If you played 2002's Rygar: The Legendary Adventure for the PlayStation 2, then you've already played Rygar: The Battle of Argus.

"If I defeat you, you must listen to me say the word 'Diskarmor' many more times! Muahahahahaha."

The Legendary Adventure wasn't a particularly good game. But I do remember playing and enjoying it. Back in 2002.

I assumed that Tecmo had re-imagined the game somehow; that they'd reworked it, from the ground up, and were giving us an all-new Rygar. I was wrong. Instead, what I found here were the same bad camera angles. What I found were the same exact enemies in the same exact places. What I found was the same mediocre game that I played seven years ago.

Tecmo didn't even bother to Wii-ify the game's controls. Instead, the A button is your light attack; the B button is your heavy attack. There's no waggle -- none whatsoever -- in the main story mode. (The game's Gladiator mode, inexplicably, does allow you to mimic your Diskarmor attacks. Swing the Remote in a chopping motion to perform a Vulcan Hammer. Why this control scheme isn't used in the main game is a mystery to me. Oh, wait. It's merely that Tecmo was lazy. There, mystery solved.)

Look out! Those spiky caterpillers are totally after you!

Seriously, Tecmo, how do you sleep at night?

The Battle for Argus is paced like every other game in the third-person action genre. If you've played a Devil May Cry game, then you know what to expect here. You fight a few smaller skirmishes, then a bigger skirmish, then a few smaller ones; then you die a bunch of times because of a terrible camera angle; then you have a really big battle, aka The Level-Ending Boss. The bosses stink: An eel-thing with five fire-breathing, giant baby heads? Give me a break.

You'll mostly fight oversized caterpillars with spikes on them, making Rygar more of an exterminator than a hero. I've got roaches in my apartment in New York that he's welcome to use his Diskarmor on. (Speaking of the Diskarmor, what's even more annoying than the dumb name is the dumb way that everyone in the game pronounces the name. They don't say "Disk-Armor," like a normal person would. Instead, they say "Diskarmor" very fast, with no pause in the middle to let the two words breathe. This gives me red ass for some reason.)


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This was so cool ... back in 2002.

All of this is done in the name of saving a princess who looks exactly like Britney Spears. No kidding; this princess, who does nothing except get carried away by enemies and then sings a terrible song at the end of the game, looks exactly like Ms. Spears.

Seven years later, you can't merely port a game to the Nintendo Wii, add one new gameplay mode (the lame Gladiator mode), and charge people money for that. Ethically, that's wrong. Tecmo should have put a little note on the inside of the instruction booklet that begins, "Congratulations, Sucker."

Tecmo obviously isn't the only developer/publisher attempting to cash in on the Wii's runaway success by releasing half-assed ports from its back catalogue. But The Battle for Argus is one of the most egregious examples of that behavior I've seen.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.