Argus No Senshi - Rygar Legendary Warrior

The US flyer

4.5 billion years have passed since Earth's creation. Many dominators have ruled in all their glory, but time was their greatest enemy and it defeated their reign. And now a new dominator's reign begins...

Take note that I put the Japanese name first in the title to this one. That's because my first and only encounters with this game for a very long time were of the same non-descript cabinet shunted away in the corner of a dingy arcade in a small caravan park in Wales. The cabinet was devoid of artwork and the game itself featured only Japanese characters; giving it an air of mystery that few others had at that time.

Of course I later learned about Jamma cabinets and realized that it was simply cheaper for the operator to pick up a Japanese board than the US version but, for a long while, Rygar remained an almost mystical game for me and to this day seems to have a purity to it that a lot of other games have never come close to.

The aim of the game, much like the majority of 80s platformers, is to run from left to right (and sometimes climb upwards) to reach the exit of the level and score as highly as possible getting there. The gameplay is fast and frantic - enemies enter from all angles and it's up to your quick reflexes to take them out or avoid them before the Legendary Warrior meats a gruesome end.

The magic of Rygar comes partially from the bassy but repetitive theme tune that cycles throughout, but mostly from the way in which you deal with enemies and the weapon that you use to do so. Rygars "Diskarmor" is unique; essentially a disc on a chain that can be fired either horizontally out in front of the nameless hero (Rygar is the name of the end boss) or in a looping arc over his head and the five power-ups that can be found throughout the game genuinly improve your characters effectiveness, your chances of survival and even the way you play the game (one of them allows to you kill enemies by bouncing on their heads, Mario style!).

Like the majority of arcade games in the 80's, Rygar received a number of home ports, some better than others but none quite matching the greatness of the arcade original... which in a rather ironic twist of fate means that you can now try it out for free on your PC via the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator known as MAMEui.