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Rygar is one of the few classic NES games that slipped by me
in my youth. I wasn't foaming at the mouth when the PS2 remake was
announced. Nevertheless (being a sucker for Roman history and good
games in general) I decided to check out Rygar: The Legendary
Adventure, with the hope that Tecmo was kinder to its classic
franchises than companies like Midway, for example. What awaited me
was a fun game. That is, while it lasted.
Rygar: The Legendary Adventure takes place immediately after
the Roman conquest of Egypt in the 1st century B.C. A Roman warrior
named Rygar (surprise, surprise) is receiving an honor from
the Princess of the city-state of Argus when a group of terrible
creatures attacks, capturing the princess and tossing Rygar
into a deep chasm. Below the surface of the Earth, Rygar
discovers a weapon known as the Diskarmor, essentially a
spike-covered shield on a long chain. Now armed and determined to
save the princess (like any good video game protagonist), Rygar
embarks on a journey to defeat the beasts and return the world to
normal. As far as plots go, it's not particularly original. There
are some twists that can be shocking, depending on how much you know
about Roman history. Needless to say, the game takes some liberties
with ancient events, but nothing out of line with the theme of the
story.
The time period does lend itself to an epic setting for the game.
Rygar traverses a variety of environments with a classical Roman
flair, from a Roman temple to Arcadia in the sky to Hades itself.
What's more, for the demolitionist residing within all of us, all
the environments are fully destructible. If you've ever looked at
the Coliseum and wanted to smash it up, then you’ll have a field day
with this game. In fact, it's generally in the player's best
interests to smash everything in sight, because downed architecture
will often yield items or other goodies.
Rygar: The Legendary Adventure teeters between being a
straight action game and an adventure game with puzzle-solving
elements. There are puzzles to be solved, but without any inventory
to speak of (other than a small variety of Diskarmors) most puzzle
solving is reduced to breaking everything in sight and hoping that
you open up the next area that you're supposed to progress to. So
the general flow of the game is as follows: Smash monsters, smash
scenery, and move on. Obviously, if you like smashing stuff, Rygar
is the game for you.
The Diskarmors add to the smashing fun by making for a unique combat
mechanic. A Diskarmor is essentially a really mean yo-yo on a really
long string, so it handles differently than the usual fantasy
weapon. There are actually three different Diskarmors; one attacks
straight and at a distance, a second has a medium range and in a
wide arc to hit multiple enemies at once, and the third has a short
range but has a very fast attack. This adds a bit of strategy in
that each has its uses in different situations, and choosing the
appropriate Diskarmor can occasionally mean the difference between
victory and defeat.
To be honest, it would more likely mean the difference between
victory and less impressive victory. The enemies, as a whole, are
easily vanquished; from beginning to end, the only time I actually
ran out of health was during boss battles, which can be quite
challenging. Other than that, run-of-the-mill enemies seem to be
more to break up the wandering around and provide an opportunity to
obtain power-ups. That's not to say it isn't fun (even therapeutic)
to make all those ugly monsters go splorch, but it isn't
particularly taxing either.
Control is simple but effective. X jumps, square and circle both
perform a primary attack, and triangle performs a secondary attack.
These attacks can be strung together into combos (which are listed
in the main menu), though basic attacks are often more effective
than long, complex combos for most of the combat in the game. R1 and
L1 blocks, and L2 and R2 cycle through the available Diskarmors.
It’s a very natural, action-oriented control scheme, and it's
extremely easy to pick up.
Rygar gets high marks for its graphics, which really go a long way
to create the epic Roman atmosphere. The settings are well detailed
and seem authentic, at least until you reduce them to pebbles, that
is. Character animation, while a bit jerky at times, is well done
and generally quite smooth. While there is the occasional bout of
haze and jagginess, overall Rygar looks slick, as one would
expect from a current PlayStation 2 game.
One thing that may not win acclaim from most players is the complete
lack of camera control. Rygar employs fixed camera angles, like one
might find in games like Onimusha or Eternal Darkness. This
occasionally does create a really cool cinematic effect; most
notably one scene toward the end of the game where Rygar is
running up a staircase to the top of a temple, the camera is pulled
back very far to give a sense of the temple's enormity. As often as
the effect is well used, it is problematic. The sudden perspective
change that accompanies a switch from one camera angle to another
can be extremely disorienting, even headache-inducing. The fixed
angle is also a hindrance when jumping from one precarious ledge to
another (which happens quite often in this game) including one
inexplicable sequence that involves a seemingly endless number of
jumps between floating pieces of rock. The often awkward camera
angles aren't a deal breaker for this game, as it is not all that
difficult to handle with the exception of a few specific areas. It
would have been nice for the designers to allow for at least some
rudimentary camera control.
The audio provided for Rygar is among the best I've come
across in recent memory. While the voice acting is decent (though
occasionally a bit overdone), the music is what steals the show.
Recorded by the Moscow Philharmonic, the game's orchestrated score
adds to the epic adventure movie feel of the game. There were
certain areas where I was convinced I was still in the movie theater
listening to the background music from the new Lord of the Rings
movie, rather than sitting in front of my television playing a video
game. Rygar's score is a testament to how far video game
music has come.
One area to note that I usually don't notice in the normal course of
gameplay (but struck me with Rygar) was the poor localization that
was done on the game's text. While the spoken text is occasionally
iffy and/or hokey (but comprehensible), the in-game messages really
need some clarification. One message that comes up often is "Gained
10 build up points by Sfaira." Even having played through the entire
game, and knowing what the "build up points" are, I'm still not sure
what/who Sfaira is, and I know that can't possibly be
well-structured English. It’s not quite to the level of "All your
base are belong to us," but it's pretty close at times, and Tecmo
really could have taken another week or so to iron these grammatical
issues out.
Overall, Rygar was a lot of fun, despite its problems.
Unfortunately, with game time topping out at six hours (including a
decent amount of aimless wandering) I simply can't recommend it as a
purchase. As a rental, Rygar is an excellent game, but just doesn't
provide the lasting entertainment value that one expects when
spending $50 on a video game. The six hours that I got out of the
game were fun, but I was simply left wanting more; while that is the
mark of a good entertainer, it is not the mark of an excellent video
game. Any fan of action-adventure games and straight-up smashing
stuff should certainly give Rygar a shot, but don't let that thirst
for destruction harm your bank account in the process.
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