One of the first action/platform games to really bring a sense of epic adventuring to the gaming experience
Game-play/play-mechanics: Rygar takes a variety of ideas and meshes them all together into a quality action/adventure game. The majority of the adventure will take place from a side-scrolling perspective, with plenty of enemies to dispose of and some moderate platforming. These side-scrolling levels are quite generous in size and branch out in multiple directions at times, with alternate paths to explore. There are many items to acquire such as a grappling hook, crossbow, (For the purpose of accessing hard to reach areas) pulley, and other accessories. The acquisition of these items will in turn create some backtracking opportunities; these are all pretty standard game-play implementations now, however back then it was very new and fresh game-play, and a departure from side-scrollers that just went strictly left to right without much or any deviation, and it was a lot of fun to explore the size-able landscape. The other perspective used is an overhead view; this is used for the overworld where Rygar travels between primary side-scrolling areas, and also will come across some cave areas where he can restore health and find items from some NPC’s. Rygar is a lengthy quest with a very epic feel, one common complaint about the game is that it has no save feature (Most games didn’t back then) but it also has no password option, so to complete the game it will be necessary to play through the entire game in one session. Rygar introduces some RPG elements to the game-play as both Rygar’s health and weapon power can be leveled up over time by vanquishing foes, any time the game seems to difficult the player can simply take some time to level up to even the odds, not unlike every and any RPG. Like many good 8-bit games, the action is very twitch-based and to the point, which enhances the fun-factor at the most basic level of gaming.
Visuals/Artwork: There are some very nice backgrounds here considering the time-period of release, much of what is on display would look attractive to many gamers even today, on a more primitive level of course. It was one of the more ambitious games visually as Rygar featured a very bright color scheme and some very nice parallax scrolling backgrounds. Music/Sound: A very good soundtrack is present here, with many catchy and memorable pieces throughout the game, and quite a nice and varied variety of styles to hold up for the entire adventure, while many games of this era would repeat a handful of compositions over the entire course of a game, Rygar has a separate theme for almost every area. Sound-effects for the attacks and enemies are nice and thick, with a lot of oomph when in battle. There are a lot of games for NES that I am really fond of, but Rygar gets the distinction of being my personal favorite NES title.