Rygar (1987)

Preliminary: I was feeling blah tonight, some heavy stuff came at work for one of my students, and I wasn't getting into any of my games. Wednesdays are my designated chill night so I'm not supposed to OSRS PVM, stream, or do anything super intensive. I couldn't relax tho and the backlog games I was trying to engage with were disappointing me. I thought maybe it's just me ha, but clearly not cuz this game is already giving me good vibes. I love the starting background. It's very barebones/NES so far, but it has that nice touch, I like the UI of the start menu as simple as it is (reminds me of FF1), I like the responsive controls (love the NES for that so far) action-platformer fun etc. It seems a bit complicated, so hopefully the extra stuff doesn't bog down the action-platformer fun but I'm already grinding cuz why not. I love RPG aspects in games :-p Let's hope it sticks. (This is a screenshot of the background I loved and this is the spot I sat grinding by crouching and attacking over the gap for longer than I should admit lol)

Look: 9/10 Yesss, I love the Hermit jingle and Look of the room and hermit (plus I liked stumbling upon him on my own, tho I did pull up the StrategyWiki since this is becoming more clearly an action-adventure not just action game)

(Turns out the Gods have the same look haha. But I still love it) Anyway, as always with me I love sunsets both in real life and in games. And this game is full of them! Nice!

Sound: 8/10 Not that I was lovvvvving the music (the forest jingle was great tho), it wasn't annoying me which is huge for NES. Its music/sound is its most disappointing feature, but the tight gameplay of its games make it okay. Anyway, I like that this game had a different jingle for each area it seemed, or close to it, so that helped. Plus they were some entertaining jams rather than annoying.

Play: 9/10 I like jumping on top of the enemies you can and the fast attack (and extending the reach and seemingly power of my attacks with Power Up spell). I do wish you could jump-then-grab the ropes, but so far I am really loving this gameplay! Tight and fun, it felt worth killing enemies as I pass so I can grind up my "Last" (lol at the odd names for stats in this). Oh and Tone! I just read that's why my weapon is killing enemies with fewer hits! Nice! I love this!

I love that a Grappling Hook is included, reminding me of later Zeldas, butttt not in love with how it works, often getting in the way of my crouch-and-attack method. Still, a cool idea to include one. Also not in love with the instant game overs >.< I guess savestates it shall be, while avoiding the abuse of them heh. (Oh lol turns out pressing start at the Game Over screen starts you at the area you died in. That's more understandable. Too bad there's no save or password feature though to play it through completely legitimately)

Ok for real did no one tell NES programmers about the sprite limit? Every game so far... loll. And the pulley system could have been way better in the "overworld" (works great "in levels"). Oh and pro-tip: use jump to overcome the lack of diagonal movement in the "overworld." Well, I should say overhead perspective parts, not overworld, because some of the "in levels" had overworld perspective rather than side-scrolling. Another pro-tip: you'll probly notice spots where a convenient one or two enemies spawn right at edge of screen. I liked to take advantage of those convenient spots and grind ;)

Feel: 9/10 The open-world element where I felt like I sort of stumbled upon the Hermit and the Mountain brought Tomba to mind. Plus the way you return to areas with new abilities to access different areas reminds me of course of Tomba but also Metroidvania genre. I lovvvved the grinding element to raise my Hitpoints. I like how clear the Hermits' tips are, unlike a lot of the adventure games of its time.

Attachment: 9/10 On my 2nd night of playing, I was still thoroughly enthralled. It certainly has its faults, but to me, it's like a better Zelda, with that same urge to follow maps and use the in-game hints to figure things out (but in this one, the hints are actually clear and a lot of the paths to take are intuitive). I lovvvved returning to one of the first places and accessing a new higher area and seeing this background more fully because we are so high up now (it's that classic nostalgic Feel I would get with Tomba and other Metroidvanias, even with Nickelodeon 3d Movie Maker when after years of playing I only then discovered there are different scenes within a setting opening up a whole new world within the same old world? Hard to explain).

The music surprisingly still hadn't gotten old, largely thanks to different jingles for different areas. I love that the music is getting darker and more foreboding in tone as I get to the last 2 areas taht were previously unreachable and/or far too hard to attempt. Looks like I have a grind ahead too! Pretty cool that I'm still looking forward to that, not dreading it like many early Japanese ARPGs that made the grind too difficult or tedious. This could very well be a new Favorite, despite its faults (especially that darn pulley attaching mechanism when not in side scrolling areas). (Accompanying the intense music of this sorta boss rush Tower, nice windows to the background I loved so much... it's like they knew!)

Nice, grinding on the 2nd spawn of the snail boss in the tower area got me maxed out! Time to push through the rest of the game! So close to the end, and I like how it's like you see the very horizon of the world because of how high up you are

Heh ironic that the final boss left me a Life Potion... can't really use that can I. But the ending was great! Not only a beautiful window graphic, then a cheesy dove and rainbow positive vibe, and then even a text with a true "End" ending like I used to love to screenshot at the end of the early Final Fantasys! I love it!

Completion: Main Story Playtime: ~2 hours

I played this via the Switch Online Service a year or so ago and thought it was a pretty solid game overall, especially for an early NES title.

This is based off of a Tecmo arcade game, but like Ninja Gaiden and Tecmo Bowl, the NES version is completely different. Where the arcade game is a straight ahead platformer, this is more of an adventure game with some RPG like elements. You play as Rygar, who uses his shield like weapon to attack enemies, similar to Captain America. Along the way, there are branching paths and choices the player can make on what direction to go.

Like older NES games, there are a couple of quality of life issues that could make this frustrating. One, you have one life and no continues. That's it. You do have a life bar which you can refuel by picking up power ups dropped by enemies, but if you do something like, say, jump into a pit or fall off a ledge, sorry, game over. Now there is a code that allows you to continue, so technically you CAN continue, and you can use it anytime, so you do have unlimited continues in a way, but the requirement of needing to use a code to do that means that technically, there are no continues, so good luck!

The other thing is the game is long. It's not one of those sit down, play it in 45 minutes and call it good. Now long games in and of themselves aren't a problem, but they turn into more of one when there is no option to save or password system. With save states, that isn't as much of an issue now, but I imagine in 1987 this made it hard to complete the game in one sitting.

The final thing is the overall cryptic nature of the game. Again, another quirk of early NES titles, but it's easy to get lost in this game. There are rooms with people who give you "hints", but a lot of them make no sense, so you might need to succumb to a guide in order to figure out your next move.

The challenge I think is solid. It's not easy, it's not impossible, but it's manageable. It also has a pretty good soundtrack and the graphics, especially for an NES title from 1987, are great.

While Tecmo might be best known for Ninja Gaiden and Tecmo Bowl, I think Rygar is an overlooked title in their library that deserves a go. If you love adventure games with some RPG lite elements and platforming, you might just enjoy Rygar.

History:
I knew of Rygar the arcade game, and I remember watching the review for Rygar on the PS2 on Extended Play... or Gamespot TV... Some point before G4 was a thing and Sessler was paid to act like a monkey. Anyway, I only recently learned there was an NES game. Basically, I have no idea what's going on with this one!

Expectations:
As I understand it this game is more like Zelda II, so I guess I'm hoping for Faxanadu with an overworld map. That would actually be pretty rad...

Night 1:

So it turns out the game is less Faxanadu, more Castlevania, which is totally fine. The overworld map kind of threw me off the first time seeing it as the game continues to play like normal.

The controls aren't quite perfect, and the game is pretty confusing in it's "leveling" system, but after some trial and error (and a trip to GameFAQs) I was able to make sense of it. After spending about an hour with the game I really can't say I'm in love with it, but I "get" it. I was able to make it all the way to before the first boss before getting distracted after about an hour, but now that I understand what the game wants from me I plan on sitting down with the strategy guide and beating the game tomorrow.

Night 2:

Woke up early, got the kids settled, made some coffee, and started up some Rygar.

I didn't realize how close I was to the first boss last time I played. I raced through the beginning of the game, not really taking any time to farm this time, and made it to what looks like the result of a sabertooth tiger mating with a koopa troopa. This boss took several tries for me. I figured out quickly that his blasts came out at set intervals and that if I was fast enough I could just over them and continue attacking. The real trick, I found, was switching to 8th notes, jumping on the last note of the measure. With enough piano lessons, you too can beat the first boss in Rygar!

After that, the game continued on pretty quickly. Every boss was easier than the last until I eventually made it to Ligar himself.

Frustrating... Losing to this boss meant backtracking all the way to the beginning of the game to farm Mind and get another Full Health Potion. I lost to him three times... Finally, after getting the timing of my magic attack right, the lion was slain!

Conclusion:
So... I didn't really care for this one. It was playable enough, albeit pretty glitchy, even by NES standards, but it just didn't really "do it" for me. I feel like everything Rygar does, even the things it does well, other NES games just do so much better. Even in beating the game, I didn't get that sense of satisfaction like I did with StarTropics or Faxanadu. I don't love this game, but I don't hate it either.

Play it Again?
No, not even to speed run. Not when I could be playing Castlevania or Metroid instead.

Personal Score: