There are three rush levels in the game in which the player must run forward through the map and avoid obstacles without being able to stop or fight.

The player's health can be increased by picking up Hercules Action Figures and drinking Herculade cups found throughout the game.

Among the enemies that Hercules faces are Nessus the Centaur, the Minotaur, the Harpies, the Hydra, the Stymphalian birds, the Thebans, skeleton warriors, the Gorgon, Hades, several Titans, and a Cyclops.

[12] Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly similarly said that "Hercules takes everything you liked from old side-scrolling classics and gives them a big 32-bit boost.

"[11] On the other side, Next Generation said it "follows the style set out by every single side-scrolling action title of the 16-bit era, so much so in fact that it feels like a Genesis game: Walk from left to right, hacking at centaurs and other mythological creatures with a sword.

"[14] Most critics applauded the game's mixture of polygons and sprites, both for the high quality of those elements and the way they were seamlessly integrated with each other.

[11][12][14] At the 1999 Milia festival in Cannes, Hercules took home a "Gold" prize for revenues above €15 million in the European Union during 1998.