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While playing through Rygar: The Battle of Argus, the “updated” Wii-release of 2002’s PlayStation 2 title Rygar: The Legendary Adventure, five words consistently came to mind: unnecessary, frustrating, outdated, repetitive and why. It might be the “definitive” Rygar experience, but without any substantial additions (minus the baffling redesign of Rygar from plausible looking hero of ancient Rome to anime punk) and some of the most uninspired game designed I have ever seen, Battle of Argus is one legend that should have been left to rest in peace.

The Gods Must Be Lazy

Battle of Argus tells the story of Rygar, a gladiator charged with rescuing Princess Harmonia after she is kidnapped by a group of would-be world destroyers called the Titans, led by Cleopatra and her winged henchman Aristotle. (If that sounds familiar that’s because it’s the same story found in Legendary Adventures.) The main story unfolds through cutscenes, while tablets and scrolls found over the course of the game provide supplemental info. There is quite a bit of pseudo-historical story here, but most of it is just not that interesting. I appreciate the effort, but I would have preferred a better playing game with a shallow story than an unbearable game with somewhat in-depth story. It also would have been nice if the cutscenes didn’t feature horrendous voice acting, painful dialog and uniformly bland presentation. (Although, the highly polished mini musical number that occurs towards the end of the game is so insanely bizarre and unexpected that you can’t help but love it.) Even the game’s impressive orchestral score (which is easily the best part of the game) isn’t strong enough to save you from this eight-hour nightmare.

History’s Deadliest Yo-Yo

Combat is delegated entirely to various models of diskarmor (the series’ famed shield on a chain combo), each of which adheres to a specific fighting style. One is for powerful, long-ranged attacks; one is for multiple enemy-sweeping, mid-ranged attacks; and one is for quick, short-ranged attacks. Each can then be upgraded, as well as augmented with crystals to boost aspects such as power, defense and range. There are also several combos and special moves for each one, but you’ll most likely end up using just one or two of the most powerful ones over and over again, which means every battle will feel almost exactly the same, regardless of what enemies you’re fighting. The combat here ends up being more infuriating and dull than empowering, visceral, and fun. Even the large-scale boss battles, which are sort of cool just because facing off against towering enemies is fundamentally satisfying, end up being lame and annoying for several reasons.

Things get even more infuriating when you throw in the whole health issue; mainly because the game tries it’s hardest to feel more like a survival horror game than an action adventure game by limiting the number of health-related items to the absolute minimum. This means that there’s a very good chance that you’ll enter several consecutive boss battles over the course of the game with just a sliver of health and no way of recovering it (or recovering magic for that matter). So instead of building meaningful and rewarding tension with its boss battles, the game basically kicks you in the sack and then penalizes you for not being able to sing bass. Hamstringing players and passing it off as a “challenge” is lazy and unacceptable, then again what part of this game isn’t.

Speaking of appalling game design, let’s take a minute to talk about the environmental destruction. Every area in the game includes a number of objects that can be destroyed (pillars, rocks, stone archways, etc.). Hidden within some of these objects are build up points (which you use to upgrade your diskarmors), health/magic vials, or story-related tablets/scrolls. Fair enough. This is a video game staple, and that’s fine. The problem here is that there’s no way of knowing what destructible objects possess items, so you end up smashing everything in sight (or at least trying to smash everything, since it’s not always clear what is destructible and what isn’t). Over the course of the first forty minutes of the game, I fought more pillars and statues than enemies. Limited environmental destruction might have been fairly novel back in 2002, but it’s commonplace and much prettier today (and in current-gen games, the destruction is supported by graphical power that would have made Rygar’s spiky head spin seven years ago). It’s just one of countless ways that the game simply feels out of touch with modern gaming. I guess that’s what you get when you slap a few shiny textures onto a port and try to pass it off as “new.”

We Don’t Need No Wii Control

All you really need to know about the game’s new Wii controls is that swinging the Wiimote during certain combos will increase the strength of said combo. Thankfully, buttons control the rest of the hacking and slashing. The finishing moves are appreciated, except they take so long to pull off that enemies have more than enough time to hit you and force you to start the combo over again. It’s also fantastic that enemies can interrupt your animations without fail, and yet you can’t interrupt enemy animations. There are also enemies with attacks that you simply are not allowed to block, which begs the question, “If you were an evil warrior charged with stopping some do-gooder punk, and you possessed a devastating and unstoppable attack, why would you ever use anything else?” But of course, the enemies lack the ability to ask this question, and so they only bring out that attack every third or fourth move, giving you just enough opportunities to kill them.

If you feel that you didn’t get a chance to experience the Wii controls enough during the story mode, then there’s the all-new Gladiator Mode, in which you take on wave after wave of ever increasing enemies. The kicker is that you can only use Wii motions to defend yourself. If the combat were at all enjoyable (or intuitive, or fluid, or any number of things) this mode would still be mostly unnecessary, but at least it would be fun. The way it stands now it’s just as unbearable as the story mode, but without a mediocre storyline to carry it along.

Rygar the Horrible

It should be painfully clear by now that Rygar: The Battle of Argus is nothing short of a total disaster. Fans of the PS2 version might, might get a kick out of seeing the game with a few better textures and having the chance to diskarmor a couple new (yet forgettable) enemies, but even that is being generous. Actually, those fans are the ones who will be most upset with what’s on display here, because after seven years of waiting for a “next-gen” version of the series, they have been handed this uninspired mess. For everyone else, just stay away. There is nothing here worth your time, especially with all of the truly fantastic games out there that are far more deserving of your attention and money.

Article Written By: Jake Gaskill