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1987/Tecmo ....Review by Polas - 1/8/03.... |
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1987/Tecmo ....Review by Polas - 1/8/03.... |
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Although there are many games I could definitely say this for, this game should have been done a lot sooner. There were a few things holding it up, however. For one thing, I think this game is great, and not because it contains evil pizzas, horrible gameplay, a retarded story, or anything of the kind. It's actually a good game; imagine that. Sure, there's some wacky 1987 NES crap to be discussed as per the usual, but still, there's a lot less stuff to poke fun at than I normally do, as this is an all-time favorite. The other reason is that there was a PS2 version hitting in late 2002, the first new Rygar in 15 years, and I wanted to wait until that one came along. I can safely say that it's a great game and does justice to the original, but the original is the one I'm here to talk about today, although I may do a few comparisons, so let's get to it.
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Tecmo had actually released an arcade version of Rygar the year before this one was released, and it was more of a typical side-scroller. Fun, but not terribly original. Some changes were made to the NES version, and what resulted was an adventure game with several different aspects of gameplay, and for my money a game that rivaled the Marios, Zeldas, Ninja Gaidens, and so forths of its time. I'm sure there was a story somewhere, something about Rygar being a resurrected warrior brought back to save "Argool", which was luckily changed to "Argus" 15 years later, which sounds a bit better. If you want a deep Rygar story, grab the PS2 version. If you want one typical of this site, ask a hermit. You'll see what I mean soon enough, but first we have to take a look at our hero and see what he and his giant spiked yo-yo can do.
That's right, Rygar was one of the first innovators of yo-yos as video game weapons. On top of that, he had the good sense to grab the biggest Duncan he could find, slap some spikes on it, and give it a name like "Diskarmor" so the bad guys wouldn't make fun of him.
Many years later, Rygar would be able to use his Diskarmor to swing, grapple, combo attack enemies, basically everything that you need items and magic to do in this game. The only thing the Diskarmor is good for is whackin', but it serves its purpose well. And the more enemies you kill, the greater rewards you recieve. One constant Rygar theme is "destroy as much as you possibly can". Sometimes, defeated enemies will drop the following:
POTION: As you hopefully came reasonably close to guessing, the potion restores one unit of life. There are other ways to refill life, but they aren't quite as handy. In addition, the potion isn't dropped nearly as often as our next item.
STAR: Stars give Rygar mind points, which in turn allow him to use magic. There are also double stars, but I forgot to take a shot of them, so you'll have to take my word for it. Don't worry, the tried and true subscreen will help paint you a clearer picture.
Your mind points are the (up to) 7 blueish-white bars in the left menu. One star = 1 mind point. In order to attain the highest possible level of confusion, your abilities are on the right, under "potential". For 3 mind points, you can extend the length of your Diskarmor, every man's dream and pretty useful, since it lasts until you die. Attack & Assail costs 5, and sucks. When you attack, it affects all enemies on screen, which would be great if it didn't last for about 3 seconds. Never use Attack & Assail. Recover refills all of your life. Once you use Power Up to make your chain bigger, always save up you can recharge all your energy if need be. "Tone" and "Last" are built for every enemy you destroy. Respectively, they make you stronger (less hits to kill enemies), and give you extra circles on your life bar. Which, again, is why you should kill everything.
See those 5 items in the lower right? Those are 4 of the 5 Indora treasures, plus a grappling hook, and even though several of them are pretty close to horribly useless, you still need all 5 to gain access to the final level. The top 3 items are used to traverse: grappling hook, wind pulley, and crossbow. The grappling hook is the only item not obtained from an Indora, but ironically, it's the most useful, as holding up/down and pressing B can find a lot of shortcuts or get you out of trouble. The wind pulley, as seen above, allows you to cross ropes, although good luck lining it up right on the overhead screens. The crappy crossbow lets you shoot ropes in order to cross certain pits that don't already have them. Got it? Too bad. The bottom two are the Armor and Coat of Arms. I noticed no difference in Rygar with the Armor, but the Coat of Arms proves your worth to a bunch of hermits, who will give you a potion (bottom left), that can be used to refill all your life. Combined with Recover magic, that should help even the suckiest of players. The final item is the flute, which must be tootled on after collecting the 5 Indora treasures at a certain specific area in the game to reach the last level. :Takes a breath: OK, I can't wait any longer. It's time for what everyone came here to see: the topless old men!
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I knew you'd like it. The happy fellow on the left is Hermit, and his slightly less angry cousin is Indora, differentiated by the furrowed brow and funky tattoo. Indoras aren't very common, usually only found after defeating a boss. That makes sense, because they're polite, and give you a free item; we can't have a lot of that.
Much more often, you'll run into a Hermit. If you're lucky, you'll meet one that will refill your life or give you a free grappling hook, but mostly, you'll get "words of wisdom." Now, I'm not saying that these guys are as incoherent as old men in other games of the time, but they aren't exactly "Dear Abby" on the advice front either.
You can't really complain about advice like that. Sure, you may not know what the hell a "Garloz" is, but at least the guy gave it a shot. Unfortunately, the Hermits tend to often get a little more cryptic, and quite possibly, hopped up on something:
Damn Hermits. But the first one wasn't lying. You see, Gran Mountain and Garloz are the two "hub" areas of the game, in that all other levels and areas are accessible from them only. However, only Garloz itself and the Tower with the Boss Gauntlet are reached by way of Gran Mountain, so you'll be doing a lot of exploring in the overhead area of Garloz.
As you can see, in Garloz you'll do a lot of dealing with the enemy in the "Introduction" banner, and you'll damn sure run into the evil tree as well. If you're wondering, you don't tangle with the big robot or the pain in the ass rock/egg-dropping shriveled bird until a bit later. And no, I have no idea why there's a robot in a game such as this, although I suppose the Greco-Roman history the PS2 version focuses on was considered about as much as any other 1987 NES game considered things that make sense. And that's why we love them. From Garloz, after collecting the required items, you'll be able to reach a bunch of new areas.
That's one reason I enjoy this game so much, the varied environments and the expansive soundtrack. But Rygar isn't all hunky old guys and sunset backdrops, oh no. It's time to look at the bosses you'll come across in this bad boy.
The first in our lineup is Eruga, and damned if this isn't one of the toughest bosses in the game. And yes, he's the first one you'll encounter. Some bosses can be handled out of order, but not this guy. Next is Saliga, who's only in the game to fill the "evil spider" quota required of 80's NES games, as he's one of the game's suckier bosses. The thing to his right is Belzar, who falls somewhere in between; depending on how high your "tone" and "last" are, he can either give you a hard time or no problems at all. And finally, Dorago, who's actually related to the last boss of another game covered on this site. That's not all though, because to get the Pegasus Flute, you need to run a whole gauntlet of bosses. Strange bosses.
What they basically did is take Eruga, clone him, then turn the pair into giant snails. See, everyone can call a giant evil spider coming a mile away by now, but a giant two-headed snail? You have to give it up for that one. If that weren't enough, there's the second out-of-place enemy of the game, the treadmill dinosaur. His patterns are similar to Sagula's, but you'll probably be too caught up with the realization that you're fighting a treadmill dinosaur to notice the easiness of the fight. Then there's the final peg in the board: the last two-headed monster of the game. About damn time. He's not too bad either with good timing. The last palace and boss, however, are a different story. Good luck reaching LIGAR, the great evil king of all things beastly, or something like that.
I've decided that Ligar is just too horrible to gaze upon, so you'll have to reach him yourself. Actually, that's what a lot of old NES manuals would do to make sure you played the game, a trick I'm now invoking. I will say this: you know a last boss is badass when his weapons are the severed heads of the previous boss. So if not to save the mighty land of Argool, play Rygar for your old pal Polas. Bastard thinks he's so high and mighty with his little question mark.
I loved Rygar as a kid, and I still love it now. PS2 Rygar is also a great game, and I encourage you to play both by any means necessary. Rygar the first was an oft-overlooked entry into the Adventure genre, and everyone should give it a go. You know I'm telling the truth when it was good enough to get me off of my lazy ass to put it on the site.
