For a treasure game this one is actually rather bare bones in consideration of the contenders I have played before it, especially when thinking about games like Gunstar Heroes, Bangai-o and Alien Soldier. The company has a gravity for odd but interesting choices in gameplay, and for lack of a better word it’s become almost essential ingredients in platformers and shooters alike.
In the kiln of Guardian Heroes this game was one of my prided purchases, yes, I had a physical copy of the USA release. It was a beautiful game and instruction booklet as well.
At that time, I really just saw the game as a novelty, I would muster up some courage and throw down for a bit, but my young mind just didn’t have the attention span or ability to complete it.
Let’s fast forward to modern day, and I now I have it again on my Saturn and was happy to say that I did defeat the game. Now whether I did it in the correct order is a sign of contention. I didn’t use a guide, and I did not have any preconceived idea about what best route to take. I will say I managed the game rather well with using Han, he does have some nice combos, and a can fire off a magical blast from his hands and it will chase the enemy and burn and possibly even knock them over. See this was something I never minded myself with before was the fact that you use the Z+C buttons to fire off your magic attacks, additionally you can also use this to alert orders to your teammate. The game while rather boring in its button mashing does have some nuance and fun mechanics to keep things interesting and rolling on.
For me what could make this game much better and enjoyable is if they made the leveling a bit better and more cohesive, also allow the time and settings be more linear. While it is fun to multiple different story routes, with little in the way of fun other than button mashing I hardly find myself wanting to get into another visit of this quickly just to alternate the story route.
That being said, the meat and potato’s I do believe are in the combat and mechanics. And while the melee fighting of Han while a bit one dimensional, and boring, it does offer some cool and interesting combos you can perform, and if you look no further than the option menu it will tell you all about the various different button combinations to perform such attacks.
After reaching close into the end, it made me realize that the mages really have a stronger offense and even defense for that matter than the other combatants. So, it does make me want to play again, but next time going with a much more magic/intelligence-based build. My initial run was pretty basic lots of STR and VIT with some LUC.
Sound and music are ok, nothing stood out or really impressed me too much but that is not to say it’s bad just wasn’t anything revolutionary. There are moments where the scene and setting does repeat a specific music or theme which was kind of redundant and I think they could have either orchestrated something new or just done away with that all together.
In the guise of the story, I haven’t the slightest, seems to be a bit of a mystery to me. Barbaric fighters in some kind of fantasy world where wizards are reining, and chaos ensues. Sorry I couldn’t be bothered to read much or entertain myself much with it, I just wanted to beat the damn game and etch it finally off my list of Saturn games.
One of the more standout titles I think, and now after its all said and done, I feel a little let down. But it’s no worry, because in reality there really is still a lot more to it than even, I have said here, and that is really saying much for a 2d brawler like this on the 2d behemoth Saturn console.
