Rygar: The Legendary Adventure

Visually, Rygar is stunning. The environments are straight out of Greek mythology and everything about them is very impressive. From the caves to the majestic shrines everything is crisp, clear and beautiful. Everything is painstakingly detailed and nothing looks sloppy. When you're on the mountain with molten lava, there's steam everywhere, and your vision is slightly distorted. Just wait until you see Arcadia - this level in the sky appears to stretch on forever, and looks atounding. There are no draw-in problems, no graphical glitches and really nothing other than some of the best looking environments we've seen in a PS2 platformer.

As amazing as these environments look, its almost a shame that you can destroy most of them. Yes, you can literally destroy many of the pillars, pots and giant statues that you find along your way. This gives Rygar a very unique edge over the competition and really makes the game that much more interactive - and fun. This allows for more exploring, because you never know when you're going to find a secret cave... and sometimes, it's necessary to destroy stuff in order to progress or even survive. This is just a very cool feature, and you'll no doubt find yourself wrecking everything you can to find power-ups and other helpful items.

The Animation and character design is also top-notch. Rygar himself has a gladiator-esqe outfit and it fits him well. He also animates smooth as butter. Each attack and combo is animated flawlessly without any discrepancies. The enemies are a bit on the generic side, but still they look great and animate well. The bosses and other main characters, however, are extremely detailed, and fit the Greek theme to a tee. Some of the bosses are just look awesome. Style really is the order of the day in Rygar

Rygar also has a totally unique sound, with a completely original orchestral score. Let me tell you some of the music is just downright amazing, and complements the rest of the game perfectly. No two scores are the same either. Each section has its own music, enhancing the mood of that particular level. Some of the tracks are haunting and creepy, while others are faster and make you feel like some trouble is brewing. I was totally impressed with the way Rygar sounds and it really is one of the better scores I've heard on the PS2.

The level of detail put in the sound effects is high. Each surface Rygar walks on has a different sound to it even if that surface is only found rarely in the game. I found myself walking on a fallen Spanish tile roof at one point and it sounded exactly how I imagined it and, even though I only found one section to walk on in the entire game, they still had a sound effect for it! Each of your diskarmors also makes a different sound, which is a neat effect. The voice acting sounds good, and at no point seems poorly scripted or performed. Wisely, there isn't a ton of this in the game but what they do have is done above the norm.

In short, Rygar is amazing - a real gem of a game. While it might be a bit short, there really is plenty to do, and it is one of those games you actually play a second time through. There's a ton of fun to be had with Rygar, and everyone deserves the opportunity to play it sometime. Next time you feel like playing a game keep Rygar in mind, I doubt you'll be disappointed.