Saturn is playing host to an exclusive release with sky-high expectations! Treasure, the development studio best known for marvels of gaming wonder like Gunstar Heroes, generated a wave of excitement when preview images first circulated of their all-new Guardian Heroes. Now, upon its release this month, we can assert the finished product is undeniably impressive with a ton of worthwhile aspects to celebrate. Imagine a title that effortlessly blends the best bits of fighters, brawlers, side-scrollers, and RPGs, and rolls them into one. A curious recipe, but it works magnificently! Basically, your character roams the screen in a fashion akin to Final Fight, wailing on hordes of enemies whilst gaining experience and boosting hit points plus specialized attributes.

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Speaking of characters, players can choose among four unique fighters: The sword-wielder Han, magician-in-training Randy, Ginjuro the ninja, and the smiley cleric called Nicole. These stars pop-out with hand-drawn sprite graphics, designed as if leapt from a Japanese manga. Occasional blurred pixelation does occur, but the array of huge sprites on-screen with crazy combat action very rarely results in gameplay slowdown. Like Gunstar before it, GH is manic as all hell. You may find yourself lost in the copious amounts of chaos, making it difficult to sort out what is going on, but this lessens in severity as you keep playing. Our team was also enthralled with delightful sound effects that accompanied our cooperative gameplay session very well. Decent enough soundtrack, too, but hardly memorable and may not appeal to everybody.

Printed in Issue #36, April 1996