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Rygar: The Legendary Adventure (PS2)
Publisher:  Tecmo Developer:  Tecmo
Genre:  Action Adventure Release Date:  11/26/2002
ESRB:  Teen More Info on this Game
By Benjamin Turner | Nov. 30, 2002
Tecmo's lost hero is back in an adventure that won't be easily forgotten.
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Stunning environments, lovely symphonic soundtrack, well-done combat system, fitting voice acting, decent replay incentive. Stunning environments, lovely symphonic soundtrack, well-done combat system, fitting voice acting, decent replay incentive.

2D -> 3D

One of my favorite trends this year is the updating of classic franchises for the new generation of hardware. This has made for some pretty fun gaming over the last few months, even if titles like Contra: Shattered Soldier and Shinobi don't quite measure up to the best in their respective series. Now Tecmo is trying its luck in the remake sweepstakes with an update of Rygar, a neglected franchise that dates all the way back to 1987. Like Shinobi, Rygar: The Legendary Adventure is not so much a sequel but a reimagining of the two original games. It's a bit of an obscure choice, but with The Legendary Adventure I feel that Tecmo has succeeded in areas where Konami and Sega have recently stumbled.

The Rygar of the game's title is a powerful gladiator of Argus, who's somehow forgotten his past. He lives only to fight and to protect his princess, making him an excellent candidate for video game hero status. As always happens, he fails in the protection gig and princess Harmonia gets kidnapped. Worse, monsters overrun Argus and terrorize the people, as monsters are wont to do. A particularly ugly one casts Rygar into a pit. A normal man would have the good sense to die, but instead Rygar is awakened by an ethereal voice. "Take the diskarmor and fight," it says. "For justice!" he cries. And so the game begins.

Legendary Hero 101

Rygar: The Legendary Adventure is a beautiful game that plays almost as good as it looks. Just like the NES version, it's an action / adventure with interesting power-ups to acquire and outlandish enemies to fight. Camera angles are fixed, ala Capcom's Devil May Cry. This lets the designers give you the most dramatic view of the local environment, but can prove troublesome in moment to moment gameplay. It's annoying, for example, when you move Rygar over a boundary and the camera angle switches suddenly, reversing your controls mid-step.

While the game has the action / adventure framework of its ancestor, its frequent combat plays out very similarly to Devil May Cry. Rygar's armed with a shield-like bladed disc called a diskarmor. It's a very versatile weapon that can be swung about on its chain, latched into enemies, used to swing over gaps, and much more. Three variations are available, each with unique traits and uses. The diskarmor strikes me as the 3D evolution of Castlevania's classic whip, and it's pretty fun to knock about mobs of enemies with the weapon's many attacks. It's even more fun to use it to pummel all manner of walls, statues, buildings and columns. Rygar's environments are eminently breakable, and breaking everything possible is good clean gaming fun.

Most of the game's monsters are based on ancient myths.
The only real flaw in the gameplay is the slightly obtuse control. I believe this is by design, but it's still irksome that Rygar must wait so long to block after an attack. His jumping is also a little unwieldy, with little air control and a slight delay before take-off. The worst bit is his turning, which should be instant but for some reason isn't. None of these issues is very serious in the context of the forgiving gameplay, but The Legendary Adventure could still have benefitted from somewhat tighter controls.


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