Advance Guardian Heroes

"Disappointing, but still enjoyable sequel to the classic"

Advance Guardian Heroes. The game I had been waiting for ever since it was announced, finally here, in my hands…and guess what? It's not what I wanted it to be. It's a good game, but then again, it's not great.

Advance Guardian Heroes (hereon out referred to as AGH) is a sequel (gasp! A sequel from Treasure?! Indeed it is!) to the classic Sega Saturn game, Guardian Heroes. Now I've never played the original Guardian Heroes, but I've wanted to do so for a long time. So when AGH was announced, I was ecstatic to think that I was going to be able to play a sequel to a game I so desperately wanted to play. In the end, though, I was under whelmed – something I wasn't expecting from one of my favorite developers, Treasure.

The plot is hard to follow. Apparently, the two major enemies from the first game, Zur and Kanon, are revived somehow and now seek to place the world under their control. Using the souls of the Legendary Heroes from the first game, it seems there's no stopping Zur and Kanon until an unknown soldier (who you'll play throughout the game) willingly volunteers himself to be taken over by the Legendary Undead Hero's soul, so that he may stop the evil forces and bring the world back to peace.

If you're wondering what I just said above, don't worry – I wondered what was going on as well. To be honest, the story is a minor thing in AGH. There really is no character depth at all, especially from the guy you play, since he's possessed by another soul, leaving no personal traits at all for himself. The only character I cared about was Zur, who I'll admit is one of the coolest and zaniest villains ever. He actually reminded me of Kefka from Final Fantasy III/VI; both of them are crazy villains and both of them actually made me laugh – in particular, Zur's special move is a hyper beam that comes out of his…erm, “pelvic area”, and while that beam shoots out, he puts his hands on his hips and laughs. Seeing that animation over and over never ceases to at least make me smile…that is, unless that particular beam is killing me.

The Tutorial wasn't all that helpful to me, since you'll learn everything right off the bat once you do it. The most difficult aspect of gameplay is mastering the barrier and counter technique. In addition to punching and kicking the snot out of hordes of enemies, you'll also need to learn how to form a barrier and the right time and how to counter, since they are both essential to survival. When you perform barrier, the character creates a defense shield around himself. In normal situations, this will drain your magic power and leave you immobile, yet immune to attacks for a short amount of time. When creating a barrier at the right time, you can stun your enemies for a few seconds and defeat them. When enemies fire bullets are whatever ammo they have on them, you can reflect their own firepower back at them and destroy them in just a few tries. Mastering the barrier and counter technique is required to beat the game, so it's best you learn to do so early on in the game.

You can choose from three characters: Enn, Ray, and Hyu. They all look the same during gameplay, though at the beginning they all have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, one character may be strong in magic attacks but weak in defense. It doesn't really matter which character you choose first, since you'll upgrade all of their abilities in due time.

The introductory level was actually bland and not fun. All you did was basically walk around a forest, beating up enemies and then destroying the boss at the end. Level 2, however, more than made up for the disappointment of level 1 by having an interesting setting: you're on the top of a ship going through a wild river, splashing and making fast turns all the while defeating tough enemies. In this level, you'll begin to understand the importance of barrier and counter, since you'll be using it a lot against the boss.

With that said, there are some really fun levels in this game, but there's also some duds in there as well.

The soundtrack is really great; it had this Gunstar Heroes (a classic Genesis run ‘n gunner also developed by Treasure) vibe going throughout the whole game. I'm not certain if there are any tracks from the original Guardian Heroes, but I'm certain there is at least one. While punching and kicking enemies could get monotonous, the soundtrack really made up for it at times, getting you into the mood for knocking enemies into the ground. Needless to say, AGH has one of the best soundtracks on the GBA.

The game can get difficult at times, but stick with it and you'll beat the game in no time. I bought this game on its release date (September 15) and now, two days later, I've already beaten it on the Normal difficulty. It's quite a disappointment to pay $30 for a game and then beat it only two days later, which brings me to my next point: this game is way, WAY too short. With only six levels, it only takes a few hours to beat the game. However, the inclusion of unlockable characters in Versus mode and then playing the game with the two other characters does offer some replay value, but not that much at all. It would have been great if Treasure tacked on at least four more levels to lengthen the game.

The RPG-ish elements of leveling up your character was also a great idea; off the top of my head, the only other beat ‘em up to include leveling up in a beat ‘em up is the classic River City Ransom (and River City Ransom EX, its remake on the GBA, of course). With that said, it feels very fresh in a genre that needs revitalizing. Updating your character's stats makes the characters what you want it to be – whether you want him to have a strong offense or strong defense, or even a well-balanced character is all up to you.

The graphics, surprisingly, aren't great. I'd be hard-pressed to even call them good. I can tell Treasure had grand plans for this game; I can even imagine the level's in what they should have been. I can imagine the sprites being distinguished, cool-looking and having more frames of animation to make the game smoother. However, none of that is so, and the end result is something that looks like what I imagine an American-made beat ‘em up to look like in terms of graphics. From the screenshots and character art I've seen in the original Guardian Heroes, AGH pales in comparison to its predecessor in the art style. It does have its moments, though, such as the environment throughout level 2. Nevertheless, it still doesn't look as good as I wanted it to be.

To conclude, AGH is a good game. It's not an awesome game, it's not a great game, but it's merely good. You'll get enjoyment out of it, and you'll feel a certain sense of pride after completing a level, but other than that it's nothing extraordinary. To be fair, I never encountered slowdown that really interfered with my enjoyment of the game – and if there was slowdown that happened, it was nothing that really angered me. Maybe if Treasure developed this game for a console or even a next-gen handheld, such as the Nintendo DS or Sony's PSP, the end product would have been much better. As it is, though, Advance Guardian Heroes was an enjoyable romp while it lasted.

Final Score: 7.5 out of 10

And you've got to see Zur do that pelvic beam attack of his. Perhaps the guys from Choaniki taught him that?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/18/04