"Rygar" is an interesting platform/adventure game which features vaguely Hindu themes, some kind of giant bladed yo-yo, and lots of monsters. As near as I can tell Rygar is on a quest to kill some demon or other in order to help bring peace to his homeland. This is a moderately challenging game with decent yet buggy graphics, pretty good music, and a plot that couldn't fill a thimble.
Graphically Rygar features some very nice scenery, however some of the monster and character animations are chunky. In addition, graphical artifacts and bugs are unusually common. Gameplay looks best in the side-scrolling mode that dominates most of the game, however some areas take more of a top down perspective. These areas are both far less nice looking and are also very irritating to play in because it becomes much more difficult to hit the monsters reliably.
Rygar's sound effects are fairly decent, though there are not very many of them, and it actually has a fair share of decent music. While some of the tracks do get repetitive, this is far less noticeable than in some games.
Gameplay is a mixed bag. One one hand, one is rewarded for fighting monsters with a limited experience system, which has Rygar grow in power as he slays opponents. This is a marked break from most platform games. Play control, while not superb, is reasonably good, and Rygar can gain access to items such as a grappling hook to reach new areas. On the other hand, some parts of gameplay are sloppily implemented. Some areas can only be reached by crossing pits with a rope and pulley system, yet the game can be fickle about letting Rygar actually use it. Oftentimes Rygar will simply fall to his death. Also, the continue system is somewhat obscure. Should Rygar die, one is presented with an unfriendly "Game Over" screen, then taken back to the start screen, where no continue option is listed. This leaves one with the impression that all progress has been lost, when in fact pressing the start button will take one back to the beginning of the area Rygar died in. These aren't devastating problems, but they shouldn't really have been allowed to slip into the game.
Summary:
| Graphics : 87% | Decent backgrounds, sometimes buggy animations. |
| Audio : 84% | Pretty decent music for a platform game. |
| Gameplay : 71% | Loses points for some features being sloppily implemented. |
| Personal Curve: 74% | I did not find this to be truly great game, but it was nice. |
Overall: 79% : Rygar, while not a superb example of Nintendo gaming, is not a particularly poor one either. While it has it's share of flaws, it still remains better than many similar games I have played in my time.