In 2007, Tecmo (now Koei Tecmo, those folks behind about ten thousand Dynasty Warriors games and spin-offs, as well as... ummm... let me check...) announced a new classily-named "Tecmo New Style Action Game" for the Wii, which was later upgraded to the moniker of "Project Rygar". I would have been all over a new Rygar game, but it was later discovered that Rygar: The Battle of Argus, as it came to be known, would be a port. Darn.

I'm not going to revisit the basics of the game here, as it's mostly kept intact from the PlayStation 2 version. The game's presentation, stunning at the time of release, has been literally ported over. Yet the fact that the material that was transferred to the Wii has mostly been kept the same poses a few irks. For one thing, it looks the same. Tecmo didn't do much to gussy Rygar up, aside from giving him white hair as though he'd gone through some rough times. Princess Harmonia still resembles a cross-eyed Britney Spears. With such a large gap in release time (2002 vs. early 2009), you'd expect some graphical improvements, but sadly, The Battle of Argus looks just as it did a generation earlier. Heck, they didn't even bother to create a new introductory cinematic; they just cut it out entirely, pushing you right to the title screen without any neat imagery of Rygar julienning his way through emerald-blooded lizard gremlins.

They also failed to repair some of the game's worst flaws. The camera continues to be the nuisance it once was, fixed at odd angles at times and just switching angles completely during inopportune moments of travel. And this port still proves that the developer clearly had a vendetta against punctuation. Plus, the voice acting hasn't been changed at all, still performed by inexperienced randoms in a California Starbucks.

Rygar still swears his victory to a feather, too. We... we can't be having that.

Times must be so rough for Rygar financially, his hair turned white!

But where they gummed things up the most is in the new control scheme. The Wii doesn't have a typical controller style, so they had to make do with the Wiimote and nunchuk combo, and boy, does it make a huge difference. Negatively. The Nunchuk serves for all of your movement with the analog stick walking him around and the Z-button jumping. The C-button on the nunchuk (which I absolutely forgot existed until Rygar crashed my party) serves as your guard button to hold up that lovely Diskarmor weapon as a shield. The Wiimote, then, is delegated to all forms of attacking. Pressing different combos of the A and B buttons will yield different results, as will sneaking in a quick swipe of the Wiimote that has a success rate of 50%. It feels far more awkward, and it makes Rygar more difficult to handle overall. His Diskarmor weapon is also less versatile; why does he always throw it in the wrong direction? I think he can now only aim in about four directions around him. Missing an enemy and getting sliced up simply because of an inaccurate control scheme is a crime, a crime against nature, against humanity, against...Rygar!

You might not notice these flaws, though, when you're too busy vibrating like the San Andreas Fault! I swear, every time you break something with your Diskarmor (and the environments are known for being easy to crumble), the Wiimote buzzes like mad and pulsates to its heart's content. Calm down, Wiimote! You're not at a Li'l Jon concert here. You're in my living room, cracking open ancient jars for no reason.

Beyond these crumby controls, there's little new to speak of that would make a person want to rush out and pick up The Battle of Argus, especially if they already own the superior PlayStation 2 version. Tecmo threw in some newly-designed enemies in random places, mostly knights or impy battlers, but they tend to block most, if not all, of Rygar's attacks, amping up the difficulty somewhat. Also included is a new "Gladiator Mode", which does away with the regular game's controls in favour of direct attacking through mad flailing of the Wiimote while running you through round after round of enemy onslaughts in an arena in the middle of nowhere. It's basically a "how long can you last" mode, but with even WORSE controls.