Rygar for NES - A Review | hungrygoriya 

This was about beginning of what I call the "consolization" of arcade titles, where the publishers remade their coin-op games into exercises more fitting for the home audience, especially during the era of Mario and Zelda.

This was the first game I bought for my NES as a kid. At first, I was pissed it hardly resembled the arcade game, but once I got into it, it quickly became one of my most favorite games for the system.

Keeping the legacy of these games alive includes detailed, genuine, and curious reviews. Bravo!

Welcome back!!! I always wondered if Rygar was influenced by the movie, Krull, as there's a lot of similar elements/themes in it! Also there's a Japanese exclusive Master System version too, but it's a mostly straight port of the arcade game, weird it was never released in the west too as it would have fitted in the library perfectly.

Grew up with the PS2 Rygar, it's one of my favorite games on PS2 so playing this one I had that in mind and despite this it became one of my favorites on the NES!

Fond memories. Wish I knew how we beat this and Castlevania 2 back then, had to wait until fourth grade for English class!

Great review. I could never finish Rygar as a kid and it would seem that not having the manual was the reason why. It's very impressive that your Friday afternoon streams end up seeing you finish a first playthrough in one sitting!

"... clip on, without death" had me lol'ing. This is a game I'm going to have to try sometime. I found your explanation of the game mechanics and the storyline a refreshing take on this classic. Thank you for sharing this with us!

Excellent video! I think you touched on each and every point that make this one of my all time favorite NES games. Now we can only hope to meet again in the sequel… Rygar II: The search for even more tone.

This is one of the games that shaped my interest in gaming. I was playing this and Metal Gear at the same time as a new NES owner and my mind was melted by the depth of the gameplay of both. It was such a leap from the Colecovision and Atari 7800 when the NES came out. If you didn't have an Apple 2E, MSX, or a Commodore, you had not experienced anything like this. Looking back it's hard to imagine how they put so much game into such a limited media.

This is one of the first games I ever owned for the NES when I was a kid. I played it constantly and somehow managed to beat it at an early age (about 8 years old at least). The bosses take so many hits to finally beat and somehow I managed to find a crazy glitch once where I went through the wall at the first boss and ended up facing up against the last boss of the game. I tried to replicate the glitch but it only happened that one time. Thanks for the review and memories!

I appreciate that there's no tedious padding in Rygar. No currency grinding, no endlessly hitting walls for secret passages, nothing like that. Just explore, fight, find items, and get stronger. It sticks to the fundamentals and is better for it.

Confession: I have never had any interest in playing Rygar. i can't really explain why. It just never really intrigued me. But after having watched your stream and heard your perspective in this video, I'm now excited to give Rygar a try sometime soon. Great job, HG!

I find it funny you thought of Castlevania 2's environments while playing this. Playing this and Simon's Quest in 1987/1988 in my head I always imagined both games were happening at the same time. It's just that Simon and Rygar were on opposite sides of those Mountains. My NES dream game would be combining the two in a 2 player experience so Simon could whip two headed lion monsters after throwing holy water on them and Rygar could use his disk on Werewolves in the forests. I realize I was 7 years old when I thought that but I still want that.

The flying creatures remind me of Blue Meanies, also I like how you tried to jump and hit every NPC you showed in the vid and that's totally something I would be tempted to do as well 😂 (Assuming it's your gameplay, of course)

Very cool review pick - genuinely one of the better NES games from that period, even if we include the JP-exclusive stuff. Controls well and has some good tunes. Quite liked this one way back when.

Your channel is a blessing for my morning coffe and my NES backlog, great review!!!!

Look at that no dislikes and youtube didn't even turn yours off yet. For good reason, always great reviews!!

Great review! I remember my first time playing this as a child and how the music caught me instantly. Back then we bought games second hand and never access to manuals, I want to think thats why I wasn't able to progress past a certain point but I was also very young and couldn't understand the in-game english text, still an awesome game and great memories :-)

The game immediately made me think of a mix of Stryder and Castlevania II for NES. Music sounds kinda Sega Genesis-y too. Rygar's music composer Michiharu Hasuya I learned only worked on two Sega games - Ys III and Metal Unit, interesting. Maybe some day I'll get into NES games, I'll have to check this one out. Great review 👏

Finally got to watch this.. Fun as always. I've probably played through this game 3 or 4 times and still have zero idea how all the spells and magic work. I'm lucky that I did get to experience this one as a kid.. it's one that holds special memories for me now. Thanks for another solid review.

I’m going to give this one another chance (or a hundred) in the future. I grew up playing and finishing the “NES-hard” games, but as an adult without kid reflexes anymore, I do wish more titles were as forgiving as this one! :) Another fantastic review!

Latching onto those pullies drove me absolutely crazy as a child!

I love Rygar on the NES so much. It's about a 30 minute playthrough or less for me these days, as I've been beating it for more than 30 years at this point, but it's one I'll always enjoy. The soundtrack is actually different on the US and Japanese versions of this game. I bought a Japanese copy just to check it out. I prefer the US version myself. More than anything, I just love the atmosphere of the game. Like other games of the time like Rastan, it just has that creepy sword and sorcery flavor of something like Conan, with mysterious ancient gods and devils, burning sunsets, and creepy music. The music for Gran Mountain is as iconic as any single song from a game to me, and no matter how many times I've beaten it, watching the door to Ligar's castle appear as I play the flute atop the tower of Lyle is always a satisfying moment to me.

The aesthetic of Rygar’s weapon always felt cool and powerful to me as a kid. Who wouldn’t want a mega death yo-yo? The only think that was a huge problem for me was the lack of save, password or code. I remember having to carefully pause, place the controller in a protected spot and turn the tv off overnight while praying that my mom wouldn’t turn the system off while I was asleep. I never had the manual and no internet to bail me out, so I would spend hours wandering around to find stuff. I was also scared it would burn out my NES by leaving it on overnight. (Love your videos)

This title is available on the Switch NES virtual console. I will give it a try. Thank you for the thoughtful review!

Maybe my favorite NES game. The music is SICK! And I love the physics, maybe the best in any NES game. I play through a couple times a year. I finish the game in about 40 minutes.

Awesome review! I have always wanted to try this game but thought it would take too long. Now that I know the world isn't so big I might actually have the time to give it a go!

This was a great game. Brings back many memories.

The backgrounds always amazed me back in the day. I was and still am a fan of the soundtrack. I can't always tell you what song is from what game but I always get Rygar right.

I was already subscribed, but between this, your Faxanadu, and Lunar SS videos I feel your reviews match my tastes very well. I have a lot of nostalgia for Rygar. Its world felt so strange and that was only emphasized by it's soundtrack, even the underwhelming pieces. It was mysterious, strange, and since I didn't have the manual I got lost in exploring it. The setpiece of the large sun setting behind the mountains has always stuck with me.

Great video as always! Gonna have to give this one a try!

I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS. You do a perfect job on them. Thank you for your effort. This game looks good to me. I'll try it out.

Great review! Thank you for the upload and your efforts!

Oooh. Just stumbled across this channel. Great content! Subbed.

Excellent review! This was a childhood favorite of mine.

HG thanks for the video review this looks like a fun romp game. I missed most of the stream but I’m envisioning 9,001 don’t touch me’s. I always thought a yo-yo of death sounded like a neat weapon idea.

Great review. We played this a lot in the early 90s at my friend's house, and it takes me back watching this. I love the ideas the game presented, though like you mentioned some aspects were quite difficult to manage (looking at you, rope and pulley thing). Still loved it, and it was one of the first action adventure game I remember farming. Love the graphical glitches you included. I'm not sure people realize how weird it was when something like that happened back in the day. Typically no one had a VCR running so you'd try to convince your friend it really happened. BTW, "Animalized Men Wriggling Eerily" would be an AWESOME band name, don't you agree??

My uncle really liked this one. He rented it and brought it over to our house to play when I was a kid. He was better at it than we were, but we still liked it.

Great review and I enjoyed hearing your perspective on this classic title! Oh my beloved Rygar...you have so many flaws but I still love this game and play it regularly. It also has one of my favorite soundtracks on the NES. I'm always curious what younger players think of this game because I remember when it was released and how amazing it seemed at the time since there wasn't much to compare it to. Time has not been super kind to this title...but it does take you back to a simpler time and what it does, it does well. And it is definitely an improvement over the arcade version. :)

For me, Rygar is what I call an "emulator classic." What I mean is, around 1998 I was starting to remember the NES and get interested in its library again, and thanks to emulation it was a period where I was discovering some games for the first time. Rygar was one game I discovered because of emulation and--though I own a real cartridge now--a part of me will always associate it with NESticle. Same goes for Contra BTW. Yeah somehow I had Legacy of the Wizard and Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle as a kid, but not Castlevania or Contra.

Always loved that game as a kid. Burned through so many quarters playing the arcade version and hours on the NES port. Great review! Thank you!

I loved the soundtrack to Rygar, with the exception of the Palace of Dorago.

great video! I'm wriggling eerily

Incredible video!😍

i got into gaming around the nes time and some of my first games i loved was the double dragon trilogy, river city ransom, final fantasy, crystalis, rygar, trojan, castlevania trilogy and ninja gaiden trilogy. simply great games.

Nice review! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I only want to mention one thing about the music, and that it is (as usual) very different on the Famicom version. In some cases they're completely different songs! I would recommend you to give them a listen if you can, if only to curse that extra channel the NES is missing.

Nice video! I clicked on it thinking I had played this as a kid, but nope! I watched it anyway and enjoyed it, so thanks!

Rygar is in my top 5 games of all time. I'm almost nervous for the review.

....one of my all time favorites!! I loved this version even more than the arcade version. Thanks for the review.

If you listen closely to that four-note palace theme, you'll start humming the Meow Mix commercial jingle. "Meow, meow, meow, meow".🤣

I agree that Clash at Demonhead stands out. I dig it. Weird ideas but mostly in a charming way. Maybe someday Vic Tokai will randomly make a new one.

Rygar was one of my very favorite games when I was a kid! Even before I owned an NES, my friends had it. I wasn't very good: mostly because I didn't really understand the game mechanics. It was probably a couple years later, after experiencing Simon's Quest and Dragon Warrior, that I mastered it. Rygar just fascinated me! I think it was because the monsters weren't run of the mill, the nonlinear exploration, and the environments like towers rising to the sky or a land of floating rocks. I still play it every now and again.

Interesting little factoid about the soundtrack: It's by the same composer who did the soundtrack for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on NES. In fact, the theme for the guru dudes who give Rygar advice was outright recycled as the title screen tune for Jekyll & Hyde, just pitch shifted down.

Playing this game with no manual was fun and frustrating especially since neither me or my brother ever thought of taking notes or drawing our own map... Then again we didn't know enough English when we got it to understand the hints either :-) It spent a couple of years in the bottom of the box until we finally went back and beat it. Fun memories.

Had this game as a kid, used to watch my older brother play it but I don't remember ever getting far. We didn't own the manual for it, and we died so many times trying to use those pulleys because we thought they were like tightropes you had to walk across but just never got the hang of crossing them.

Can I admit something? I almost never pay any attention to the story in retro games and when I watch your videos I'm often learning the story for the first time. Whether it's a Master System game that I'm trying for the first time or a Nintendo game that I've played dozens of times over 30 years I almost never know the actual story. Don't know what that says about me or if they should put me back in retro jail but I enjoy it as a part of your review videos. Rygar is a fun game and I agree the boss fights feel a little lackluster and better bosses could have jumped this game into another level. But still fun and if you like adventure games it's worth playing.

Another fabulous review of yours! I have some experience playing Rygar (NES) on original hardware and emulator, and I think my brother beat Rygar on original hardware long time ago. I tend to agree with a lot of the points mentioned here. Great job!

I love Rygar's unique setting. Like, Sumerian, central Asian mashup? Seems like he probably hangs out with Karnov.

das erinnert mich an meinen ersten Spiele. sie waren früher einfacher, aber haben viel Spass gemacht

Clash at Demonhead is great. Hopefully you'll review that one some time.

Was rather mystified that you completed this on your first try in a couple of hours. I do have the PAL version, so that may partly explain it. I never got very far as a kid, I found the game very confusing. Certainly wasn't one of my favourites, but I'll surely give it a try in the not so distant future. Cute voice

Oh......!! You should totally play The Goonies 2. NES. & Maybe a review. While certainly not swords & sorcery or mythology-adventure, it's definitely a fun adventure game

If you decide to play through it again, use Power Up as soon as you get three Mind points. Your discarmor stretches longer, but is just as fast. Recover is also super useful. It recharges your health completely! Attack and Assail is good for fighting cheese with cheese. Since it hits the entire screen, it's useful for enemies that hang out of reach. In Garloz, I found the best trick to attaching your pully to the cables was to try and touch your "shield" to the end of the cable. I never tumbled off the cliff after that. If you know you're going to be forced to hang off the bottom of a platform when all you want to do is crouch and attack, make sure you remember to press the D-pad in the direction of the enemy right away. The bright side is while you're on your rope, you can move down and back up as far as you need, and the enemy won't be able to sneak under your strike.

Rygars music is outstanding. So much love for this game.

Hoo boy that palace level theme. You know, with having the ability to jump would mean giving you the ability to attach to the rope automatically by jumping on it. Just seems like a given. I feel like Rygar has a lot going for it, but it does come with that NES vagueness sometimes. Great review though!

See Rygar in One Life to Live, only on NBC.

4:03 I've heard that song before.....it's the intro to the Meow Mix song.

Rygar has a really really cool logo on its title screen.

4:03 _'I want chicken; I want liver....'_

Gotta love those back abs!

This is the only NES game I still pull out an playthrough every couple of months. It's such a great, quick game to share a couple of drinks with :)

4:03 Ah yes Rygar's infamous "Meow Mix" song. 🎵I-like chic-ken, I-like liv-er, Meow-Mix, Meow-Mix, please de-liv-er, I-like chic-ken, I-like liv-er...🎵 Interestingly the Japanese has a mostly different soundtrack that is also hit or miss. It has better music for the castle yet replaces the American version's very popular cave song with a track that sounds like little more than jumbled noise.

i bought a wrestling game when i was a kid. when i got home and put it in my Nintendo rygar popped up on the screen. i beat it from start to finish without dying because i reset on a game over and didn't know about the continue. took me forever. such a great game.

I remember a glitch that put you on the non walkable green area of the overworld. You jump as you move back and forth between screens, and end up on the area you aren't supposed to be on. Not sure if it could be used to skip areas or get items early, just remember making it glitch.

so... I've been meaning to post on this one for a while. Rygar is one of my favorite NES games. as a kid, it totally mystified me. I could actually get to the end of the game without realizing where to use the flute.... with a glitch I found. when you're fighting the boss in that weird sky-robot area, line yourself up with door, so when you get hit by the boss's fireball it knocks you through the door. if you do it the right way, you will die and respawn in the final area of the game. the problem is that you'll probably be underleveled and the final boss will roll right over you. to make things even crazier, I've seen speedruns of this game where the player FIGHTS the final boss in that glitch I mentioned earlier. somehow they stay stuck in the glitch instead of respawning, and the final boss appears on the right side of the screen as a mashed up group of pixels. one day when I was in my 20's, I finally figured out where to use the flute to get to the final area legit, and it BLEW my mind. finally I was able to get to the end of the game and beat it! Rygar is a great game but man, it's one of the glitchiest ones I've ever seen.

those zip lines were more dangerous than the bosses lol. this was a surprise hit for me way back, 1987 i think. when i finally played the arcade some time later, i was shocked how awesome it was. the arcade looks great and is pure side scrolling action and fast paced. but the nes version, as usual, was loosely based on the arcade and *better* i think. we didnt know about grinding XP out back then really, so today, if i played rygar again, i'd grind out my character early on and then steam roll the rest of the game. kinda like in zelda 2 adventure of link. get in an enemy swamp and stand at the far left and turn on a turbo auto fire control pad and walk off lol. come back later and you'll be OP. music in rygar is excellent. i remember all the tunes even today. this was one of the few games i was able to beat as a kid back then and felt great after i did.

I think if you save the "mind" your disc armor gets longer, which helps you keep enemies at bay better. I could be wrong it's been years. What I remember most was boundary breaking this game with my brother and being able to skip closer to the end at one point by pressing into the corners of like area 7? maybe? I don't quite remember. Just remember we did it, and somehow we beat this hard ass game too. It definitely isn't easy.

Yay new video :)

As a kid, I didn't enjoy this game since it wasn't really clear what the end goal was or what I should do next. When I was a teen, though, I went back to it and had quite a bit of fun. I wouldn't say the game is 'challenging', but is a breezy adventure that thankfully isn't so long you won't want to go through the entire game in one sitting, since there's no password or save. I think it's just the right length.

ligar... is that like a liger in Napoleon Dynamite? Half lion, half tiger? Awesome review. Saving gaming once again! =P

This one looks cool, I’m going to look for a copy.

Nice videos. Subscribed. :)

This one is definitely on my "Gonna finish this one one day" list. I didn't play it for the first time until it was made available on Nintendo Switch Online, and despite have a modicum of knowledge about the game, with no manual I was really lost and died.. a lot xD This game was really ahead of its time, with its explorable world, upgradable protagonist and forgiving continue system

Great video! I'm glad they decided to add adventure/RPG elements to this version, because while the arcade game was fun, it got boring after about ten minutes. The NES game is definitely better.

A very underrated NES game.

That climbing animation tho

I love this game so much! But honestly, I love it far more as an adult than as a kid. I mean, I loved it as a kid, sure, but I had no concept of the leveling system. I think this was even before Dragon Warrior came out, much less any action game "with RPG elements." I never understood that my attacks would actually get stronger as I defeated enemies, so I had no understanding of why some days I could defeat the first boss easily, and other days I couldn't beat him no matter how hard I tried. Also as an adult I have much more appreciation of the original theme. All the mosters are completely unique and original; there isn't even something as generic as a skeleton. The theme of the world and architecture doesn't mirror any real-world cultures or locations. It's all 100% original, and its so rare to find that anywhere! And that's definately a touch I didn't appreciate as a kid. I was a little disappointed when the Rygar game on the PS2 and Wii used a Greco-Roman theme, but only a little disappointed because I love Greek mythology, so it did borrow from one of my favorite aesthetics. This is definately one of the games that I wish got a sequel/remake ont he Super Nitnendo. Imagine what they could do with a Super Rygar with enhanced visuals, a bigger world, a clear levelling system, and maybe even a basic in-game map!

Manuals are essential reading. I probably should have read one.

9:52 I always tell that Rygar got censored in the pants :D Amazing video

Funny timing, I barely found out the other day that there's an arcade version of this game

I think the "Game Over" screen is based off their Arcade mentality. Somehow they where thinking we be putting in quarters in NES Rygar after a Game Over.

I just got my pal version in the mail because I heard the same rumor you said about tone and mind not going as high making it harder. I ended up maxing out at 1028 instead of 4000....that same ntsc glitches I tried to use a secret helper didn't work like I hoped a few were still there but overall its like a whole new game. Needless to say I beat it in five times longer than usual. The medals don't drop as much either making it a pain to help with the boss fights. Atleast I can say I own both carts plus the arcade cabinet now. Try it if you got a spell of downtime it actually lets you sightsee a little more and you do realize how much prettier the game looks even though it was gorgeous to begin with.....nice vid be good

Got this game in December of 1987 for my birthday along with the NES when I turned 7. Got to the jungle boss and the boss and music scared me so I stopped playing it (the boss at 9 minute mark). I also didn’t really know what I was doing. Came back to it a year later with more NES experience and beat it. Great game I really liked it although I made it easy by grinding the robots in the Sky area for the stars and level ups. Also could never figure out the stupid grapple on the overhead map level so kept trying until I fell in the water or got it 😂

This was one of my favorites as a child. I remember the first boss was the hardest for some reason. I found little tricks to easily defeat all the other bosses. For example the boss featured in 9:08 I remember jumping back and forth and attacking and you can easily beat him. Also there's a glitch for the boss in the ice fortress where you grapple down and back up and he'll get stuck in the ground and you can easily jump and attack him without going up to his level. Many fond memories.

Yeah, as a European player I can confirm the PAL version is a lot harder, especially the final boss, which you must face with less energy. However, I don't remember it being very glitchy, maybe something was rectified in the NTSC-PAL conversion. In the end, it's a great game, except from those ropes. I fell in the water so many times while trying to reach the other side. Very frustrating.

I really need to get back to this game, figure I can boot it on my PSP, and make a day of it. The first time through, I was presented with two options, play Rygar or borrow my friend's Virtual boy and beat Wario. I beat Wario, and forgot about this game in lieu of Fantasy Pinball, or whatever the pinball RPG was called on the NES.

This game and Deadly Towers were first two NES games.

This is one of my favorite NES games. A couple years ago I had some theives stole all my Retro Systems I had every Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, and Xbox. Along with that they took every game I had. The only systems I have now are my PS4, PS5, Switch and Xbox Series S. They also didn't get my games I still have about 150 PS3 games, 265 PS4 games, 60 PS5, games and almost 100 Switch games. I was going to get a house and make it kinda liexa game museum for me and my friends and family. I really miss this and games like Faxanadu and Lord of the Sword on the Sega Master System. SMS was the first console I owned my dad and mom scripted & saved a hole year so I could have that. Phantasy Star and dragon quest were my favorite big name games at the time. I miss that stuff and te memories they held for me.

when I was a kid I could never make it past the first stage, and the incredibly repetitive theme music is still instantly recallable today. one sunkissed saturday afternoon I finally made it through level one, and you better believe I kept pushing until I beat the game in fear of never having another chance, thanks to the continue system and several hours of not needing to be anywhere in particular. it was like in 2004 when the red sox finally got past the yankees in dramatic fashion to advance to the world series for the first time in forever - after that, it didn't matter who the opponent was (and yes, they swept). I was psyched for like a month after I beat it.