Another PS2 game gets the “Wii treatment”…
Grab your ‘Diskarmor’ and swing into action on the Nintendo Wii as the legendary warrior, Rygar! Immerse yourself in Greco-Roman mythology as you journey through the sundered Island of Argus. Intuitive use of the Wii Remote allows you to deftly and effectively control the use of the powerful Diskarmor to destroy enemies and manoeuvre on, around, over and under obstacles to save Princess Harmonia!
This is the first Rygar game that I’ve played, but upon doing a bit of research I discovered that is not a new game, but instead a remake of a PS2 game from 2002. As a result of this, the game looks incredibly dated and during playing, I can’t help wondering what the point of it is. Yes, there are Wii specific controls…but hardly enough to justify a so-called remake, which is more like a port of this 7 year old game.
Since it’s been 7 years since the PS2 game came out, you would think they would make some improvements to the game such as fixing the camera that plagued the original or touched up the visuals a bit…alas there is no changes to be found here. It sadly doesn’t give you free control of the camera and instead flips between views as you advance through the game, which is a really old way of doing things…this is 2009 after all.
Fighting is incredibly simple. Essentially I found myself just bashing the A and B buttons on the Wii Remote. There is a more powerful move that you can use by holding the button down and waggling the remote, but that’s about as far as motion controls go for Rygar. I have to admit, the game isn’t all that bad…it just doesn’t seem worthy of being on the Wii.
It could have benefited from being on the platform if the team took more time to make more use of the motion controls and improved the game instead of simply porting it over. Oddly during the tutorial section at the start of the game, there’s no mention of motion controls and I didn’t think there were any until I looked at the instruction booklet that comes with the game. I tell a lie that the game doesn’t offer anything new. There is a Gladiator mode which makes you use the motion controls of the game against enemies. It’s like an endurance mode, but it sadly isn’t that much fun to play.
The Verdict
After all this time, I would hope by now that developers would learn their lessons when it comes to PS2 ports on the Wii, but alas it seems they still haven’t quite got the message. If you are going to port a console game over to the Wii, it has to be innovative, be fun to play and most of all, worthy of being on the platform. Rygar: The Battle of Argus fails to do this and as a result is a lacklustre game that seems like another wasted opportunity for both the game and the system.
