Guardian Heroes Review

By Simon Parkin Published 12 October, 2011

Keeper of the faith.

Version tested: Xbox 360

It's just a sideshow attraction in Guardian Heroes, but Arcade Mode embodies all of the inimitable, brash creativity that has made its maker, Treasure, one of the best-loved game studios. Imagine, having selected your character in Street Fighter IV, that you were made to fight not one but every character in the game, all of whom piled on you simultaneously in an endless survival gauntlet, without so much as a stutter in frame-rate.

It's mayhem. And not the kind of conservative, Saturday morning children's TV mayhem of so many Smash Bros. titles. It's bona fide wild-men-picking-fights-with-rocks mayhem, the sort that, in the blur of colour and shape, makes it difficult to know where your character ends and an enemy begins. But it's also the kind of mayhem that, in some deep place in your being, unlocks the abandoned joy we all play video games in the hope of rediscovering.

Guardian Heroes is the eldest of Treasure's three seminal releases for Sega's Saturn (the others being Silhouette Mirage and Radiant Silvergun, which was also recently re-released on Xbox Live Arcade). It mixes the side-scrolling fantasy beat-'em-up play style of Golden Axe with the combat complexity of Street Fighter II and threads them into an OutRun-style branching structure. As a result, the Story Mode is at once familiar and, in the unique combination of these iconic designs, fresh and enthralling.

You have the choice of five characters to play as (four initially - female knight Serena Corsair is unlockable). Alpha male Samuel Han's brutish sword attacks can swipe through enemies even as they cower behind shields, while the lithe, agile Ginjirou Ibushi complements his super-fast attacks with lightning augmentations. For players who prefer the magical approach, the unlikely-named sorcerer Randy M. Green can employ various types of elemental magic, while Nicole Neil is the only character who can heal herself, an advantage counterbalanced by the fact she has the weakest attacks.

The game is unusually story-heavy for a Treasure release, fully embracing an anime knights-and-castles aesthetic and spinning a tale of regal intrigue that spirals up to the gods themselves. It's told via regular cut-scene interjections between the short, sharp missions.

1

Unlockable game pics are found deep within the game, badges of honour for those who can find them.

Normally these kind of narrative interruptions would irritate, but in Guardian Heroes, each micro-exchange is followed by one of three Choose Your Own Adventure choices, each sending your team off to a different numbered stage. The branching paths lead to a variety of different endings, and within the stacking choices you make as you play through the game, you have the opportunity to define what type of player you want to be, killing or saving civilians, defending or crushing the weak, and showing mercy or cold justice to repentant enemies.

The writing is robust rather than electric (and often the phrasing makes branching choices difficult to distinguish from one another). But the narrative structure ensures that you'll want to play through multiple times as you work to collect all of the endings and unlockable characters, which subsequently become available in the Arcade Mode and player-versus-player online modes.

For all its structural cleverness, the jewel at the heart of Guardian Heroes is the battle system, which allows attacks to be elegantly strung together into creative chains. It works a little like Street Fighter's cancelling, except the windows for combo-ing moves together are far more generous and there is no limit in the number of attacks that can be executed in quick succession. For example, you can trigger Han's 'Finale', which sees the character spin his arms around in a helicopter circle in order to juggle an enemy high into the air. Then, as you and your foe begin your descent to the ground, you can air-dash forward before executing a Han Maximum, weaponising your fall and adding a magical element to slice through your enemy mid-air.

For fighting game players well versed in looking for openings to combo into new moves or juggle opportunities, Guardian Heroes offers a fascinating playpen for destructive creativity, and hours can be spent inside the training mode perfecting combo strings. But where the game differs from its more straightforward fighting game cousins is in the fact that it allows enough time between moves to think on your feet.

Rather than bashing out memorised strings of attacks, you can read the play field and react accordingly, second by second. Enemies can be bounced off the floor, attacked in clusters and, even after the 'Dead' signal text flashes up on screen and their bodies fade to black, you can continue to juggle their cadavers with attacks.

This makes Guardian Heroes one of the most satisfying combat games ever conceived. The huge array of different attacks open to your character is multiplied by the attacks other characters can inflict on you, and in turn, the number of scenarios for blocking, countering and staging offensives of your own. While you constantly move from left to right through the stages, Treasure borrows SNK's Fatal Fury invention of allowing characters to jump back and forth between three planes in parallax. This gives the game a sense of depth and affords additional strategy as you manage your position in relation to enemies and your AI-controlled team-mates.

Sega's port to XBLA has undergone a rare amount of spit and polish. The entire game has been reformatted for modern widescreen televisions, irrespective of whether you opt for 'original' pixelated graphics or the divisive redrawn sprites, which have a pencil-shaded look. But the remake goes deeper than the visuals, with a 'remix' mode that changes not only the control scheme (swapping out the 'magic' button for a third-tier strength attack) but also adding in air dashes and air recoveries, making the game feel more like a flexible fighting game than ever before.

The multiplayer portion of the game has undergone a serious overhaul too. Story Mode can be played over Xbox Live in co-op, while in Network match you (and three friends) can join a lobby for up to 12 players to battle it out with any of the characters you've unlocked. There's a huge array of options on offer here, even allowing the host to toggle specific moves on and off on a per-character basis.

2

Achievements reward takedowns of specific bosses, meaning that you'll need to play through multiple times if you want to earn them all.

The level of customisation is far beyond anything seen elsewhere in a contemporary fighting game, allowing players to put cap levels on character selection, set the rate of magic point consumption for moves and even edit the starting position of characters. It's as if Treasure has given us access to the multiplayer debugging mode, rather than offering a commercial set of options, and tinkerers will be dazzled.

Guardian Heroes is one of the most comprehensive and generous ports on Xbox Live Arcade, a game that has been lovingly updated to suit the contemporary hardware. Few developers would dare touch the core mechanics of a well-loved classic, but in introducing (optional) elements plucked from Treasure's Bleach fighting game series, the Saturn's seminal scrolling sword-'em-up finds fresh life. Even without these enhancements, the game remains one of the strongest in the developer's sterling catalogue, a product of its time that here proves itself to be timeless.

9 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Simon.

About Simon Parkin

Simon Parkin is an author and journalist on video games. A core contributor to Eurogamer since 2005, he is also a critic and columnist on games for The Guardian.

Read more articles from Simon by visiting the Simon Parkin archive page.

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Comments (65) Latest comment 7 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Benno #1 8 months ago

    awesome!

  • Dizzy #2 8 months ago

    This is a 11/10 game TBH.

  • TruSmiles #3 8 months ago

    Yeah, totally is a 11/10 game. Especially at only 800 points! Bloody fantastic game.

  • CrispyXUK64 #4 8 months ago

    Those aren't redrawn sprites.

  • BlitzwingHaz #5 8 months ago

    Me and my cousin used to play the battle mode of this all the time, going the god-like characters, total carnage.

  • LeSpank #6 8 months ago

    Great review. Buying when I get home from work.

  • Huxamalay #7 8 months ago

    now get it on the PSN please........
    Edited by Huxamalay at 12/10/11 @ 11:56

  • berelain #8 8 months ago

    So would this be another must-have Saturn game? Oh, of course not, only Radiant Silvergun gets that honour doesn't it EG?

    Anyway, I've been waiting for this for so long I could explode. 11/10 for sure. Can't believe its only 800MSP, absolute bargain for one of the best games EVAR made. My co-op Gears 3 playthrough will have to go on hold for a few weeks because of this.

  • Bagpuss #9 8 months ago

    Lol...

    Rez, Ikaruga,Radiant Silvergun,Guardian Heroes....who would have thought that the most compelling reason to buy a 360 in 2011 would be 10-15yr old Sega games.

    Give me Panzer Dragoon Saga, and i might buy 2.

  • jablonski #10 8 months ago

    I don't share Mr Parkin's love for intricate combos and Streetfighter IV levels of complexity.
    Would it still be worth me getting it?

  • Stu #11 8 months ago

    I have such happy memories of this game I'm not sure I'd want to play it again for fear it wouldn't live up to my rose-tinted recollections. But for 800 points...

  • Buztafen #12 8 months ago

    /claps hands excitedly

    YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! \o/

  • steve1979 #13 8 months ago

    @jablonski - yes, it's worth getting. If you like games where you hit things, it's worth getting.

  • AdamAsunder #14 8 months ago

    @Bagpuss.

    If Sega hadn't misplaced the source code for Saga then they probably would have rereleased it.

    I never owned this as a kid but it was one of the best god damn rentals I ever had. This shall be mine.

  • TruSmiles #15 8 months ago

    @BlitzwingHaz I used to have six player's as the Undead Warrior on max level, and then set off the massive charging explosion. Good times! Can't wait to do that with twelve...

    @jablonski It's not actually that complex in my opinion. There aren't that many combos per character and its a fairly easy/casual game to get into to be honest. It's one of those games that appears really simple, but has a lot of depth hidden away. Try the trial in any case, but I'm not even a beat 'em up fan and totally adore this game.

  • Synthesis #16 8 months ago

    One of the greatest games of all time and by the sounds of it, they've ported it in exactly the right way, should absolutely be 10/10.

    Played this game so much on the Saturn back in the old days, definitely picking this up on the 360 when I get a chance.

  • jablonski #17 8 months ago

    Thanks Steve1979 and Trusmiles.
    I'll have a sniff of the demo

  • evild_edd #18 8 months ago

    I'm usually hesitant about any ports, so was waiting for the review.....

    EXTREMELY happy with this score. The 800msp price sounds too tempting to resist as well.

    Assume it's MP on the same console? If so, my brother-in-law's round tonight. Might be tempted to make this a Day 1 instead of the usual L4D2 splitscreen session :0)

    EDIT: Sorry just checked Xbox.com and it is indeed 1-2 players co-op offline. I even have the MSP sitting in the account :D
    Edited by evild_edd at 12/10/11 @ 12:33

  • Slipstream #19 8 months ago

    The game that's going to interrupt Dark Souls.
    I really don't want that but it can't be helped, I MUST play this, I must.

  • Geminosity #20 8 months ago

    From such a glowing review I expected full marks by the time I got to the end. Not that 9/10 is bad by any stretch of the imagination (better than Halo! :p ) but I don't see anything in the review that docks it 1 point. Oh well, it was already an instant buy for me anyhoo and I'll be urging everyone at work to pick it up too so that treasure has plenty reason to make that sequel they were talking about :3

  • Monkey_Puncher #21 8 months ago

    That guy was right, it seems XBLA has spent it's load and it's only downhill from here :(

    *waits patiently for Fez, Skulls of Shogun and Retro City Rampage*

  • Rack #22 8 months ago

    Even in such a stonking year this is my most anticipated title. Can't wait.

  • irve77 #23 8 months ago

    I loved this game on the saturn and i'm sure i'm going to love online co-op on XBLA

  • Xardan #24 8 months ago

    I can already hear the theme music and i havent heard it in years!

    Anyway i think this is an essential purchase for any discerning gamer, and at just 800 MSP it should be in your collection of XBLA games.

    Now lets pray for Panzer Dragoon Saga and Jet Set Radio.

  • GundamJehutyKai #25 8 months ago

    I remember using an action replay to access the original Saturn debug mode and putting the character attack and magic abilities to obscene levels. Force fields would be larger than the screen, ice pools would cover the walls... And then the game would crash. Good times!!! Time to recreate the madness

  • BartsBlue #26 8 months ago

    Y u not on PSN? (;__;)

  • G-Lord #27 8 months ago

    I have the game on the Saturn, but never got into it. This review makes me want to give it another shot.

    @Bagpuss
    As an owner and fan of Panzer Dragoon Saga I wish that more gamers would get the opportunity to play this masterpiece via rerelease.

  • handsonhips101 #28 8 months ago

    I have this on the saturn. It rules.

    @Djclownshoes; Really? Who mentioned ps3 or wii? You are weird.

  • Peew971 #29 8 months ago

    Where's the Ocs Must Die review? It's sorta awesome.

  • TruSmiles #30 8 months ago

    As much as I loved Panzer Dragoon Saga and would do anything to see it again, it's never gonna happen. SEGA lost the original source code :(

  • berelain #31 8 months ago

    @Bagpuss, G-Lord
    "As an owner and fan of Panzer Dragoon Saga I wish that more gamers would get the opportunity to play this masterpiece via rerelease."

    Indeed. I don't care if they lost the source code, make some emulator to run it in or something, or better yet rebuild it from the ground up to be EXACTLY AS IT WAS. PDS is the finest RPG ever made, bar none.

  • Toothball #32 8 months ago

    I'm really far behind in my XBLA gaming, but I can't turn down a Treasure game

  • Trent_Steel #33 8 months ago

    Is there any market at all for this on 360? It's not exactly a brosef-friendly brewski swiller.

    I'd have thought it far more suited to PSN or even VC.

  • IkariW #34 8 months ago

    Some of the funniest 'WTF' moments I ever had on my Saturn were playing this game.... playing as the tiny dog in 7 battle mode was absolute comedy. (With Multi-tap ;))
    And the screen filling encounters in the story mode were just all sorts of awesome... although the poor Saturn could barely handle them! and considering it's immense sprite pushing power thats no mean feat! haha. ;) Picking this up right now. :)
    Edited by IkariW at 12/10/11 @ 16:45

  • frazzl #35 8 months ago

    Delude yourself some more Trent_Steel, after all you're a card carrying member of the SDF

    Trent_Steel
    15/06/11 @ 08:52
    Ignore poster | #105
    -9
    I despise the Xbox brand and everything it stands for.

  • Slipstream #36 8 months ago

    I just played the trial, brilliant, I love the chain combo system! I actually feel like that this system has inspired many recent beat 'em ups in fact.
    Edited by Slipstream at 12/10/11 @ 16:04

  • Trent_Steel #37 8 months ago

    Fraz

    I openly admit to despising the Xbox brand as it has been the driving force in the growth of linear, brown, western shooters aimed at 12 year old hillbillies and has brought a chav element to gaming culture that previously didn't exist. I also however, am not afraid to criticize Sony and have done in the past. For the record I think PS3 is a joke compared to it's predecessors, both of which still hold extensive libraries of immensely imaginative, original and often timeless games. Sony tried to chase the fratboy hick market with PS3, alienating a portion of the PS1/2 audience and paid for their mistake with a huge drop in market share. For the record I also think the Vita will flop and despite looking quite cool, it's totally irrelevant in 2011.

    But on my original point. Guardian Heroes is an obscure, niche, very Japanese game from the mid 90s. In all seriousness, do you really think that out of the consoles, the 360 userbase will appreciate it most? Really?!

    With a western, predominantly teenage audience unaware of gaming history and focussed on COD and FIFA, 360 is less suited to a game like this than PS3 or Wii. Don't kid yourself.

  • Lord_BeeJee #38 8 months ago

    With the latest sonic release announced on steam I'm hoping for this to come our way too :) In the meantime I'll get me old Saturn from the attic!

    And Trent, you should take gaming a little less serious. Its just games you know :)
    Edited by Lord_BeeJee at 12/10/11 @ 16:23

  • Kaminari #39 8 months ago

    As Crispy said above, those aren't redrawn sprites. The Scale2x filter does look really cheap.

  • Trent_Steel #40 8 months ago

    BeeJee

    Aye I know, but I was brought up on Ninja Turtles and Mario on the NES so am a stereotypical ranting old bastard who preferred the way it used to be!

  • specular #41 8 months ago

    This brings me so much joy. I own the original Saturn game and a while back I decided to fire it up after reading a retro article about it. The game totally destroyed me! I used to be ace at it. Great that it's on this gen too!

  • Lord_BeeJee #42 8 months ago

    Allrighty, I know what you mean there!

  • iago71 #43 8 months ago

    "Give me Panzer Dragoon Saga, and i might buy 2."

    Second that!

    Defo gonna buy this when I get in. Had so much fun with it on the Saturn. Dare I say it? Time off Dark Souls tonight methinks. :)

  • fizzyfish #44 8 months ago

    I'm tortured by my own personal version of The Game, where, instead of trying not to think about The Game, I'm perpetually trying to forget that <a href=http://www.1up.com/features/panzer-dragoon-saga-retrospective?pager.offset=4>They Lost The Source Code For Panzer Dragoon Saga</a>. Threads like this are not good for my mental well-being.

  • chischis #45 8 months ago

    Now release a PC version please... :(

  • Badassbab #46 8 months ago

    SWEET!!!!!!

    My faith in old rehashed has been restored!

  • RedSparrows #47 8 months ago

    Trent, you do realise half the snobbish moan you just made should really be directed at the Playstation? That console opened gaming up to the unwashed masses you despise so.

  • Silvergun-Blue #48 8 months ago

    Time to retire my original Saturn copy?

    Truly this is the stuff remake dreams are made of.
    l

  • Dizzy #49 8 months ago

    >In all seriousness, do you really think that out of the consoles, the 360 userbase will appreciate it most? Really?!

    Maybe a lot of Saturn guys went the XBox route because they don't like Sony for fucking Sega?

  • orakio #50 8 months ago

    One of my all-time favourites, this.
    Urging for another playthrough now, although it'll be on the saturn ^_^

  • woodnotes #51 8 months ago

    Not a big fighting game fan but Streets of Rage is one of my all time favourites - is this similar?

  • BuckEntropy #52 8 months ago

    @woodnotes - GH is a beat-em-up so yes, it's very similar to most other side scroll, pseudo 3D beat-em-ups. But it's also quite unlike anything else, hard to explain you just have to experience it. I agree completely with this review, it makes a great case, there's just nothing that quite compares to the mayhem of Guardian Heroes, yet it almost never feels cheap about it. And it's as technical or as button mashy as you choose it to be...either way just fluid distilled fun.

  • frazzl #53 8 months ago

    @Trent_Steel

    "I openly admit to despising the Xbox brand as it has been the driving force in the growth of linear, brown, western shooters aimed at 12 year old hillbillies and has brought a chav element to gaming culture that previously didn't exist."

    Last time I checked those "linear brown western shooters" made the jump to consoles from the PC. Do you despise PC gaming as much as you do the Xbox? And let's not forget that it was the Playstation brand that brought gaming into the mainstream. And aren't the biggest PS3 titles these same "linear brown western shooters" or their derivatives?

    "I also however, am not afraid to criticize Sony and have done in the past. For the record I think PS3 is a joke compared to it's predecessors, both of which still hold extensive libraries of immensely imaginative, original and often timeless games. Sony tried to chase the fratboy hick market with PS3, alienating a portion of the PS1/2 audience and paid for their mistake with a huge drop in market share. For the record I also think the Vita will flop and despite looking quite cool, it's totally irrelevant in 2011."

    I have to disagree with you again. I love the original PS. It is a great machine with a library full of classics, and despite my beloved Saturn's 2D prowess it was my favourite gaming system of the 32/64 bit generation. I can't say the same about the PS2; apart from JRPGs I felt that every other genre was better catered for on the GC or the original Xbox. If anything the PS3 hints at a return to form for Sony especially with Kutaragi now gone.

    "But on my original point. Guardian Heroes is an obscure, niche, very Japanese game from the mid 90s. In all seriousness, do you really think that out of the consoles, the 360 userbase will appreciate it most? Really?!"

    Guardian Heroes may be a very Japanese game, but in the 90's Japanese games were in the forefront of gaming. Just look at the best known console titles of the 90's. How many of them were NOT Japanese. Guardian Heroes may not have sold millions but to call it obscure is insulting to say the least, and does not reflect well on your gaming knowledge. And as Dizzy suggested, there are a number of Sega fans such as myself who see Microsoft's Xbox brand as a spiritual successor to Sega's (without the arcade pedigree of course).

    "With a western, predominantly teenage audience unaware of gaming history and focussed on COD and FIFA, 360 is less suited to a game like this than PS3 or Wii. Don't kid yourself."

    Firstly you should take a look at the Japanese charts today. I don't think Guardian Heroes is any better suited to the contemporary Japanese gamer than it is to the contemporary Western one. You should also have a read of gamer demographics. You might be a bit surprised if you feel the audience is predominantly in its teens!
    Edited by frazzl at 13/10/11 @ 17:55

  • berelain #54 7 months ago

    @frazzl - damn, you beat me to every single point I was going to make, and then threw some more in for good measure. Well said.

  • SlackMaster #55 7 months ago

    I love this game and it brings back a lot of memories when I play it. If you switch to the original graphics they still stand up really well, but I'm a bit confused as to why Tresure didn't keep in the original saturn intro.

    I know it can be viewed as a bonus but it's in a really tiny window and aside from the KOF99 (98) Dream Match intro on the DC is one of my all time favourite into movies ever.

  • berelain #56 7 months ago

    @Slackmaster - you can make the video full-size by pressing X (I think it was X, anyway). Its not great quality, but its still an awesome intro.

  • adofessex #57 7 months ago

    I would have loved to have seen a remastered, HD intro. The game is still all kinds of fun and the new features are welcome ones. A great game just got that little bit better.

  • Ryze #58 7 months ago

    MAGIC. It's taken a long time, but the best of the Sega years is finally being unlocked and unleashed.

    @Trent_Steel

    What a cockface you are! 360 is this gen's SNES / Dreamcast / PSX / PS2.

    I don't know what the fuck you're on about. It even breaks as much as the PS1/2 did!

    PS3 is this gen's Saturn / Mega CD - trying to live off of the brand, but the hardware is awkward, with potential only unlocked by a devoted few with the budget and expertise to tap into it.
    Edited by Ryze at 13/10/11 @ 10:14

  • TruSmiles #59 7 months ago

    I too saw the Xbox as the natural successor to the Dreamcast. But that was also helped by the amount of SEGA games that appeared on the Xbox first, such as Shenmue 2, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, etc. I own both a PS3 and a 360 but I'm drawn to my 360 more than the PS3. But then, when the Dreamcast died, I did hate Sony for a while after :p
    Edited by TruSmiles at 13/10/11 @ 09:54

  • menage #60 7 months ago

    Need PS3 version!

  • geeza2020 #61 7 months ago

    How the hell did I miss this? I'm downloading the shit out of this when I get back from work tonight!

  • TexMurphy01 #62 7 months ago

    I keep my Saturn around for titles like this, VF2, NiGHTS and what not. Hell, did they re-release NiGHTS? And I'm not talking about that travesty for the Wii.

  • DarkSynbios #63 7 months ago

    SEGA SATURN Forever!

  • Jimmy__Fury #64 7 months ago

    @TexMurphy: I second that, why no high def NiGHTS re-release? Imagine competing on the scoreboards online... with Christmas NiGHTS style clock/weather functionality, would be simple and amazing :)

    Looking forward to this re-released, changes sound interesting and probably add to the fun. To be honest though, I played this to death on the saturn years ago (I even bought the six player multi tap). Friends and I would play the battle mode for hours. Not sure I can capture that lightning in a bottle twice :)

    That said, I'm glad lots of classic Sega Saturn games are finding wider audiences on re-release. The download market is certainly allowing everyone to realise what they missed first time around, and I hope that this sells well!

  • cardboardMonster #65 7 months ago

    Half bought this for the intro, and (as people have said!) it's hidden away in the extras in low resolution. Ugh - epic fail. Started playing the game though and remembered what an absolute gem it is. With Daytona USA and Sonic CD remakes on the way, it's a good time to be an old school Sega fan!