Rygar: The Battle of Argus (Wii) - Review by Chris

Introduction

Anyone who has had a look at the current offerings available in game stores worldwide will no doubt have noticed the slowly increasing number of ported titles making their appearance on the Wii. These have ranged from the greatly appreciated to the completely unnecessary. And so here we have Rygar: The Battle of Argus, a Tecmo developed title, which was originally released on the Playstation 2 nearly 7 years ago. We should be used to ports of titles from a few years ago but 7 is considerable period of time. So, does Rygar retain its legacy which it set out in the original or is this one better left to legend?

Gameplay

The game places you as newly crowned hero Rygar who is receiving an award for valour for his exploits in a recent naval victory. However, the ceremony doesn't go to plan as monsters appear and dispose of all of the guards and banish Rygar down a crevice into the depths of darkness after which they kidnap Princess Harmonia. Over the course of the game, the identity of these monsters will be revealed to be none other than the Titans who, according to legend, rose up against the gods in the hope of dethroning them and taking over the world only to be eventually punished and banished to hell. As Rygar it is your job to defeat the Titans, sending them back to where they came from, and rescue the princess. It's your typical adventure game story done with a slight twist but the links to Greek mythology make it an enjoyable one if you are into that kind of thing.

The story and the main game remain largely untouched from the original Playstation 2 version which begs the question of why bother porting if there are no significant additions. The main Conquest mode, which is your campaign, is sectioned off into worlds each of which will end with a huge screen filling boss battle. These boss battles present the pinnacle of the gameplay, having you constantly thinking on your feet to dodge and work out the best strategy to take these monstrosities and if you don't work it out quick enough, you'll quickly get the game over screen. These encounters seem to take a considerable step up in terms of difficulty compared with the other areas of the game. It is understandable but at some points it can seem utterly hopeless because no matter how you dodge or block, some of the boss's attacks can't be stopped and you'll end up losing half of your health bar. The rest of the game has you traverse a large areas, sometimes collecting items and power-ups, fighting numerous miscellaneous enemies, many of which are simplistic to the point you can simply run up to them and hammer the A button to dispatch them while others do require some strategy. They do however manage to get in the all too often cheap shot which does get annoying and goes to show the dated AI system at works here. The game is broke up with bots of platforming, where you'll have to swing or jump your way across platforms to get to something you need.

Outside of the considerable Conquest mode, you have a new Gladiator mode where, again, you'll control Rygar as he faces off against continuing waves of enemies which will gradually increase in difficulty. There are no unlockables or anything garnered from playing or completing this but it does add another depth to the game if you want to just senselessly defeat opponents. It's only a shame that it only supports one player. The game's modes provide adequate entertainment but they do show some ideas that feel dated compared to modern adventure titles. Even in comparison to the likes of Ocarina of Time some of it feels dated. The diskarmor which Rygar uses is still an interesting idea, with the ability to be used as a shield and a devastating weapon, and it would have been nice of Tecmo to provide a new experience instead of a ported one.

Controls

Tecmo have, thankfully, kept the controls as they should be which is button based. All attacks are carried out using the A and B buttons, with combos created by mixing them up and the only motion that comes into it is for completing some combos where a flick of the remote completes a finisher. The controls on a whole are done well yet movement seems sluggish and very imprecise, with it seeming like some directional movement is missing because some stances are impossible to get no matter how much you try. Trying to get the right angle for a jump or for attacking foes is difficult because you have no control on the camera (which moves around from a fixed angle) and there is no lock on targeting system similar to that seen in similar titles. As a result, while the controls work as best as they can, they, like the rest of the game, feel dated.

Graphics

The graphics is another area of the game where there have been minimal improvements. Character models are still presented as they were in the original version and look blocky, with low resolution textures and stiff animations. There isn't a huge variety in the enemies that you take on as earlier ones are merely coloured differently and given slightly different attacks for later in the game. The textures for the environments suffer the same problems as the character models, being incredibly blurry and looking very last generation. There has been a slight improvement in the lighting but it's hardly noticeable unless you really sit down and look for it. The game does let you destroy many of the objects littering the stages which is a nice element but there is a notable drop in frame rate on occasion when you do this or when there are several enemies on screen.

Sound

The voice-overs provided for the characters in the game are cringeworthy, making even the most important sentences sound horrible and monotonous. It's a shame really because the score is really quite good. There are clear influences of the Greek theme running through the music and it's very dramatic when it needs to be or soothing and melodic during progression through the levels. It's definitely one of the finer points of the title and one that has actually stood the test of time.

Final comments

Rygar: The Battle of Argus is a mixed bag. The game has some plus points but overall, it just feels dated compared with more immediate titles. It seems a strange move on Tecmo's behalf to release the game as it is and one can only hope that a new title in the series will come along and be worthy of the Rygar name, given how well the original NES titles is still regarded. Overall though, the game can be enjoyable and the music provides something good to listen to. It may not be able to compete with the likes of Twilight Princess or Okami but it can still hold its own against some of the other similar titles on the Wii. If you are really interested in the genre or just want something similar to the aforementioned titles, then Rygar is definitely worth a go.

Pro: Conquest mode is lengthy, score is beautiful at times
Con: The game feels dated in many areas, no real improvements over the original Playstation 2 version
Final score: 6.8

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