Rygar

Rygar is an arcade game created by Tecmo in 1986 and originally released in Japan as Argus no Senshi (アルゴスの戦士). It is a scrolling platform game where the player assumes the role as the "Legendary Warrior", battling through a hostile landscape. It included a rich set of attack and movement capabilities. Only with these mastered would the player stand a chance of progressing through later stages.

The main feature of gameplay is using a weapon called the "Diskarmor", a shield with a long chain attached to it.

The game was ported to the Sharp X68000, Commodore 64, Sega Master System (Japan only, called Argos No Juujiken), Spectrum 48K and the Atari Lynx. The Lynx version closely follows the arcade version, but there are only 23 rounds and the layout of some rounds is different. A significantly different version was developed for the NES.

Story
The arcade game begins with the following introduction:

''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...''

Information gleaned from console manuals reveals that the evil being Ligar has taken over the land of Argool, and Rygar, a dead warrior who has risen from his grave, must use his Diskarmor, along with a variety of other weapons, to stop him. In console versions clues and limited dialogue are given in the form of large, sage like men encountered in stone green temples throughout the game.

In the Japanese original, references to "Ligar" and "Rygar" are one and the same, due to the fact that the Roman syllables "Li" and "Ry" come from the same Japanese character. In this version, the hero is only referred to as "The Legendary Warrior", while both "Rygar" and "Ligar" refer to the main villain.