Review #490: Rygar - The Legendary Adventure

 A Greek and Roman fusion of melodrama with a dash of Onimusha and God of War.

Of shields and gods and titans.

 Rygar - The Legendary Adventure is a bit of forgotten little game. it did the greek-action game-with-chained weapons thing years before God of War was a thing, and closely followed in the footsteps of Onimusha and Devil May Cry. I can't say for sure why it was forgotten by time, although the Wii-remake with motion controls and a white-haired ridiculous replacement for Rygar probably didn't help its reputation, but I can say that the game stand the test of time quite well.

 In the game you play as the eponymous Rygar, a gladiator in a world that's a fusion of Roman and Greek culture. He's about to be rewarded by a sort-of princess, who gets kidnapped and Rygar thrown to the pits of the colosseum. But it's alright, a deity confers Rygar with the Diskarmor, a shield with an edge that's chained to Rygar's arm, which works for both offense and defense, armed with it Rygar now ventures forth to brave the gods and titans and whatever stands in his way. The story is alright, but the voice acting, dialogue and script is... Horrible. Seriously, it's bad, it's cheesy and it takes itself seriously, characters will spit exposition just because and it makes no sense. Sadly, while I'm the kind of person that adores ridiculous, over-the-top stories... this one doesn't quite hit that sweetspot of 'so bad it's good', so it's just dumb. And if you die, which you probably will, you can't skip cutscenes... although you can skip the credits. And did I mention that there's a Britney Spears look-alike that performs a musical number near the end of the game? That's a thing that happened.

Worms are considered Titans in this game, and you'll be slaying a lot of those.

 The game borrows a lot from Onimusha and Devil May Cry, meaning fixed camera angles and a mixture of exploration and combat. As you play through the game you'll come across obstacles that you can't clear, such as long gaps or switches you can't press... but advancing through the game will earn you the abilities you need, such as turning your disk armor into a grappling hook or stomping on switches. Backtracking is never needed, the few times you are sent back to previous areas you have immediate access to new roads, but re-exploring previous areas with new abilities will usually reward you with collectibles to enhance your abilities or unlock stuff in the gallery.

 While it has a combo-counter, the game is more Onimusha than Devil May Cry, so no fancy juggling, even though you get various different combos, some that must be found, and two attack buttons(Square for weak attacks, Triangle for stronger moves). You can block with the R1 button, but there's no dodging, although I found the slide move useful to dodge some boss' projectiles. There's also a magic gauge that can be used to summon monsters, but I found their damage output to be pathetic in comparison to the damage I could do with combos, so in the end I just used my magic to heal, once I found the ability, and only used summons on the second-to-last-boss which requires you to do so.

The game looks beautiful, and there's a lot of different environments to traverse.

 You'll find three different disk armors, and each one has a different use. The Hades shield is for long-range attacks, the Heaven disk is very slow but covers a wide area and the Sea diskarmor is very fast, but has pathetic range and does little damage. Every shield feels different, and I did switch between them(L2/R2) throughout the game, because the game presented situations that favored different disks. For instance, while I favor the Sea diskarmor, it was risky closing in on some bosses so I had to use the Hades shield, and at times there were too many enemies and I couldn't dispatch them quickly enough with the Sea diskarmor, so I had to switch to the Heaven shield and deal with them. The three disks were implemented brilliantly, so kudos for that.

 You can level up Rygar stats(Life, Attack and Defense) by finding collectibles, some are hidden behind objects or hidden walls, but sometimes enemies will drop these too. There's a separate currency, Sfaira, that can be found in the same way, but these are used to power up your shields. Your shields will be maxed before you know it, so don't worry about grinding. Lastly, hidden in the game are Mystic stones that you can equip on your shields for extra abilities, like healing with L1 and square, more attack power, more defense, changing how some attacks work, etc. It's a fairly neat addition, and some stones can only be found on certain difficulty settings!

When in doubt, flee.

 The game starts off rather tough, but as you level up Rygar it'll get easier, trust me. You also need to get used to how the game works, since combat against bosses is more... methodical. Don't expect to pull-off entire combos, instead, you'll probably have to look for small openings, land in a few hits and retreat. You'll also need to figure out what can be blocked and what must be dodged and how. You can't just mash buttons willy-nilly either, since once you throw the first attack you'll be locked in that direction for the duration of the combo. It's not perfect, it's a bit stiff, but you can get used to it. The game runs for about 4 hours, probably more if you are more meticulous with your exploration.

 Rygar the Legendary Adventure is a good little game that fell through the cracks of most gamer's radars even though critical reception at the time was fairly positive. Which is a shame, since the game was pretty good at its time, and it's still really good now. It's most glaring detriment, probably, is that nothing about it is noteworthy and how much it lacks in visual spectacle, because as good as the environments are, there's little memorable about the action itself.
 7.5 out of 10