This week, Wii owners get some new, quality titles to play. On the retail side, we've got three new games on offer. On the downloadable side, it's slim pickings again with only one WiiWare game and one Virtual Console game up for grabs. Plan on treating yourself this week? Let us know what interests you in the comments!

"The kingdom of Argus where the lions of the sea live is now dominated by imperial Rome. Here is where the story begins." That explains why a shirtless guy with a giant yo-yo is fighting moving statues and the guy from Soul Reaver. Oh, no, wait, it doesn't at all.

Well, even if we accept that Rome would pull out their whole arsenal of mythical creatures to oppose a single guy with anime hair, we suspect that maybe releasing a trailer highlighting the storyline -- and voice acting -- of Rygar: The Battle of Argus wasn't the best way to show the game off. At least we could have seen some sea lions, or, barring that, more of Rygar swinging his cool Diskarmor around.


[Via press release]

If the previous announcement of a December release date (deja vu?) caused you to put Rygar: The Battle of Argus on your gift wishlist, better find a substitute! Tecmo seems to have gotten into the habit of delaying the remake, and they're not ready to say goodbye just yet. We've received a press release announcing the latest date: February 3, 2009. We've got some more screenshots in our gallery at which you can stare wistfully.

1up editor Sam Kennedy, who found out about this after rushing through the game for review, suggests that Tecmo decided to delay the game to avoid getting lost in the holiday rush, rather than in the interest of any refinements. "... no changes are going to be made to the game in the meantime -- it's just being held for an extra two months."

Poor Rygar. It's taking longer than expected to remember where he misplaced his "Diskarmor." And let's face it, without his trademark weapon, Tecmo's mythical hero is just another muscle-bound oaf with bad hair. That's probably why the company has delayed Rygar: The Battle of Argus, with the upcoming Wii-exclusive now set to slice through retail shelves next February.

The delay is the second that the game, which was expected impact player's muscles this week, has suffered, and while no official reason was given, 1UP theorizes that Tecmo simply wanted to keep the title from being lost in the holiday shuffle. Tecmo is expected to make an official announcement soon regarding the delay. Until then, we suggest Rygar check the freezer (we've found our car keys in there more than once).

Nintendo announced a lot of games last night at their Japanese conference. Many of them, like Punch-Out!! here, were brand new. Some, like Supan Smasher and Cosmic Walker, we still don't know anything about. But we've got screenshots. So many screenshots.

After the break, you'll find galleries of all the new games, along with new screens of some upcoming games we've known about for a while. Of special interest to us: the previously-announced Oboro Muramasa Youtouden, coming to the US as Muramasa: The Demon Blade, because it looks super hot, Karaoke Joysound Wii, which appears to have art by Parappa creator Rodney Alan Greenblat, and Takuto of Magic (Wand of Magic), which appears to be a followup to Taito's LostMagic on the DS.

Want to see what Rygar: The Battle of Argus looks like, six years after the release of the game on which it's based, and more than one year after the remade version was announced? After the entire project was scrapped and started again? Certainly you'd expect a significant jump over the PS2 version. As these latest gameplay videos demonstrate ... not so much. But the good news is that Rygar on the PS2 looked pretty good anyway.

The "Minotaurs" (don't know why his name is pluralized!) boss fight is featured above, and there's a bit of platforming after the break. We've also included the PS2 Rygar trailer. If you want, you can pretend it's a new trailer for this one.

So Rygar: The Battle of Argus is probably going to come out, after about a year and a half of not coming out. That's a long time to wait for a port. It makes us wonder if there's going to be an audience for it when it comes out. So we'll just ask.

Are you up for this Rygar? If so, is it because you wanted to play the PS2 version but never did? Or because you really liked the PS2 version and want whatever new content is attached to this one? Or general fandom of the Rygar arcade, Lynx (unlikely) or NES (more likely) game?

1UP's James Mielke is, in general, not pleased about the prospect of a Koei-Tecmo merger. He imagines the company's Team Ninja franchises milked incessantly in the manner of Koei's Dynasty Warriors games, with an annual release supported by endless Xtreme Legends and Empires versions and mega-multiplatform ports. Of course, that's taking it to the Xtreme. In the course of complaining about the two companies' venality, he drops an interesting bit of behind-the-scenes info about the development of Rygar: The Battle of Argus.

Apparently, the port was conceived as a cheap-to-develop game (surprise!), but ended up "so disastrous and unportable that Tecmo had to go back to the drawing board with it." That would certainly explain all the delays. Next time you complain about PS2-to-Wii ports, remember this! Companies are working very hard to bring you all those games from 2002.

Tecmo is either desperate to make some money or desperate to prove that they can still finish a game, because they've dragged Rygar: The Battle of Argus back from whatever development limbo they had been keeping it in. Tecmo announced that the expanded remake of the PS2 Rygar: The Legendary Adventure will ship to North American retailers in December.

We were certain this game had been quietly cancelled. Why else would over a year pass before the release of what is essentially a port? Maybe it's turned into less of a port in the intervening period. Check Kotaku for a bunch of new screens!

Last year's smaller and considerably more inconvenient E3 marked quite a dramatic change from the glitz and glare we had grown accustomed to. Gone was the inescapable nexus of pulsating lights and the deafening roar of booths competing to be the loudest, instead replaced by warmly lit hotel rooms and, of course, tastefully dressed women. No wonder Tecmo didn't bother to show up.

Jokes aside, the publisher has confirmed to Joystiq that it will be attending the E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles this July, though it's unclear which games will be shown off. With Microsoft-published Ninja Gaiden II out of the way in June, we'll likely see more of Tecmo Bowl Kickoff, Rygar: The Battle of Argus and possibly some game about ninja babes slapping each other on the beach.

Rygar is absolutely one of the best side-scrolling action games on the NES. It's also popular enough to have spawned one and a half sequels on the PS2 and Wii. It shouldn't be much of a surprise that I love the game, since my enjoyment of "Metroidvanias" is well-documented. I expect that everyone in the Virtually Overlooked crowd is at least familiar with the wonderful NES game, if not also the arcade game. So I won't waste any time outlining the basics of the game.

Instead, I'd like to present a list of five of my favorite things (that I could think of) about Rygar.

Maybe Tecmo didn't receive Nintendo's marketing materials. Rygar on the Wii ignores the elderly, girls and casual gamers. This is meant squarely for the adrenaline-loving Spike TV-watching crowd. At the helm of this project is Keisuke Kikuchi -- a man who wants to bring a darker edge to the franchise and give Wii owners something that might, in fact, make players build their muscles. So much so that the game is being subtitled Muscle Impact in Japan. Seriously. Read on.

Why is it called Muscle Impact in Japan?
The Japanese title is going to be Rygar: The Battle of Argus. But after that will be "Muscle Impact." He wants to know what you think about it.

It's interesting, to say the least. Maybe, it's strange?
Well, do you think its Japanese?

It's very Japanese.
To elaborate on why we decided to include "Muscle Impact" in the Japanese title, was because we want players to feel strong and tough in this installment of Rygar. There's a bold statement behind it. With the foreign title, simply adding "The" to "The Battle of Argus" will probably translate what we're trying to do without adding more words to it. But, in Japanese, we wanted to make it more strong and add a really "tough" word to it. We want you to really feel the toughness.

Maybe players will feel stronger?
Well, take a look at my muscles! (Laughs.) Although, because we don't have a playable ROM here yet, you can't see how big they are yet!

We were very excited about the prospect of a new Rygar game on the Wii. Whipping the Diskarmor around sounds like one of those things that would naturally be perfect for the Wiimote. And we thought, based on the brand-new character art and the title-- Project Rygar-- that we were in for some big new stuff. After all, if it's a "Project," that means it's a pretty intensive undertaking, right? One that takes a lot of time and effort on Tecmo's part?

Yeah, it's a port of the PS2 game Rygar: The Legendary Adventure. The one from 2002. That's a little depressing! But hey, if it helps, the PS2 game was a fairly competent Devil May Cry-alike. And Tecmo is promising new content in the form of the newly-designed main character and, more significantly, a new Wiimote-friendly battle mode.



[Via NeoGAF]

The guys at Tecmo are bringing Rygar back to our screens. Last seen on the PS2, the Rygar games are set in mythical worlds, filled with Gods, Titans and that sort of thing.

The game's motto is 'New Hero, New Enemies, Swing Action.' The new hero can be seen in the concept art above, wielding the Diskarmor, the signature weapon from the games. It might look like a shield, but it's attached to a chain and can be used as a grappling hook, or a kick-ass weapon. The Wiimote is likely to take aiming and flinging duties. No news yet on release dates, but we'll give you more news as we get it.