Guardian Heroes
Sega Saturn
Nostalgia Factor:
I remember renting Guardian Heroes from Blockbuster Video when I was in high school. I had never heard of the game before, but there was nothing else I wanted to play at the video store. Not wanting to go home empty handed, I took a flier on this game. Boy did it turn out to be a great surprise.
I absolutely loved this game, and I must have devoted my entire weekend to playing it over and over again. Most of the time with beat 'em ups you only play through them once or twice. But this game had a complex story with multiple branches you could take as you made your way through the game. You'd experience different story events or get to play through different stages each playthrough, depending on your choices. There was an infinite number of ways to play through this game.
Outside of that one weekend back in 1996, I have not returned to Guardian Heroes. So that means it has been about 27 years since my last time through it. Wow.
Would I find that the game is just as fun and addicting now as it was when I was a kid? I'm SO ready to jump in and find out!
Story:
I don't remember much about the game's storyline from when I had originally played it, aside from the fact that I liked it. Playing through it in the present day, I thought it was alright, but nothing groundbreaking. Keep in mind that I did not have the instruction manual nearby - and the game doesn't do a good job explaining things in the beginning. So forgive me if I get a few details wrong.
The game focuses around a ragtag group of warriors known as the Guardian Heroes. One of the Heroes discovers an ancient and powerful sword that summons a giant, gold-metal plated warrior that joins the Heroes in combat and has to follow all their orders. Kind of like the Terminator in T2: Judgment Day. The evil Imperial forces attack the Heroes, but their new and powerful friend the golem helps drive them away.
Shortly after, the group is confronted by a wizard who explains that long ago, there was a battle between the sky and earth spirits. Humans sided with the sky spirits to defeat the earth spirits. Now this wizard wants to use the sword and the golem to battle the sky spirits and defeat them, leaving humanity as the only race of beings on the planet. You end up battling and defeating this wizard, and then taking the battle to the sky as you look to defeat the sky spirits as well. At least, I think that is what was going on. Not gonna lie - the story starts out promising but quickly devolves into Kingdom Hearts-ish nonsense the rest of the way.
Now, I've already mentioned how the game features multiple branching paths. This plays a big roll in the way the story unfolds. Each new game starts out the same, but after you flee to the cemetery you are faced with some choices. I don't remember exactly what they are, but they are something like: take refuge in a nearby village, attack the enemy forces, or flee. Depending on which choice you take, the game takes you to a different stage. After you beat that stage, you are then presented with a list of choices to make. The choice you make here takes you to another different stage. So on and so forth. So you can play through this game multiple times and take a different path each time, and get a vastly different experience from your last attempt. I think that is quite awesome.
For this review, I attempted to play through the game four times, and I was only able to beat it three times. Three of my four playthroughs took me down a similar story path against the sky spirits. The fourth, however, barely even delved into the spiritual side of things - and was more based around fighting bad human characters. From what I have heard, there are five different endings. I think I saw just two of them. This just shows you the level of depth and replayability there is to be found here.
Gameplay:
Before you start playing this game, I would highly advise you look up a move list for each character online. This isn't like Final Fight or Streets of Rage where you just have an attack and a jump button. This game has a fairly complex battle system that will swallow you up if you aren't prepared coming in. The first two times I played this in the present day, I came into without even realizing there was a move list out there. I kept getting my butt handed to me. Playing sessions devolved into mindless button mashing. Using save states, I was able to beat the game with Han (the big blonde guy). After this, I decided to play without save states and picked the guy in the green outfit (Ginjirou). I could barely make it through three or four stages, I kept dying so much. Eventually I ran out of lives and continues. It was a frustrating, button mashing affair. I said to myself: man, this game is not as good as I remember. And I set the game aside and didn't return to it for several months. With how excited I'd been to play this game, my initial impression of it was of extreme disappointment.
I finally came back to the game a couple days ago and decided to finish it off once and for all. I looked online to see what it was I'd been doing wrong on my previous attempts, when I saw that each character had a unique list of special moves that I didn't know about before. With a full list of moves on-hand, I played through the game with Nicole, who is a mage character. Learned how to use all her spells, and most importantly how to heal. I made it through the entire game with still three or four lives left to spare. My Serena attempt wasn't nearly as successful. I died a bunch of times in the first few levels and had to resort to using save states to ensure I made my way through the rest of the game. So there is definitely a difficulty difference between the characters that you choose.
Combat is definitely unique as far as beat em ups are concerned, but I can't say that it was put together very well. Your standard attacks do almost nothing to your enemies. Even stringing together big combos while never letting the foot off the gas, it takes seemingly forever to kill even the most basic enemy. Kick em, punch em, knock them into the air, do a spinning jump kick move that strings together four or five hits in a row as they are juggled in the air, and then slam down on top of them as they fall to the ground. That sequence takes like 30 hit points off of their 600 hit point gauge. It just feels really futile at times. And there is often so much going on onscreen that gameplay devolves into hectic, wild button mashing. So many times I was like "what is going on?!!!" as I played this.
Learning when to use your magic is essential to mastering this game. But even your magic doesn't seem like it does as much damage it should. Oftentimes I found myself just running away from the enemies and letting the golem take care of them. That is not optimal game design. Great beat em ups have you laying waste to your enemy, to the point where you feel like the ultimate badass. Never in this game did I even come close to feeling like a badass. I don't mind that there is a strategy element to this, but when I'm in battle with an enemy and it feels like I'm contributing nothing to the fight (as the computer AI controlled character does most of the dirty work), it just does not feel like great design.
Enemies love to swarm you on all sides, and string together giant combos that drain nearly your entire freaking life gauge. Seriously, enemy AI is very cheap in this game. Luckily, you can block their attacks and jump away to a different plane to get away from them. In this game, rather than having free roam as you make your way through the levels, there are three different planes you can hop back and forth between: the low plane near the front of the screen, the middle plane, and the far plane in the very back. Jumping back and forth between these planes is something you'll learn to strategically do in battle.
I feel as if this game would have been so, so much better if it had a better combat system. I like the magic, I like the fact that you level up, I like how you can use skill points at the end of each stage. But the combat itself. Why couldn't it have been more like something such as Golden Axe or Streets of Rage? It would have been so much more enjoyable.
Graphics:
There are two ways to look at this game's graphics. The first way is to look at them with disdain. Why are the characters so pixelated? These animations are terrible. Look how ugly the characters are. There's too much going on onscreen!
And then there is the second way: Look at that artwork! I love how these characters are brought to life. This game is so unique.
I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I thought the game looked amazing as a kid, but as an adult I definitely see a lot of its faults. When I first returned to the game, I thought it looked hideous. The more I played it, though, the more it began to grow on me. Honestly, I lean more towards the ugly side, however.
Sound:
This game has a good soundtrack. It is upbeat and jazzy at times. The music that plays during the story sequences is pretty memorable. I'm humming along with one of those songs right now. I don't think it is the greatest video game soundtrack ever made, but it is certainly unique. Like the game's graphics and its gameplay. Unique, unique.
Overall:
I wanted to like this game more than I actually did. I had such fond memories of this when I was a kid. That one weekend I rented this from Blockbuster Video was such an epic weekend. The problem is that I didn't find the gameplay to be any fun. The story was interesting. I like the branching paths. I like all the decisions you can make. I like how you gain experience and level up your character. Everything seems like it is in place to make this one of the best beat em ups ever. Except for the gameplay, the most important thing! If the game is not fun to play, none of that other stuff matters. And unfortunately, the game just isn't that fun to play.
I came away from it very unimpressed. I only attempted to beat the game with four of the five main characters. I had absolutely zero desire to play the game with that last character (Randy). If only the gameplay had been better. Give Guardian Heroes the same fundamentals as something like, say, Turtles in Time - and you have an all-time classic on your hands. Instead, the game is mediocre at best. And my review score is going to reflect that. I could have gone even lower with my final grade, but I think a C perfectly reflects my completely middle-of-the-road opinion on this game. It is the definition of average.
THE GRADE:
C
No comments:
Post a Comment