Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Rygar


Could somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on in this game? Because I couldn't figure it out.

I even looked it up on Wikipedia and found no plot summary whatsoever, which means they don't know what the fuck's going on, either.

I played Rygar because it was one of those games I had played as a kid, but never got too far. And now, with the magic of Game Genie, I spent a Friday evening playing through the game. Because that's what I do on Friday evenings these days.

Now, I understand the general concept of controlling some little dude on the screen and killing monsters. It's great fun. But generally there's some kind of discernible plot. Not so much with Rygar.

All you know is you have to kill monsters, find five really weird-looking guys, and then kill a big boss monster. And the only weapon you get is what appears to be a bop-bag--one of those inflatable balls that had a rubber ring and string that would attach to one finger so you could punch it to your five-year-old heart's content.

Every so often you come across some gigantic old dude who gives you a hint as to where to go next, but these hints are about as helpful to you as a one-eyed chicken is to a blind man.

Observe:

After getting this screen, I just shrugged. I had never seen those words before, and I didn't know what they meant, and therefore I didn't care. I pay more attention to soap operas on Univision, because I can occasionally understand (or, at least, think I understand) something they say on that channel. Here? Nothing.


Now, I thought this was worth the screenshot because of the creative use of quotation marks. It would seem the guru-fellow is trying to make a very pointed remark here. "Dorago" and "release my daughter" might be code for something...but what?

I would like to note that no female characters appear anywhere in this game.


Again with the weird words. I can just picture Napoleon Dynamite drawing Ligars all over the place. (Okay, I know it was "liger," but let me have my fun.)

And now for my personal favorite:


It all makes sense! The nonsense words, the cryptic phrases...these guys are cheerleaders! Nothing they say is supposed to make any sense anyway!

And this is what you get at the end:


So finally, at the end, we have some idea of what the damn plot was. And the lovely thing about the translation here is that they couldn't keep "Argool" and "Argus" straight. Wikipedia told me that in the Japanese version, the land was named Argos, but it was changed to Argool for the English version. Apparently the translator couldn't keep the two straight here.

After three hours of gameplay, I was rewarded by more confusion and a friggin' rainbow.

Thanks a lot, Tecmo!

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