The History of Rygar: The Legendary Adventure & the Shelved Sequel

[@jerm5466]

Only a couple minutes in but you obviously have a real talent for this. Well spoken with a good voice and good editing. Earned a sub. Thanks for making this!

[@freeckycakeOG]

Thanks! I hope you keep enjoying what I have to offer in the future!

[@BioPhoenixReviews]

i played PS2 Rygar a couple years ago and i was surprised how well it hold up for an early 3D beat'em up hack and slash on the system. it was pretty enjoyable and still has some nice backgrounds and cool boss designs. its a shame that this series never caught on because it was pretty well made for a remake of an old NES game and i know this is going to get me in trouble but i even like rygar more then DMC 1 and 2 lol interesting they put both fatal Frame and Deception in the same category for the sales. im sure most of that number is for Fatal Frame as i find it hard to believe that my beloved Deception series would sell over 1 million lmao

[@freeckycakeOG]

No shame in that! I do believe the art direction in this game stomps both DMC 1 and 2. The only thing this game needed in a sequel is a lock-on system, better movement and of course...... MORE COMBOS. The square square square triangle attack of the first Diskarmor is kinda OP tbh. I believe Deception may have probably sold 2 million units as the last instalment did better than the previous ones afaik, but dunno if Koei Tecmo will ever return to this. They've been renewing the trademark every year, but nothing has happened...

[@BioPhoenixReviews]

@@freeckycakeOG yeah I agree to that. I hope for a new deception game soon

[@freeckycakeOG]

@@BioPhoenixReviews That will require sacrificing two guards using some sadistic traps XD

[@leadbones]

It's truly one of the most underrated games ever. If it didn't come out right around the same time as God of War, I think it might be remembered by a lot more people. I prefer it to GoW, as I personally don't care for QTE mechanics and constant cutscenes in an action adventure game. I think it's easily one of the best games on the console.

[@100Servings]

Your audio quality is absolutely phenomenal. This was a great video. You really have a talent for editing and comedy. I played the original Rygar on the NES when it came out. I would never have thought of it as being set in ancient Greece, but I think setting the remake there made it a lot more relatable. I played the PS2 version as well, and thought it was good, but it really needed a character with more personality. Devil May Cry was successful for more than just the action: Dante oozed coolness. I think a lot of other games made similar action, but lacked the attitude necessary to create a new audience. Dante was so cool that they got permission to put him in Shin Megami Tensei III and released a special edition of the game with him in Japan. That was the version we got here in the US. Hilariously, when they rereleased it a few years ago, you have to pay extra for the Dante DLC here in America. I refuse on principle. Great work. You're becoming quite the documantarian. I certainly hope you're sending these developers your videos to show just how much respect you bring their work. Pretty soon they'll be contacting you instead of the other way around!

[@freeckycakeOG]

Thanks @1000Servings! I totally agree. I replayed this game a few years ago, and did it again while recording this video. I can certainly see the voice acting needed some work, especially Princess Harmonia. But it's still better than Swords of Destiny voice acting, that game literally has one of the worst voice actings. A crucial character can die in that game and the main character will be like "no" then move on. Funny enough, Artoon were planning a sequel but it didn't go anywhere. I may not have liked Swords of Destiny much, but I honestly welcomed the idea of a sequel! What did you think after learning of a cancelled Rygar sequel? I believe if Tomonobu Itagaki did release this mysterious sequel, the madman would have made it too difficult. He probably would have forced players to pay in-game currency to save or probably sacrifice some bit of HP to do so LMAO. I tried to contact him and Satoshi Kanematsu via Facebook, but both didn't even look at their inbox :/. I wanted to know how far did Rygar 2 progress into development, but I guess we'll never know.... I certainly agree on Dante being a paid DLC is a bad move, but that's the reality of things, and I think many are accepting this. I recently bought Lost Judgment on the PS5 (physical) and to my surprise, I discovered that I needed to pay for some DLCs to unlock the full package. It's frustrating how all this talk about video game preservation comes up when in reality we need to buy the latest copy of a game for the full experience, but what about countries that only import the standard release? At this point, I think piracy is the only way to preserve games in the near future :/ Edit: I do send videos to the creators of the games I cover :D

[@100Servings]

@@freeckycakeOG I'm a HUGE Dead Or Alive fan, so I'm very familiar with Itagaki. My wife and I used to play those games together all the time. I can also say that Itagaki's only as good as the talent around him. For example, he certainly didn't program in 137 costumes in Dead Or Alive Ultimate, but he has an eye for talent and an ability to lead a team. This is why Dead Or Alive 4 was a moment in video game history and The Devil's Third is an example of what not to do. So, could he make a superior Rygar game? Yes, if he had his team and a budget. I still think the best idea would have been to make it a 2D Metroidvania, much like the original game. One of Itagaki's best games was Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword on the Nintendo DS. He was instrumental in the making of that game, and seeing Rygar get a similar treatment would have been cool. Very few games have made an easy transition from 2D to 3D. Even Street Fighter couldn't pull it off. Altered Beasts, Golden Axe, Final Fight, none of them had the success they had in 2D format. Considering all of that, Rygar did pretty well. Funny that Tecmo comes up today. I was just having a discussion yesterday with another KZbinr that the best Final Fantasy game in the last 10 years wasn't made by SquareEnix, but by Tecmo. Stranger Of Paradise is so much better than it should have been. But that's a story for another day...

[@freeckycakeOG]

@@100Servings I certainly agree! Did you watch the making of Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox 360? Guy had a clear plan in his head, and he didn't hesitate when giving directions. If something needed an improvement, he'd point it out and argue with other staff. The same happened during the making of God of War 2. Cory Barlog would say "this part isn't fun. Improve it" and others would be like " Are you nuts. We worked three days on this" then he'd say "And I said improve it." You can see how those two directors gave rise to two games that people are still playing even today. Honestly, I wish those times would comeback where directors would argue with the staff about what's best and whatnot. Now everybody just nodes their heads.... I do believe arguments sometimes give rise to great ideas. Hmmm, a 2D metroidvania Rygar. That's a good one. I can already picture it in my head right now, haha. I feel like they could have ported Rygar to the GBA back then as the system was cheap to develop for and generated lots of money for companies back then. "KZbinr that the best Final Fantasy game in the last 10 years wasn't made by SquareEnix, but by Tecmo. Stranger Of Paradise is so much better than it should have been. But that's a story for another day..." You're literally the only person I know who said this! I haven't played the game but I plan to in the future!

[@100Servings]

@@freeckycakeOG You're totally right about the yes men. That's the main reason they're saying Concord failed: if you give an opinion they don't like, however accurate, you don't advance. It became an environment of "toxic positivity". Again, I can't recommend the book Masters Of DOOM enough. They went through similar things during the making of Wolfenstein. John Romero and Tom Hall said the game had to have secret doors to give the players reason to search everywhere, but John Carmack said it was impossible with their engine. Hall and Romero finally gave up, but when playing a later build of the game, found hidden doors and secrets. When they asked Carmack he told them, "Oh. I figured it out that night. I figured you'd find out on your own." It drastically improved the overall game. By the way, there's a piece of unknown history: id Software's Wolfenstein 3D was not the first Wolfenstein game. Silas Warner, an enormous man of 206 cm and 140+ kg, was a computer programmer and genius. He made the game Castle Wolfenstein in 1981 for the Apple IIe, and it was the first game to feature digitized voices, all of him screaming in German. When id Software made Wolfenstein 3D, they brought the game to Warner for permission to use the name. He loved the game and agreed completely. Warner passed in 2004, but he definitely made his mark on the world of gaming!!!

[@freeckycakeOG]

@@100Servings It's interesting that you mention toxic positivity. I once worked in several gaming blogs, and it felt like I was conversing with robots. You were basically walking on egg shells with all the activists, political correctness and gender discussions in there. One wrong word can get you in trouble. I believe it's the same thing inside companies now, they just don't show it. But it's certainly appearing in their games now more than ever. Aaah, the Masters of Doom, the book you recommended to me last year. I haven't forgotten about it and I plan to dive into soon. I had no idea about the Wolfenstein history fact! You know your stuff, huh? Maybe it's worth covering one day on the channel in the future, though I've been kinda on the hunt for anything concerning Psychotoxic. I may be one of the few players in the world who liked it and Requiem Avenging Angel, haha. Both are great B-games.

[@leadbones]

A fair amount of people I knew back in the day, and modern commentators, are playing down the NES version because it isn't an arcade port. As if a port of a repetitive, no frills arcade game would have been even a drop in a bucket. Rygar on NES was a monument, beating Metroid, Zelda 2, and Castlevania 2 to the market reinforcing further the fact that home consoles could actually outdo the arcades, in terms of value and depth. Highly underrated. The PS2 game is massively underrated also. The story is insane, and the voice acting is ludicrous. That's a given and it doesn't detract from what is one of the best action adventure games on a console full of them. None of the QTE garbage that was infecting its peers, rock solid gameplay, highly customizable weapon system, amazing music and graphics, fantastic world design... Rygar for PS2 will probably never get the recognition it really deserves. A very standard, forgettable arcade game that became one of the best NES games, and then one of the best PS2 games.

[@freeckycakeOG]

Couldn't say it any better. I must say, the 2000s up to 2010s, reminds me of times when big publishers had an interest in making/publishing all these fantastic beat em up/hack and slash games. Now we'll be lucky if Capcom even decides to make a DMC 6 after Hideki Itsuno left...

[@CynicalGamingBlogTerry309]

Rygar 2 would have been shit anyway if Itagaki was working on it.

[@100Servings]

@@CynicalGamingBlogTerry309 Why? Just curious.

[@freeckycakeOG]

I believe it could have been great, but we will never know until someone manages to find any documents, prototypes of that (if any were preserved)

[@CynicalGamingBlogTerry309]

@@100Servings The man was born on April Fools day, he is literally The Fool

[@100Servings]

@@CynicalGamingBlogTerry309 Hm. Maybe.

[@hoddmascc]

Aside from Devil's Third that he made after he departed from tecmo, what made you think that it would be bad?

[@ColaPoweredGamer]

12:00 What is this ad!? HAHAHAHAHA They don't make them like this anymore!

[@remka2000]

Interesting video thanks. I played the NES version a lot back in the day, didn't even know there was ps2 version. Sidenote : Could you unstretch 4:3 content when shown on 16:9, please. It's ugly and looks unprofessional. Thank you!

[@freeckycakeOG]

I will look into it in the future

[@leadbones]

​@@freeckycakeOGyeah stretching it is senseless violence. It deserves to look its best.

[@freeckycakeOG]

I'll see how to get around it in the upcoming history-oriented video