genres, whilst also throwing in some neat RPG systems for good measure. Bright and colourful and with an incessantly cheerful tone, it’s little wonder Athena became such a flagship character in the company’s early days.