Game review: Guardian heroes

Amidst a bunch of boring, predictable and unoriginal games which tried a bit too hard to push the envelope; Guardian heroes was a breath of fresh air. Sure, it didn't break much new ground or re-invent the wheel. But it had fun in absolute spades and had a quirky plot and memorable off the wall characters to boot.

Guardian heroes plays similarly to your average side scroller, but with some twists. For a start; moving up and down the screen is done differently. You have 3 planes: The front, middle and back. You hop between these planes at the tap of a button to beat punks down and avoid attacks. Characters are also able to unleash magic attacks, which consume magic points. These can be leveled up as you progress through the game, doing what a magic level up does: increasing range and power of the attack. At certain points in the game you'll get given options which decide determine the path you'll take through the game and ultimately which final boss you face. This provides the game with a nice amount of replayability. As each time you play, dependant on which path you take through the game you'll come across new characters, stages, bosses and unlockable characters. Taking every possible route through the game is the only way to unlock everything. Well...not the only way. This is the Saturn era. So of course there's an up, down, left, right, do the hokey cokey and press all buttons together to unlock everything from the word go. But it's much more rewarding to unlock things properly. Plus, with a game this fun you'll be looking for any excuse to play it through again and again.

The graphics in Guardian heroes are rather nifty. The Saturn wasn't brilliant at doing 3D, but was stellar at 2D. Guardian heroes featured the old distance scaling that was made popular by the likes of SNK in several of their beat 'em ups at the time (namely King of Fighters). As players move from the centre of the action, the camera zooms out to give a wider view of the playing field. As players move closer, the camera zooms in. This may not sound like a feature worth mentioning, as this is how natural depth of view works in a 3D game. But Guardian heroes was a 2D game and this wasn't a feature that you often saw in them. So it was pretty f**king mind blowing at the time.

The main issue with Guardian Heroes is that it's far too short a game. Play through it on your lonesome, and you'll breeze through it. Play through the game with a friend, and you'll wonder where exactly the challenge is. You can also acquire an A.I controlled ally known as the Undead warrior and he lays the smackdown like you would never believe. And providing you make the right choices and take specified routes through the game, you've got him until the very end of the game. Guardian heroes also features couple of subtle RPG-like elements, but they don't really add much to the gameplay. It's a real shame, because if this game was made to be a bit bigger and a tad longer - it would literally be the best thing ever. There is a battle mode which caters for up to 6 players, but with only a handful of gamers owning the Saturn multiplayer adapter - it's a mode that probably only a handful of gamers have ever experienced. Still! Battle mode is wildly entertaining with just you and a buddy, and you can have the CPU make up the numbers.

Guardian heroes is another Saturn classic in a long list that could've done with being ported to the Dreamcast. It'd be even greater for it to be released now: 6 player online battle mode, online co-op play with voice chat. The game would rock some socks!

Guardian heroes is a fantastic game and a great deviation from the normal walk along, kick a trash can, pick up a turkey, beat bitches with a pole until the final stage cliche's that every other side scroller seems to stick to like glue. It's a shame we're in a day and age where developers seem to have given up on games such as these. But thankfully for the contemporary gamers we have Castle crashers, which is probably the closest thing to Guardian heroes right now in terms of how it plays.

If you're a Sega Saturn owner and you're fortunate enough to own this game, then good on you! You're in possession of an absolute gem. If not, then happy hunting. Guardian heroes is incredibly rare. But I'll tell you this...hunting for this game is well worth it. One of my favourite Sega Saturn games by a long shot. It's a short game, but a highly replayable one. And you've gotta love any game which has a little shepherd boy who fights with a kamikaze bunny rabbit that can set itself on fire.



The good
+ Great presentation
+ Fun to play
+ Quirky character design and story

The bad
- A short game