Rygar: The Battle of Argus Review (Nintendo Wii)

Over twenty years have passed since gamers fell in love with Rygar for the NES. It was an action game that we instantly fell in love with. Back then it wasn’t about the story, just the novelty of playing video games. Six years ago, Tecmo reintroduced the world to Rygar with Rygar: The Legendary Adventure on the PS2. Sure the story was uninspired, but a well-written videogame story was still mainly considered an “RPG thing.” The title showed off the brilliant graphics of the PS2, and had an epic soundtrack that complimented the vibrant settings.

Now Rygar is back in Tecmo’s latest remake for the Nintendo Wii, Rygar: The Battle of Argus. Unfortunately, unlike sports jerseys, some things are better left in the past. The Rygar remake is really just Rygar for PS2 reprogrammed to run on the Wii. You’ll get the same fun gameplay, but really there’s no reason to get this title if you’ve played the PS2 version. Rygar on the Wii feels more like a wannabe 3D game stuck in a 2D body.

The story takes place sometime after the Roman Empire’s conquest of Egypt. Argus was an island controlled by Rome. The mundane cardboard-pop-up storybook begins there. Princess Harmonia shares a dream she’s having with you, Rygar; a dream that just happens to be the same dream you’re having. After that, all hell breaks loose. The forces of Darkness, known as Titans, stop in on your conversation to kidnap the princess. Sound familiar? It should. The story sounds like it was ripped out of the pages of King Koopa stealing Princess Peach, Gannon stealing Princess Zelda or any other fantasy title.

The story doesn’t get much better after the opening. You’ll get a quick cut scene here and there that will only annoy you. The voice acting screams lame, and being accustomed to next-gen graphics, you’ll probably feel like the graphics are ripped from the original NES Rygar.

As Rygar your armed with a unique weapon called the Diskarmor. This is actually a pretty cool weapon; the Diskarmor is a blend of a shield and chain with iron spikes. Sadly, there are only a few types of attacks to do with your weapon. Swing around a giant caterpillar once or twice and you’ll never want to do it again. Why? This is a button presser - you can get through a fight by hacking away at the A and B buttons. From time to time defense may be in order, which will require a simple block or a slide.

Rygar can also move around by jumping, however the Z button is inconvenient and you’ll find yourself at the bottom of a cliff on more than one occasion.

The graphics of Rygar still hold up to the PS2 version. But, that was six years ago. The bosses are still brilliantly designed, though the setting just isn’t able to hold up as well. The textures in The Battle of Argus are mostly dull and lack any real definition. On the brighter side, the maps do have some visual depth, and you will quickly notice that with a little more tender love and care, the designers could have made ok locations into visually appealing worlds. They just chose not to.

From time to time you will experience texture pop, but it’s nothing overtly distracting. I just wish that it wasn’t there. This only happened on the outdoor settings, which drastically trump the interior caverns in aesthetics. The only drawback to outdoors is that there is no area map.

As you journey through the land of Argus, you will come across the occasional locked door. Journey around for a bit and you will find some form of horse statue to move that will trigger the door to open. What I found strange here was that Rygar immediately knew what to do with the horse statue. Instead of having to experiment with it as a potential puzzle, simply hit the A button and Rygar will lift the statue, turn it around, and Walla - open door.

Rygar does have one addition beyond its PS2 forefather. Gladiator mode pits you against an endless army of monsters. This mode is questionably designed as it was programmed with an entirely different attack engine. Instead of pressing A and B, you will need to swing the Wii Remote to get off an attack. Needless to say, throwing in a completely different style of game did not result in fluid gameplay for Gladiator mode.

The music is the same epic music from Rygar for PS2. Seasoned gamers will find it distracting as the music hardly matches the pacing of the game or the trite story.

Rygar: The Battle for Argus is another reason why people have just not felt rewarded by their purchase of the Nintendo Wii. It’s sad to see that publishers have yet to step up and create a game that truly pushes the limits of this console and makes full use of the Wii Remote dynamics. Instead of making remakes for the Wii from vestiges of the past, it would be better for the console and game sales if publishers made completely new titles, or just stop making remakes completely.