A Legendary Adventure - The story of obtaining Rygar and impressions of it...

[Living-In-Clip]

Some days just don\'t go as you planned. You have a set plan for the day and everything you planned seems to go the other way. That is the story of Capcom and I trying to get our own copies of Tecmo\'s Rygar .

 The plan was simple. We would leave up at 9:00 am . We would arrive at EB at 10:00 aclock and the UPS guy would get there at 10:30 . We would get the game by 11:00 and make it home. Ah, if things was only simple. We walk into EB and I go up to the counter and simply ask the clerk, "Did you get Rygar in?" and he responds with a phrase that we would hear a few dozen more times, "No, it\'ll take us awhile to process orders due to X-mas. Come back around 4:00 pm". What?!? I was shocked, did he honestly expect me to come back at four aclock? Ah, screw him! We\'ll go to Babbages and so we did. They told us to come back at 2:00 pm. Damnit, that\'s better but not good....Off to Best Buy we go, they had nothing...Off to Toys\'R\'Us we go ...Behold! Boxes! Gaming boxes!

To the clerk we go. I can\'t remember if it was Capcom or I. But one of us asked her if she got Rygar in. We was given the , "we need to process the orders, sometime today" remark. Now this wouldn\'t of been so bad if there wasn\'t three (count \'em guys, THREE!) other employee\'s in the gaming isle just standing there. Come on! Quit being lazy, someone process the damn orders....

Ah, anyways, off to Funcoland, a place I use to hate and still feel dirty for goin\' to....We got the "come back at 2:00 pm" remark...Ah, damn. So what is two so called \'hardcore\' (see: lazy bums who buy too many games) people to do? The only logical thing would be to just repeat the process two more times. In the same order, EB, Babbges, Best Buy, Toys\'R\'Us, Funco.

Finally, Capcom was either having a cigarrette fit or he was just getting moody. Either way he storms into Toys\'R\'US and asks for a manager. Explains the situation and the manager still blows him off. This led to loud shouting and cussing a manager and pretty much making a scene (to which I paid for his lunch. It was classic.). Now what?!?!? Back to Funco....We stand in Funco for what seems like forever, though I think it was only an hour or so. They finally get tired of us and call another employee and ask him to come in an hour early (3.00 instead of 4.00) and process these orders. Apparently the employee agree\'d and Capcom went up and asked the clerk to hold us two copies and we\'d be back (it was around 1:00 pm at this time).  He agree\'d and we left until 3:05 pm and we was back. Guess what? We had two copies of Rygar! Five or so hours later we finally had our copies of Rygar!

Ah, now onto the impressions...

Presenation

Tecmo obviously knows what they are aiming for with this game. The level design is nice, the music is beautiful and the character design is top-notch. Menu\'s are sweet and easy to navigate.

In the presentation factor the only things lacking are the storylines (cliche\') and the terrible voice acting. The voice acting reminds me of Trish from DMC and Barry from Resident Evil. It\'s that bad...Yikes.


Gameplay

My intial hopes was that Rygar would play a lot like Capcom\'s Devil May Cry and I think that was a lot of people\'s hopes. In that case, a lot of people will be dissapointed. Not to say the game is bad, but it lacks the style and certain non-stop action that DMC has.

 Rygar has his diskarmor - a weapon that works like a yo-yo and can be upgraded (along with getting more diskarmors ). You can do various combo\'s and what not, but for the most part it amounts to hitting the same button over and over.  The diskarmor can be also used to grapple / swing and what not. It\'s nothing revolutionary but it is still simple fun.

 Each diskarmor has their own "summon" ala FFX. Down to the graphics they remind someone of FFX.   Cool, right? No. The summons feel like a mere afterthought. They barely do any damage (sometimes NONE). A typical summon attack equals out to a triple hit combo (ie. not much).  Honestly I hope Tecmo either drops the summons in Rygar 2 or fleshs the idea  alot more.

 Oh and let me point one thing out. This game can be very cheap. A specfic boss ("Cetus") is unimaginable in the cheap factor. You get hit - bounce five or six times and then get hit again before you can even move and over half your life bar is gone. The complete battle talks place like this and it will try your patience.  Some are not as cheap as others, but so far they are all pretty damn cheap. Another quick example is you have one life bar and three boss battles back to back. It\'s just cheap and annoying.

Not a bad game by any means. It has some enjoyable points but at the same time it can piss you off once you get to a boss.


Graphics

Hate me. I\'m going to let it loose. This game should of never been on the PS2 and it could of looked so much better on another system. Some levels in this game depend on bright colors (green,etc) and they look terrible The jaggies and pixelation will kill the eyes. However, once you get in doors and the textures go back to brown / black, the level design truly shines. One room ("moon room") is simply gorgeous. I\'m not trashing the PS2, but it is showing its age and I can only imagine what a NGC or Xbox version would look like.

One complaint is Rygar\'s animation. He seems like he is running with only two frames and it looks terrible. He almost looks like he suffered from polo..
:eek:

Replay / etc

This game is short. I have played it for two hours and I am on  level five out of seven and from what I read the next two levels are the shortest. This is playing it normal also. No cheating. It is simply that short and action games are meant to be short, but I figure within another two hours (at most) I\'ll be done with it and that is simply too short.

There is suppose to be some extra\'s such as some silly pizza diskarmor and what not -  I personally am not compelled to go through it again after this first time.

Overall

Of all the games being remade, Rygar has some great elements but it still falls short. Maybe it was my intial excitement. Maybe it was the six hour waiting. Either way, I can\'t find that intial excitement for Tecmo\'s latest adventure but at the same time, I can\'t deny it\'s simple fun.

If you are into the "hacky slashy" games of late, than Rygar will due, just do\'t expect to come back and back to the game.

Just a few clarifications.

1. My small fit at Toy\'s-r-Us was about 3 1/2 - 4 hours into the sad adventure. This was the same place that when I asked for Rygar for the first time the old, and I do mean old lady who had no business working in in the games section looked at me as if I were a fool asking for a game. She made me repeat the game\'s name atleast 4 times. Then I got the strong impression that she thought it was silly for a grown person to play video games. I will leave it at that. I try to respect my elders, but some old people are cranky old hags.

The store manager thing started off as a very nice request. I explained to him that me and LIC drove 70 miles one way to pick up this game. He then started to tell me how the lady that checked in the games was gone, and he was not sure when she would get back. Then he informed me that he did not even know if she would check in the games today, but he was sure that when she did that they would be sold out the minute they hit the shelf. Mind you that they cost 5 bucks more than anywhere else. Anyhow he was a real jerk, so I became a real jerk back in place. I never threatened bodily harm. It just amazed me that a store with 2 managers walking around. An electronics department with 3 employees playing with each other, and a check in girl for the game department alone was strangely gone. A bit more backstory on this check-in girl. I saw her first time around 11:00 am. She saw all the games that had to be put out, and shook her head, and said she would do it later. I mean come on people. I hate work as much as the next person, but do your job first then goof off if there is time.

2. EB had atleast 2 people in the back just doing god knows what. i know they were not checking games. Heck it is not like we are not frequent customers to this place. Between Lic and I most any store that keeps it\'s employee for more than 3 months start to at the very least recognize our face. I am sorry, but if you spend quite a bit of money in a store then there should be a bit of preferential treatment. What does it hurt to open a box to just look?????????????????????????????????


So far as the game goes. I now hate it at this point. Not that it is a bad game, but I have NEVER and I do mean NEVER gone through this much crap to get one game. I played to the first boss, and then just watched LIC. I guess it is all good, and fine but not worth the pain it has caused.

EDIT: If this is how Toy\'s R us is improving to please it\'s customers then they will be out of business soon. I did not mention this, but with the 3 employee\'s there doing nothing there 2 customers waiting to check out there for atleast 10 minutes. I did not get mad any other place. It was just ridiculous though. If they paid 6 an hour for them that grand total that is 24 bucks an hour paid to worthless employee\'s. Freakin unreal.

Heh, you think that\'s bad?  Let me tell you all a story...

Our story takes us back to Winter of \'96 when the very first screenshots and game details of Final Fantasy VII began to surface.  Having played through Final Fantasy VI twice, and releshing in all that is Squaresoft with Chrono Trigger, I was excited.  No, i wasn\'t just excited, the mere thought of a 3D Final Fantasy game sent me into a frenzy that tingled at my every nerve.  I was as giddy as... I\'d say school boy, but school sucks so I\'ll just say it was like being a gamer in heat.

Fast forward to the latter summer of \'97, drawing ever so closely to the release date of Final Fantasy VII.  I had enveloped each and every detail on the game that I could get my grubby hands on thought magazine articles only (since I didn\'t join the Internet community till the late winter of \'98) and ingesting each and every screenshot possible.  I had saved countless pennies for that game and I can vividly remember talking to my mother and telling her that I would be trekking to the store the next day right after school to pick it up.  I had finished all chores humanly possible, finished all homework in school, told Rya that I would not be calling her until I was done with at least the very beginning and then after that, not to expect to hear from me until I was done with the game.

The next day, school was hell.  I had to take 2 tests in my English class that showed just how much summer reading we did (I did none) adn then a math test to make sure we were in the right class (which i passed, but only barely).  Still, nothing would deter me from my goal.  At 3PM, I was on the boss and making my 10 minute trip to the mall to get my game with my carefully folded reciept in my wallet ready to be traded in for one luscious copy of Final Fantasy VII.

Once in the mall, i speed walked to EB and slaped my reciept down, flashed the clerk a giant smile as she handed me the game and made me sign for it, showing them that I picked it up.  Without giving it a second thought, I ran home (over a mile from EB with a big heavy load on my back filled with history and science books) and literally stormed into my room and dropped everything on my bed.

Then my mom yelled.

She basically told me that all the chores I did yesterday, had to be done again.  So, I had to put the dishes away, clean the cat box, vacuum, and clean the bathtub, sink, and toilet.  Finally, after working INCREDIBLY FAST for 40 minutes to finish all that, I sat down in my room, exhausted, and took out the game.  I started tearing off the shrink wrap.  You know that new car smell?  that was present here, only with plastic, and twice as sweet.

I cracked open the CD case after tearing off the Sony labels and examined the pristine white disks and counted them.  Disk 1, Disk 3, Disk 3.  No, that\'s not a typo.  The game actually had two Disk 3\'s.  After a lightening quick call to EB, it turns out, to my despair, it wasn\'t simply a printing error, but rather a packaging error requiring me to trek that same mile+ walk to get it exchanged and then that same mile walk back just to play it.

After 4 hours, I finally had the game in my Playstation and I was drooling.  Was it worth the wait?  In my opinion, yes, but games shouldn\'t require that much trouble in any capacity and I was upset to have to go through all that, but I\'m a gamer and I walk through walls for my games.  I beat the game in two days after consistant play a pair of 14 hour sessions.  It was more than worth it.

:eek: :eek: :eek: Two 14 hour sessions, beating FFVII in 2 days??? OMG!!!!! *twitches* *dies*

Remind me of my ordeal with PSO on the NGC. Sega\'s site said Best Buy & Walmart would get preferencial treatment by being the first to be shipped the game. I drove into Ft Wayne like 3 times.. which is an hour trip one way. McVans didn\'t have it on the 30th like they claimed.. Walmart never recieved their shipments, neither did Best Buy, Kmart, Toys R Us, or anyone else. In fact.. the only people who DID get shipments were EB and Babbages due to an exclusive deal with Sega at the last minuite. Well, I never even thought of those two since I was always going up there after work when the mall is closed. So we called around to EB but they were completely sold out. - SHIT - So we gave Babbages a buzz.. out of 30 copies they recieved in, we managed to snag the LAST two they still had. Took a bit of sweettalking, but we got the clerk to hold them over until I could get into pick them up from her the next day. Heh.. I was late for work that day to thanks to my lil voyage.. but it was well worth it.

I walked a couple of miles through the rain (with an umbrella, no less.. ) to get Resident Evil 0.

Not much of an adventure though. *sigh*

I had to start FF7 after many hours of play.My mem card got erased in the middle of the second disk.This happened twice:rpissed:.Happened the same with FF8 after reaching the third disk.Double pissed:rpissed::rpissed:

I don\'t even wanna mention my adventure with Super Mario RPG...

I wanted to play Mafia so bad I too it back three times thinking the first shipment was bad only to find out my 3D drivers caused the game to crash. Embarrassed!

Ah Rygar. Not what I expected leaving me somewhat let down.
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Juicepop22