In my quest to briefly review and grade everything I play – I present to you the chaotic, ancient and addicting clusterfuck that is Rygar: The Legendary Adventure.

Year Released: 2002

Developer: Tecmo

Publisher: Tecmo

System(s): PlayStation 2 / Wii

Type of Third Person Game: Hack n’ Slash

Problem protagonist is preventing:

Taking place on an island in the Mediterranean named, Argus. The heroic Rygar is being honored by Princess Harmonia when a bunch of titans crash his party and start killing everybody. While ruining your ceremony and being all around dickheads they also kick Rygar down a hole. So now you play as Rygar, pissed off and doing his best to banish evil from his beloved island homeland, Argus.

Other notes:

Originally a remake from an NES game simply titled, Rygar

They remade Rygar: Legendary Adventure for the Wii in 2008 and it was absolutely hated and destroyed by critics.

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Oh.. Rygar. What a strange story you are. Well, first things first: This game is a budget bin gem. If you are like me and missed this when it dropped in 2002 fear not aspiring Greco-Roman adventurers. I found this at a used game shop for $2.99 and it’s worth every penny.

The game is short – Howlongtobeat.com clocking it in anywhere between 4-6 hours (even though my play through went just over seven hours (I like to take my time) But in my opinion even with good storytelling (a la Onimusha) about five hours is honestly where I prefer my Hack n’ Slashers. It just gets too repetitive and tiresome if it drags on much longer. Which Rygar does not.

But the story is not going to be the thing that keeps bringing you back. It’s a total, beautiful stupid mess. The writers just go nuckin’ futs with a couple historical figures and some Greek mythology. There is a part that just sort of busts into song in a scene that is treated like it is some sort of iconic, award winning, haunting stuff and it’ll just sort of make you snort and roll your eyes.

But the gameplay is lovely. The game is smooth and fun. The environment is destructible, secret areas abound, there are some jumping mechanics that are occasionally awful especially late in the game (jumping mechanics will be the death of me) but by then I was too invested and it was worth just soldiering through it.

The graphics are just fine especially for an earlier 2002 release and the soundtrack and sound itself was superb.

Rygar is a simple action game that keeps it simple but gives you a ton of bang for your bargain bin buck.

Four outta five discarmors.

Overall: 81% BRONZE

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