Named the 3rd best side-scroller of all time by www.gameobserver.com, the game fell into virtual obscurity in 1996 while the Sega Saturn was losing the console war against the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo N64. Those who actually played Guardian Heroes remember a game that pulled out all the stops, making it one of the most memorable 32 bit titles of the mid 90’s. It featured a team of four playable characters on a quest to keep a mystical ...
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Named the 3rd best side-scroller of all time by www.gameobserver.com, the game fell into virtual obscurity in 1996 while the Sega Saturn was losing the console war against the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo N64.
Those who actually played Guardian Heroes remember a game that pulled out all the stops, making it one of the most memorable 32 bit titles of the mid 90’s. It featured a team of four playable characters on a quest to keep a mystical sword out of the hands of evil-doers.
Action unfolded in 2D but in three battle planes. Unlike the depth movement found in most Beat ‘em Ups, players were only able to jump from the foreground, to the middle-ground, to the background. It resembled Fatal Fury’s ability to jump deeper into the level to avoid contact. Guardian Heroes offered three of those planes. The concept took some getting used to but allowed D-pad moves similar to Street Fighter, which would have been hard to execute without the planes and offered an extra doze of strategy, especially when fighting giant bosses.
Single player campaigns included an NPC (non-player character) tagging along during fights, usually because the plot demanded it. The game also featured up to six-player battles with 45 selectable characters. Players were able to block, perform two types of attacks (fast and strong), could perform magic and command their teammate, all in real-time. The result was a wild fighter game with explosive magic, swords and ghastly amounts of juggle combos.
The most memorable part of Guardian Heroes was a story worthy of a Japanese animated cartoon. It was clear from the outset that developer, Treasure, designed a game around the story not the other way around. Characters were lovable; bad guys were contemptible (often funny). The plot unfolded giving players the option to take various paths with different endings. Guardian Heroes has to this day maybe one of the highest levels of replayability of any game. It also offered an RPG element where players could upgrade their character’s stats.
In the end, most who played this rebellious fighter almost recalled it as an animated series, not as a game.
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