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What the hell is a Rygar? I’ve read up on the subject, and I’m still kinda confused.
There’s an Arcade version of Rygar, which plays like a standard run-to-the-right platformer.
There’s the NES version, which adds some overhead running-about and takes a significantly
more nonlinear approach to the gameplay, a la Metroid or later Castles-vania. So despite
this being in an arcade cabinet, it’s the NES version, full of... lots and lots of creepy
guys sitting on platforms behind doors in mountainsides or trees or whatnot. None of
these men are Rygar. You, the yo-yo with the yo-yo down there, are not Rygar. Heck, Rygar
isn’t Rygar, depending on which parts of the documentation you’re reading. And by
documentation, I mean “stuff on the internet, because the game itself doesn’t bother to
explain a damned thing. Not a damned thing.” As games of this era were wont to do.
This interpretation of Rygar has you, the Hero, traipsing all over hell and creation
to... um, fix things. You can pretty much assume that there’s going to be a big climactic
fight after all this is over, so let’s go with that. You can jump, and throw your shield
thingie, and crouch. And for the first chunk of the game, that’s it. You’re opposed
by endless swarms of evil things that set upon you from every angle, and who can be
either bludgeoned with your disky-yo-yo-thing or stunned briefly by bouncing on it. Slay
enough beasts and you’ll be rewarded with an expanded health gauge, as well as improved
toughness as evidenced by more powerful attacks. Wait, so this is an RPG? With, like, experience
points? HOLY HELL THERE’S A STATUS SCREEN. I thought I was going to have to fight to
get Final Fantasy hacked onto this thing, but if there’s already an RPG, then... oh,
who am I fooling. This is a dicey platformer masquerading as something bigger than itself.
And doing so on a PlayChoice timer.
But in its defense, the music’s memorable, and some of the mechanics are pretty cool.
Unfortunately, in order to obtain the cool mechanics like the grappling hook and whatnot,
you’re going to be hunting and searching and blindly wandering through continue after
continue. That said, this being a PlayChoice version, you’re not actually paying for
continues, you’re paying for time. And if you keep getting cheese-killed by flying fish
beast monster things in that one particular chunk of the woods, you might actually run
on the profitable side of the quarter curve, all told. But keep in mind that this thing’s
a marathon, not a sprint... and that the only thing worse than RPG-style level grinding
is paying a machine three bucks an hour (or more!) for the opportunity to do so. Rest
assured, this one’s getting swapped out for Yo! Noid as soon as... well, as soon as
I can actually track down a PC10 copy of Yo! Noid.