Platform

PlayStation 2

Rygar is the ultimate man's game. It's utterly hardcore. It's just dripping with testosterone. Men should play Rygar while chomping cigars, downing shots of flaming fighter jet fuel, using their women as footstools.

You switch on the game and are confronted with a thunderous CGI intro presented in Dolby Digital. Rygar is introduced, an utterly rock-hard looking Gladiator of a man with giant eyebrows and a nose you could hang a towel off. A buxom wench princess is captured by demon lords. Rygar starts kicking ass. But the demon tricks him and he falls through a hole in the floor, and into a vast underground cave. Here the game commences.

Let me get one thing clear at this stage: Rygar isn't a flawless play experience. He doesn't always quite face the way you want when attacking. The camera is fixed (with real time backgrounds/enemies), and not always at an ideal angle. Enemies keep respawning... sometimes five times.... but you know what? Just keep tearing them up! It's so much FUN! The greatest success of Rygar is that the basic, bare knuckle Diskarmour-throwing combat is brilliantly satisfying. And it makes any other faults forgivable.

Ah yes, the Diskarmour. Could this be the single greatest weapon ever implemented in an action video game? Quite possibly. One press of the throw button sends your Krull-style spinning, razor-mounted disc-thing flying into enemies at an alarming speed, cutting into their flesh before boomeranging back to your wrist mount. Press it twice and it swings round and round in a wide arc, smashing everything in its radius. And so forth. There are numerous button combinations and special moves you can pull off to destroy enemies. Miss enemy flesh, and your Diskarmour smashes into walls, spinning off and around the environment realistically, sparks flying everywhere. Commanding the Diskarmour just feels extremely fricken cool, and even repetitive enemy combat never gets tired as a result.

As you progress, you can also collect multiple Diskarmours with different properties.... one lets you hook onto walls and pull yourself up to higher areas. One lets you swing across caverns and gaps in the scenery, Castlevania style. One even gives you fully analogue control over the dectruction, once again in the vein of Castlevania. Infact, the best way to describe Rygar is as a 3D Castlevania... done RIGHT. Praise doesn't get any higher.

Another brilliantly implemented aspect is the destructible environments. Astonishingly large sections of the level construction can be shattered to pieces with a mere swing of your Diskarmour. It's hugely, hugely satisfying to roam these enormous Greek mythology themed environments, swinging your weapon at columns, wall sections, practically anything-- and watch huge sections of the level crash down around you. Level destruction isn't merely cosmetic either. Wall and column sections can be toppled in certain directions to create bridges, allowing access to previously unreachable areas. And the very act of destroying scenery often yields collectable experience points, which can be used to power up your various weapons in the menu screen, RPG style. Could it get any more super cool?

What else can be said. The enemies are imaginative, if somewhat easy to dispatch. It almost goes without saying that the bosses are truly spectacular -- the level one boss alone is literally bigger than any I've seen in a game to date. Level two sees you battling THREE bosses in straight succession, with no save points in-between. A warm throwback to old school hardcore.

Rounding off the package is an epic, orchestral soundtrack in the vein of Actraiser, bonus extras such as artwork and movie galleries, and collectable books along the way which flesh out the (admittedly cliched) back story.

In short, Rygar takes the best of old school gaming and massively advances it to a next gen experience. If Maximo disappointed by being a mere surface homage to old school classics, Rygar delivers by acknowledge 10 years of gaming evolution, while retaining the original spirit. Grab a whiskey, a copy of the game, and enjoy. It'll make a man out of you.


Further impressions on completion.

-Justin
EMail justin