"Don't be a yo-yo, swing a spiked one!"

Old games I like fall into two categories: the one where careful analysis will show their innovation, and most others are too lazy to see it(wah, wah) or the one where other people BETTER be able to see why it's so good within five minutes. Rygar is of the second type. It's a right scrolling game and while on the one hand you just need to make it quickly through 27 levels and a final boss, I found it's more fun to try to beat up as many monsters as possible along the way. The game doesn't pretend to have a terribly original object(become the world's new dominator) but on the other hand it's a wonderful enough world to get any strongman's conquestual juices flowing.

And what a cool weapon you get to dominate with! It's a gigantic spiked ball on what seems to be an elastic leash. You can swing it left or right, or you can attack upwards--this makes your circle go in an arc, which can miss some monsters close in, but often you can knock out monsters who crouch halfway off the top of the screen when you combine this with a jump move. Your ball can even take out fire that occasionally shoots through the air. And then there are power-ups which aid you immensely on the way to being, as the game describes in the introduction, a new dominator. I didn't even know what they were at first, but I had so much fun hacking through until then. I didn't even bother with technicalities.

Ironically the most useful power-up may be the one that lets you fire straight up instead of in an arc, but you can also gain more range or get more destructive. You can also turn your jump deadly. Before that, the weaker enemies are stunned when you jump on them, and they cower for a bit. And there's invincibility which still tends to run when you complete a level. All these and a nice ditty once one of them pops out--they tend to do so at random, behind easily breakable brown circles that rise from the ground. You can also pick up more time for a level and cool emblems which don't do anything, or even stars(get seven for 70000,) or an extra life. So there are plenty of goodies.

And you'll get to see many sights if you're willing to plunk down the money. You can continue until level twenty--I did, way back when the arcade version was more common. Now Rygar has a new power-up(ahem) to maim ad infinitum that may be Machiavellian, but it's worth it. NARC was the only game similar to it with fast-action continues, but it was a bit silly, and Karnov reached with the weirdness on later levels and was incredibly hard as well. Rygar feels about right--as you first face exotic monsters with new leaping moves you'll certainly get packed off, but you continue exactly where you died with a two-second mulligan. Lack of progress is never an option except perhaps for that one beautiful waterfall scene where you have to jump across thin islands and you haven't mastered jumping yet.

The monsters are general cross-species thugs with the subtlety of their moves reflecting how exotic they are. There are weird tan tigers that crouch in a very narrow rectangular position--you have to duck to nail them. Then there are perfectly gray grunts and birds that drop warriors from above--sometimes they'll swoop low. It's all random and despite these monsters being relatively unthreatening you need to avoid overconfidence. Other monsters come in slowly from a distance and leap at you, some of them jumping through blocks you have to bounce on. Rygar has occasional cheap shots like this, or like two monsters walking so they almost overlap. I guess the game wants to let you enjoy the scenery for the few seconds' wait after you lose a life. I prefer to do it while hanging around near level's end waiting for monsters to destroy as long as they aren't too tough.

Some of the other nastier ones fit in well with the game and will definitely get you the first few times. Natives often exit from cave-holes on a ledge above and drop down on each side of you. There are rhinoceroses that slowly narrow when you hit them until they collapse in bones, then warriors come by riding them and throwing axes. Only one monster is actually ugly, but it does cool stuff anyway. It's a weird skinny golden imp that unrolls a tongue as long as it is tall. With all those monsters running around it can be tricky to hack through, but some even resort to organized teamwork to defeat you as they form a wall which collapses down toward you, unless you destroy it first for a nice bonus.

But the background also adds some welcome flavor--the cave holes may be in a cliff side or ledge, for instance, and in levels without really tall structure you'll have an underground lava area where monsters spin around before they bubble up. There's not much in the way of bosses before the final big fellow and they vanish even if they defeat you, but they're about three times your size and bounce back and forth and usually have annoying monsters you thought you'd mastered assisting them. I think the creators may have run out of imagination with a few too many cave levels(you climb up a rope, with large licky frog-gargoyles on each side and a mongo-bat dropping larvae as bullets from above--it's long even with the right power-up and undetailed) but they only ran out because they ran their course.

You have the at-the-time innovative(and still enthralling) foreground scrolling faster than the background, and often there will be tall dead trees(you can jump on some) or a cliff wall or icy mountains in the background. You've probably seen forests in any other game, but not the gorgeous red sky with a sunset in another, and although you can argue that these cover all the stereotypical worlds in a platformer, there's never an outright explicit theme. Heck, even the giant bogey that runs from the left when you've run out of time is cool. I do recommend playing chicken with the timer to build up a score, if only to see him once--and possibly still beat him to the exit.

With all this they even manage to fit a small general snapshot of the level in one corner--a box flashes to show where your at and although it's a bit pessimistic it can remind you of what's coming up. It's a very customer service oriented game especially for one that doesn't easily bring any such mundane phrase to mind. And it sounds cool, too; the eerie introduction features a simple scale that rises a bit more quickly at the end with a few forceful notes to top it off. There's a half-boogie beat in the background(D-d-C-c-E-c repeating) and the end of levels where you enter the secluded temple cave and cut off the bonus is really pleasant. The power up tune also gives a burst of energy.

I liked Rygar even when I couldn't make full sense of it--it's one of those games I felt had it all, and will still have it all even as others surpass it in technology. I enjoyed it before I knew what was going on and after I'd been through the cycle, and I have few worries I'll still enjoy it. The mystique eclipses just 'what does this cool power up do?' or 'What's this monster?' There are many ways to praise Rygar's apparent simplicity or surprisingly precocious complexity. It's a fast paced game and as you get better and understand the power ups it becomes a real challenge to hack through as many monsters as possible(that's what a TRUE dominator does,) and it's random enough that mundane patterns are out. I suppose if someone wants to dominate the world for the next X years, he better be able to put up with a little unfair stuff. Rygar's been at it since 1986 and he hasn't been vanquished yet from the hearts of many old school gamers.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/11/01, Updated 07/24/03