Rygar (1987)

Beat without using slow motion, unusual for my emulator because it usually runs games too fast. The game was still very difficult and took a lot of save state scumming. One of the biggest issues was most areas having constantly spawning enemies in a relentless assault. Some even appeared very close to the player giving very little time to react. It was very easy to take damage and the starting hp was only 3. Enemies did occasionally drop health and there were a few infinite healing spots, plus killing enemies granted xp for higher max hp and damage. It also helped that the guy could land on top of enemies without taking damage. It did not hurt the enemies but did stun them slightly. By the time I got past the initial side scrolling area to the first top down part I was 1 hit from death. Pressing buttons I discovered the menu and the magic system, getting my hp back. At this point I was not quite sure if they were spells or how to power up by spending xp. I did not use the other 2 spells. Looking up in a walkthrough power up boosted range and maybe damage until death while assail did full screen attacks. Both of those would have been useful. 1st boss was a big struggle, mainly because of the very floaty jumping. It was tough not to jump too high and hit the top projectile, and if the guy fell faster I would have more time to attack before the next jump. This issue also came up with bug enemies in the forest, and I figured out that moving just left enough made them no longer exist. The enemies were very finicky like that, even seen 1 appear in an area where it should not after I changed screens. I eventually figured out that jumping over the boss was better than trying to jump through the fire spread. I referred to the walkthrough a few times to figure out where to go but the world was not that big or complicated. The rest of the bosses were fairly easy and I mostly died from the overly finicky ziplining. I did not grind and ended up with 10hp by the end. The final dungeon was top down with tough enemies, many of which I skipped. For the final boss (back to side view) I had a healing potion but not enough mana to cast anything. I don't know why my mana was so low since it had been a long time since I used any. The final boss was ridiculous with an overwhelming amount of projectiles that I could not figure out how to avoid. It took excessive save state scumming to win, to the point where I wondered if I was missing something. Sure enough check the walkthrough and it said use the flute during the fight to stop the projectiles.

Despite being short this was a fun well made game. I would have preferred more frequent health and mana drops and not infinite hordes of enemies. The top down parts were similar to Startropics in that the weapon functioned similar to a yoyo and that jumping could avoid projectiles. This game would have needed much more content and refinement to match Startropics so it gets

7.5/10