Ahoy, bitches!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, everyone! This is the holiday’s 10^th anniversary, and people all over the globe are celebrating. Why are they celebrating? Sigh, really? Fine, I guess I could spend a few minutes educating you, before I go back to my fun.

For those of you unaware of its origins, TLAP Day, as with Halloween and Festivus, was originally a pegan holiday that Adele intertwined with the release of her debut album 19 in order to help sales. It is because of this, and due to the fact that the recording of the album began in the September of 2006, that the holiday itself is celebrated on September 19. A few of you might be wondering why the focus shifted from Adele’s music career to pirates. The answer is rather obvious. Everything is better with pirates, no matter how terrible it is.

Hmmm. It’s better, but not by much. I might have to add Guile’s theme to this.

When Adele was interviewed in 2011 about the release of her next album 21, she was presented with the opportunity to give her thoughts on the evolution of September 19 into what it is today. Disregarding the comment, Adele held up a copy of 21 and shouted, “I promise it won’t suck like one of Rihanna’s albums!” Two days later, during a radio interview, Rihanna told the public, “Adele’s just jealous that she has never found love in a hopeless place! Actually, that sounds kinda catchy.” Months later, Rihanna was found comatose in a back alley, covered with dirt and urine. A nearby homeless man told a reporter that she was drunk when she showed up and creeped everyone out by demanding one of them to be her lover. He said that she then lost her footing and fell into the trash can fire that they were all huddled around. While she rolled back and forth on the road, the rest of them did what they could to put out her clothes. The incident left the singer traumatized as she eventually woke up in a hospital bed repeating the phrase, “We found love in a hopeless place.” Not to be deterred from making a quick buck, Calvin Harris added some background music to her rambling and released the album Talk That Talk, which features a headshot of the now-mindless artist on its cover.

And you thought I was making this shit up!

Today, we raise our Jolly Roger in honor of those who fought for what they believed in (having fun through stealing). During an era when people didn’t have the time to learn how to read and write, it just wasn’t practical to rob people using misleading contracts padded with several lines of fine print. You might be thinking of more conventional pirates, armed with shoulder cannons or powered with devil fruits. Such things didn’t exist back in the 14^th century BC when piracy began. Originally, pirates had to spend several minutes chanting spells like Aeroga and Blizzara, which left them quite vulnerable to a counterattack from their enemies, unless the captain knew how to properly support his men with Haste and Curaga. Their attire included bandanas for the scrubs while captains wore an assortment of luxurious hats which were usually obtained through the item drop system, crafting system, supply crates, or bought from the Mann Co. Store. Another common piece of headgear included the eye patch that typically indicated a pirate was concealing some sort of unique power that would consume the individual if they didn’t restrain it. One major exception to this was the infamous Captain Kenpachi who actually wore an eye patch to weaken himself, rather than to survive. Other forms of clothing included frock coats, puffy shirts, and an assortment of accessories, such as the shard of purity, which protected the wearer from status ailments, or the stealth ring, which provided a captain with an effective means of escape if the fight was not in his favor.

At the time, pirates were not the only people to fear while out on the waters. For a while, merfolk were a common sight, and a bit of a nuisance. Fortunately, most of them could only tap target creatures or cause you to discard your hand. Vikings, however, were every bit as vicious and dangerous as the pirates. Many referred to them as “coastal pirates” as they generally stayed within a few miles of land, while a few actually sailed on rivers and attacked nearby trading posts. In fact, some historians like to lump pirates together with Vikings, as they lived similar lifestyles, but Vikings relied heavily upon auto-attack options, rather than magic, and, not only that, the two groups represented completely different sports.  As much as I would love to see a receiver taken down with a ball bat, it’s just not going to happen.

I think that's enough for one day. I gotta get back to harassing General Chat in Booty Bay. Those pirate jokes won’t tell themselves, you know. Now that you know a thing or two about today and the people it represents you oughta join in the festivities. Obviously, you don’t have to do what I do. There are other ways to have fun, like dressing up, singing shanties with your fellow buccaneers, and drinking grog until your liver looks like the aftermath of a drive-by Medusaing. Of course, I wouldn’t mind a pirate joke or two in the comments section. I did, after all, take the time to enlighten you on the matter.

YARRR! I be a dork pirate!

Necromancing my Library 2: Rygar

For some reason, I was drawn towards Tecmo’s NES version of Rygar, a game released in 1987 that is still praised to this day for its use of a permanent form of strengthening the warrior. He wasn’t given an actual name in the Japanese game, but it’s best to just assume he’s called Rygar, because that’s what the English version did.

Rygar started out as a more colorful and detailed arcade title (degree of fun experienced varies with player), but, as with nearly all coin-operating entertainment machines, it was a sadistic, money-gobbling monstrosity that threw everything, except kitchen sink-shaped demons, at your one-hit-KO’d hero. When it was released on the NES, however, Tecmo had made a few changes.

Obviously, he’s talking about one of those 2 A.M. sunsets.

The arcade’s “Go right!” killing spree was turned into an open-ended half-n-half with some areas being a side-scroller, while other spots were viewed through a top-down perspective. Sounds neat, right? Metroidvania gameplay, for me, has always been a non-cake related lie about providing the freedom to explore. Yeah, I could go to any poorly-named zone of Argool (Primeval Mountain, Rosla, or even Ragua Sando) and kill stuff with either my glorified yo-yo (Diskarmor) or a flashing screen created from using the yo-yo ten times after buffing myself with Attack & Assail, but to accomplish what exactly? To reach a point where a hermit, who looks exactly like any one of the five Indora gods (because creating one more sprite to differentiate them would have taken Tecmo for-fucking-ever and billions of yen to accomplish), tells you, “Sorry, pal, but you need (item) to continue.” Essentially, I am given the freedom to run back and forth across the land each time I pick up an item in order to figure out which area I’ve now gained full access through. I’m still being forced to accomplish things in a particular order with only a few deviations along the way. I’d rather have kept to the side-scrolling throughout the whole game and avoided the headache of running into dead ends. My toleration of all that backtracking was thanks to the permanent power-up feature that rewarded me for the excessive fighting.

The story doesn’t really change in the transition; it just gets a bit longer. Ligar’s floating palace and his army of wimpy monsters darkened the land of Argool, captured the five Indora gods, and established the kingdom of EVIL. (Yes, the entire word is capitalized.) The “Door to Peace”, which symbolized the, you guessed it, peace of Argool was taken away by Ligar, leaving the people with no other option than to begin praying for salvation. Apparently, their prayers were so loud and obnoxious that it literally woke the dead as Rygar popped up out of the ground to fight. I guess this means Rygar is a zombie, but there is nothing zombie-ish about him outside of being able to pick himself up again each time he is killed. Endless continues! Yay!

The last change made for the NES version involved the monsters. Blue monkeys, flying squirrels, cave bats, drones and other creatures with simple names are replaced with kuzeelars, hyokings, garzels, epolcons, kinobles, and whocomesupwiththisstuffs. There’s also boss fights besides Ligar, but one can tell how lazy Tecmo became with these sprites, as they did with recycling the one shared by hermits and the Indora gods.

Belzar and Deathpigor look almost identical while Ligar’s unique appearance is offset by his attacking serpent heads that make him out to be another Deathpigor. What’s worse is that these three bosses have no mobility, and I’m supposed to believe Ligar is the most powerful foe in the game? How can I take Ligar seriously if he’s stuck to the floor? If Tecmo had allowed it, I would run around this guy, recover the door (wait, does that sound right?), and leave the lion man to die of boredom alone in his palace. I mean, what could he do about it? Yell loudly in protest? 

Other things to nitpick about include the game’s soundtrack. This is especially true of the looping roar sound the player listens to in each boss area. The sound effect repeats every other second and continues to do so even when the boss is dead. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the sound of the monster’s corpse emitting the last bits of life from its backside. As for the other areas, the only piece with any real quality to it would be Sagila’s Cavern, which has been remixed more than any other (from what I could find) on Youtube, though Suero Mountain’s theme will likely be the most memorable for players, since it’s the first thing we all hear when we start a new game. Also, feel free to hit the mute button once you reach the Palace of Dorago. If you’ve ever heard a record player skip for over a minute, then you already know what this stage sounds like. Using Rygar’s age isn’t a plausible excuse, either. Koji Kondo has been composing beautiful vg music since 1984.

Finally, the items you collect on this journey are not all that impressive (just like this blog entry). There’s no real indication as to when you need to use the grappling hook. You just sort of throw it up in the air when you think there might be a platform off screen. The wind pulley requires a little practice to use, because if you don’t position yourself properly, then it won’t latch, and your hero ends up falling off of a cliff. The crossbow’s only use is to create lines for your wind pulley. Not that I need another weapon, but it wouldn’t hurt to have it shoot bolts or arrows at enemies from a distance greater than that of the Diskarmor. The coat of arms is legitimately useful. Take it to a specialized hermit (or maybe it’s an Indora god cosplayer) and receive a potion than restores your health whenever you wish to drink it. Then there’s the Indoras’ armor. By the time you receive this item, your tone (offense) and last (defense) are probably high enough to overcome enemies without the added protection. I sure didn’t need it to beat the final boss!

IGN places Rygar at #59 for its top 100 NES games, and they refer to it as a “cult classic.” Then again, they consider Mega Man 6 to be #58, so I don’t think being on that list is much of a compliment, and the retro sanctuary places it as #52. I couldn’t find the game elsewhere on the lists of other sites, but all that really matters is whether or not you should play it. If you have the system (or an emulator) and you have access to the game, then why not play it? I own the cartridge because I bought it as part of a fifty-game lot on eBay. I certainly didn’t aim to own this particular title, but I guess I’m happy to still have it. Well, actually, I didn’t think the game was all that fun, but it was simple. Also, once you have an idea of where to go, the whole journey can be done in under an hour. Someone who enjoys speed runs might buy this… maybe. As for myself, being able to finish an NES game always gives me a feeling of satisfaction… even if the ending was kinda crummy.