Argos no Senshi: Muscle Impact

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Price: $66.90

This item is currently sold out and unavailable

Item Number: RVL-P-RYGJ

Publisher: Tecmo

Jan/UPC Code: 4960677130034

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NCS Game Synopsis

«©NCSX» In the land of Argus, Princess Harmonia is congratulating a gladiator named Zane for his services to the Empire when the ceremony is interrupted by a trio of Titans. A winged Titan grabs hold of Harmonia and Zane rushes to her aid but he's smacked down by another Titan. After falling into a crumbling dungeon and given a weapon known as the Disk Armor by a disembodied voice, Zane's adventure begins...

The latest Argus game from Tecmo features a Story Mode which is played with a conventional control scheme and a Muscle Mode where Wii Remote whipping motion is in play. The Story Mode is fairly straightforward in execution - for example, Zane has to go to point A to trigger an entry to point B and in between the two points, a bunch of enemies have to be killed. The Muscle Mode features fighting action where Zane faces off against a procession of creatures on top of a rocky platform. In Muscle Mode, the Remote is jerked back and forth to simulate the throwing of the Disk Armor at crowds of enemy attackers. The execution somewhat unwieldy and suffers from lag but maybe we just need a little practice. To activate the Disk Armor, you'll have to press and hold the "A" button and whip the Remote forward or sideways.

NCS Game Notes
» The title screen is static but if you leave it alone, a demonstration will play where the warrior named Zane runs around, goes up a few flights of stairs, and destroys an entire building. Leave it alone some more and the title screen will appear again followed by a cinematic introduction which features a short English voice-over.

» Press "A" on the title screen and the following options appear:

STORY MODE - Play as Zane in his Disk-Armor adventure
MUSCLE MODE - Fight a procession of creatures upon an outdoor slab of stone
GALLERY [Theater, Music, Pictures]
OPTION [Adjust BGM and SE volumes, adjust color balance]

» Several years have passed since the events of the last Argus release and Rome dominates the land of Argus. The hero's name is Zane and he's working as a gladiator who fights to live and lives to fight. He wants nothing more than to bring glory to Princess Harmonia. At the outset of the game, Harmonia is thanking Zane for his service when Titans invade the Coliseum. A winged Titan grabs hold of Harmonia and Zane tries to help but he's smacked by another Titan and he falls into what appears to be nothingness but he ends up inside a dungeon. A female voice speaks to him and he's eventually given he Disk Armor. That's when the game proper begins and control is handed over.

» The speech in the game is entirely in English and the main menu options are mostly in English. The in-game text however is in Japanese only.

» The controls are as follows in the STORY MODE:
Nunchuk analog stick - Movement
Nunchuk C button - Raise shield
Nunchuk Z button - Jump
Wii Remote A button - Swing the Disk Armor forward
Wii Remote B button - Perform a little spin before swinging the Disk Armor forward
Wii Remote D-pad Down - Forward slide (has to be activated before it's functional)

» The controls are as follows in the MUSCLE MODE:
Nunchuk analog stick - Movement
Nunchuk C button - Raise shield
Nunchuk Z button - Jump
Wii Remote A button - Press and hold to activate Remote whipping action
Wii Remote B button - Center camera
Wii Remote D-pad Down - Forward slide

» When the hero is hit by an enemy, he'll lose a lot of blood and his health meter will drop slightly.

» When roaming inside dungeons, a map of the area is located on the lower-right corner of the screen.

» Creatures in the game include spiky caterpillars, weird humanoid-like amphibians, and one-armed monsters who float in mid-air and attack with their lone clawed arm.

» Many but not all obstructions, statues, and other in-game structures can be attacked and destroyed. You can tell if something's destructible by hitting it with the Disk Armor and checking if it kicks up any dust. If it doesn't release any dust, it's not vulnerable to the Disk Armor.

» There's an area in the first floor where you'll have to scoot underneath a little passageway to get to the next area. The passage is behind an obstruction at the end of the hallway that must be destroyed. The goal in the first area is to get to an urn which has a design of a unicorn head on top. Zane must lift it and then set it down again to remove an enchantment from a door so that it is accessible.

» The first real serious threat appears on the second floor in the form of a mallet-wielding Cyclops. He swings the mallet non-stop and whacked out our Zane in a few seconds. On our second encounter, we learned that you have to keep hitting him with the Disk Armor once he appears so that he can't rev up his mallet-smacking ways.

» When Zane dies, a screen with the words, "The Legend is Dead" appears. Nice.

» To save your progress to memory, stand in front of a lion's head with gas spewing from its maw and press the "A" button. There's a total of 10 save slots available.

» The first end-level boss is called Hekatonkeil and it's a living statue of three beings - someone that looks like Zeus wielding a club on the left, a fire breathing horse in the middle, and a helmeted warrior on the right. The Zeus part of the being will smack downwards with its club, the horse breathes fire in a wide swath, and the helmeted warrior swings his blade across the screen. To avoid the sword swing, Zane will have to jump or he'll get sliced and lose about 1/5 of his HP gauge.