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Rygar: The Legendary Adventure is a fun action adventure on the PS2 released in 2002. The game was well-received among critics, going as far as receiving nominations for various awards. While it did well critically, it sadly failed commercially. Rygar was unable to dethrone competitors like Shinobi and Devil May Cry. While Tecmo was working on a Ninja Gaiden game back then, rumours began to surface about a potential Rygar sequel in the works. The first mention of a Rygar follow-up appeared in an Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine issue and an IGN article in 2004 where journalists reported that Tecmo was gearing up to showcase the next chapter in the Rygar franchise. Game Informer caught up on the news and interviewed Tomonobu Itagaki to obtain more scope on the matter. The aforementioned assured everyone that he would make an announcement regarding Rygar 2, but in the end, he didn’t.

Gamekult reported that Tecmo has renewed the trademark, speculating that the company may indeed release the Rygar follow-up. On the other hand, IGN continued with their investigation, speculating that Rygar 2 may be released in 2005 for the Xbox and the PS2. In the end, nothing happened and the project was silently shelved.

There were attempts to contact Satoshi Kanematsu, Yoshifuru Okamoto and Tomonobu Itagaki to learn more about Rygar 2, but nothing came to fruition.

More details concerning Rygar 2 have been documented in a YouTube video.

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Unseen News

Brave 2 (PS2) — Cancelled Sequel

FreeckyCake

01-09-2024

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Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer is a relatively unknown 3D action-adventure developed by Vis Entertainment and released by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in 2005. The game was released late into the PS2’s lifespan and couldn’t compete with the many blockbuster hits of yore. Consequently, the game fell into obscurity due to poor marketing, critical acclaim, and sales. Eventually, Vis Entertainment shut down in 2005, laying off all of its employees in the process.

However, before Vis Entertainment’s demise, the company was actually working on a sequel that was 25% complete according to producer Robbie Graham. Not only this but according to assistant director Pete Shea, the sequel was going to be an open-world action adventure with a sophisticated AI wild-life experience akin to what Far Cry 2 managed to achieve. All in all, it was envisioned as a step above its predecessor. Unfortunately, the sequel was never finished and neither any images of it were preserved online. All that remains is a mention of Brave 2 in the archived portfolio blog of artist Mathew Cooling.

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Not only this, but after reaching out to the main writer Brian Gomez, he said Brave was, at one point, planned to receive a TV Series adaptation. Unfortunately, that idea never came to fruition. It seems that Vis Entertainment had good plans for Brave, but they never materialized.

A video exists documenting the history of Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer in full detail, covering how it all began, the main inspiration and other misc tidbits you might find interesting.

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Credit goes to Evan Hanley for finding the archived portfolio blog of Mathew Cooling.

Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Bujingai 2 [PS2 – Cancelled]

FreeckyCake

28-05-2024

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Taito and Red Entertainment once made one of the best action hack-and-slash games of all time on the PS2. An homage to Hong Kong cinema, with an amalgamation of some incredible ideas tossed in. The game was released exclusively on PS2 for North America, Japan, Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan. While the game had all the ingredients that make a hack and slash fun, it sadly flopped on the commercial side.

Even if the game didn’t meet Taito’s expectations, the developers wanted to make a sequel and push the story forward, but that didn’t happen. This can be explored in an old blog post from Gamasutra where Hiroshi Aoki said the following:

” Well, the company wanted to go in certain directions… (laughs) I did want to make more, but anyway, it didn’t really happen.”

But wait, there’s more. According to an interview from the Untold History of Japanese Game Developers by John Sczepaniak, it was revealed that an actual prototype of a Bujingai sequel existed. However, the game never got past that phase of development. Here’s a short read:

“There are a lot of things I can’t tell you. For various reasons. <nervous laughter> Bujingai 2 was in development and looked really good, but never got released. <nervous laughter> So that game existed”