Guardian Heroes | Sega Saturn Playthrough | Real hardware
4There is so much content to unlock in this game which requires multiple playthroughs. 45 characters to unlock and branching paths throughout the game that can change the storyline entirely based on your decisions at the end of each level. So it takes about an hour going through 8 levels for each playthrough. But if you want to see all 30 possible levels you need to play a good number of times. It’s good that the story changes each time but you will also have to replay some levels and all of the cutscenes are unskippable and long for a beat em up so this will become tiresome very soon.
The controls are this game are a major problem. You can swap between foreground and background layers but I’m never sure if I’m on the same layer as the enemy. It’s worse that you can never get close to the foreground so the most foreground you get to is the middle layer of the screen and the other layers are further back which means smaller sprites and difficulty seeing what you are doing.
The controls are also a bit confusing trying to give you some command moves like Street Fighter but they don’t always come off and are unnecessary. I feel like most of the moves are useless too. It needs more moves with range.
You have a companion that does fighting with you and you can set it to have different strategies. The annoying thing about this game is that you constantly feel helpless. If there is a group of enemies. Forget it. Even if you stand there holding the block button. You’re going down. My only strategy was to run away and let the companion deal with the enemies. If I go in and start trying to hit, I will get hit. Normally the best defence in a game like this is offense. Not here. Running away is the best choice and it makes for a boring game.
I did my first run on easy which wasn’t hard because you are given 99 continues, but I wanted to finish it on Normal. So, after learning that health is the most important thing here because I can’t dodge, I chose a character that has a healing spell. This was nowhere near as helpful as I thought because it doesn’t always work and you can get surrounded by enemies and can’t escape at times to heal. Once I got to the last boss (after having to play very boring and hide away while my companion did al the fighting) it just decided to have an infinite bomb attack which he kept using as I was on the ground and couldn’t escape. So there was literally nothing I could do. I’ve seen some BS moves in my time but you can normally escape. This just wasted an hour of my time and destroyed me right at the end without giving me a chance. That’s the kind of “F this game” move that I don’t have time for.
Rating – 6/10
Original game played on PAL Sega Saturn.
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats
Easy Difficulty
Box art from thumbnail is taken from my own collection
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Sega Saturn - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4OPiZauY1B3bdDwUoCsWDRt
Megadrive/genesis - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4NqEf523ELXZBl1T_3j-E9M
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