Rygar: The Legendary Adventure

"Painfully Beautiful"

I have a bone to pick with Tecmo. As of now, I have an appointment with my optometrist this evening because I'm going blind. Alright, maybe I don't, but I should have scheduled one. My eyes are burning.

See, last night I played through Rygar in one sitting and I didn't blink at all. Not even once. I was afraid that if I shut my eyes, even for a millisecond, I would miss something. Lucky for me, I didn't miss one smooth polygon of the game. On the other side, however, would be that I had to sit through the atrocious boss battles that were terribly construed with the intent of adding ''challenge'' to the game when, in fact, they only made me appreciate the actual break-everything game play more than I already did. That, and the battles made me throw my controller into my carpet like I was spiking a football.

First things first, though. The story is supposedly based on Greek mythology in the same way that Legacy of Kain is written with coherency; loosely. As the ''story'' unfolds, Rygar of Ardus is given the chance to rescue Princess Harmonia from the evil clutch of the Titans. You, as the strapping Rygar, must seek out the three Diskarmors that were used hundreds of years ago to defeat the dark god Chronus, who is apparently coming back to raise hell, again.

The voice acting is terrible. I have heard mediocre voice acting, and this doesn't even compare to the likes of the average acting skills showcased in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. The voice talent sounds as if they were woken up out of a drunken stupor and given the roles on the spot. I can respect bad voice acting, like the B-movie style of the original Resident Evil, but this is just unacceptable. There were times where I actually laughed out loud while watching the scenes because the dialogue and the presentation was so bad. Then again, playing Rygar for the story is like reading Playboy for the articles.

The game play is similar to the recently released aforementioned Castlevania, each game resembling the other in certain aspects. However, where LoI had the player running from corridor to corridor, a majority of Rygar is spent in the great outdoors, with each area having a distinctive feel to it. Even though there are few different enemy types with the only difference being palette swaps, I never found myself growing bored of the hack-and-slash style of the fighting. Ironically enough, there is more to destroy in the in-game environments than when fighting enemies. Almost everything you see, from pillars to rocks, arches to statues; most of it can be destroyed with a few swings from the Diskarmor. This level of environmental interaction is a rarity, even now in 2004.

The meat of the game has you running around some of the most beautiful worlds ever constructed on a console, hands down. This is consistent throughout the game, but is even more apparent in the Poseidonia Shrine, where the crisp, bright colors of the area practically sear your retinas. At the beginning of that level, there is an area where you are in a pool of water that leads to the steps of the Shrine, and to this day I have never seen anything like it. It's truly majestic.

What is also majestic, and very dramatic, is the soundtrack, which was recorded by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. This is big budget music we're talking here, like something that may have been penned by John Williams. There is a grandiose vibe that is saturated in the game, conveyed through the in-game soundtrack. The sound effects are also worthy of being noted here. There's just something magical about hearing a giant larva-beetle fall from the ceiling and hit the marbled floor with a loud ''SPLAT''. Clings and clangs are abound here, as well.

There are two glaring flaws that I noticed when I played through the adventure. Primarily, the bosses are more of a nuisance than an enjoyable experience. With the exception of the first Sphinx fight, every boss that I faced was full of cheap hits and attacks that were hard to avoid, due to the cinematic nature of the camera. I can understand a challenge, but there's a difference between difficulty and being cheap. To be honest, as I progressed through the game I became more and more disappointed with its structure, with two and sometimes three boss fights in a row between saves, all of them being a huge pain to overcome.

Another huge flaw is the game's length. My save data was completed with only three hours and eleven minutes on the timer. I literally finished this game in one sitting. There are rewards and unlockables that you can get depending on certain conditions that need to be met, like different Diskarmors and difficulty levels, but there isn't much motivation to play through the game again unless you like getting beat to a pulp by a giant, poorly programmed five-headed baby demon. I don't mean a little devil, I mean a demon with five crying baby heads. Very strange, but in a bad way. However, there is the ''One World'' setting that is unlocked when you finish the game, which allows you to play through any one of the game's seven lavish levels at your leisure without the hazards of backtracking and story progression. And yes, in this game, story progression could be considered a hazard.

Final Notes

I have very mixed feelings about Rygar: The Legendary Adventure, as you can tell from my roller coaster up-and-down review. Although there are some excellent qualities to the game, such as the music and the sheer beauty of the title, there are also some very ugly qualities as well. The plot and dialogue performance are hard to take seriously, and the boss fights are horrible. So, the more I played, the more my feelings fluctuated in respect for the game.

I guess you could say that Rygar is like a cheerleader with fake breasts and a low IQ. Sure, she's great to look at, and she's fun for a while, but don't expect any redeeming commitment.

Just take her home for a night; that will be more than enough.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/04