This Week In Retro: Guardian Heroes [1996] (Patreon)

January 26, 1996: I Have Legendary Hunger for more Guardian Heroes

by Diamond Feit

In the troubled history of Sega's video game hardware, is any machine more cursed than the Saturn? I say this not because the Saturn was bad, but because its troubled 1995 launch in the U.S. managed to squander all of Sega's advantages, and the goodwill built up over the Genesis/Mega Drive years. The lingering odor of its failure likely went a long way towards souring the reputation of its successor, the Dreamcast. The 32X was a mistake; the Saturn was a clusterfuck.

The Sega Saturn's failures, however, were largely on the business side; the console itself cannot be faulted for meddling executive decisions, or the fact that the Sony PlayStation just seemed to do everything better. The games that were made for Saturn truly shined on that platform, and a few titles even achieved an infamy that outlasted their all-too-brief time on store shelves.

Case in point: This week we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Guardian Heroes, an excellent game made by an overachieving developer, which absolutely deserves more attention than it received at the time.

If this is your first time hearing about Guardian Heroes, you may want to look up a playthrough, because the description I'm about to give you makes no sense on its own. It’s a beat-’em-up/fighting/role-playing hybrid with branching paths, multiple endings, and furious multiplayer action—all served with anime stylings galore. It is the ultimate indie title of 2021... except it came out 25 years too early, on a console few Americans owned. So instead of becoming an instant classic, it had to settle for cult classic.

Guardian Heroes offers players a choice of four starting adventurers then launches them straight into a fantasy tale of cunning wizards and undead warriors—though the game also contains a surprising number of giant robots, given the setting. The dialogue tosses a lot of proper nouns at you during your first playthrough, so much so that you might assume this is based on an existing anime; indeed, there’s a full animated intro, because of course there is. But no, this is an original property.

However, your confusion won't last, because the more you play and replay Guardian Heroes, the more deeply you’ll come to appreciate how flexible its narrative actually is. The initial setup never changes (the heroes find a sword, discover its former owner, and they join forces to battle evil), but a series of choices the player makes along the way can potentially send the story in very different directions.

What never changes about Guardian Heroes is that whatever path you set out upon, whether your final boss battle is against a devil or an angel or an android, you're going to have a kick-ass time. The combat fuses together beat-’em-up principles with the functionality of a fighting game; enemies outnumber the heroes, so crowd control is a must, but the combat is locked to a 2D plane, and there are special joystick commands for different attacks. Clarification: There are three 2D planes at play here, and characters can hop between them or even attack across planes using magic. The fighting action in Guardian Heroes is fast-paced and juggle-heavy, so your vertical position is as important as your horizontal; the proper combination of upward thrusts and magical blasts can knock opponents skyward and keep them there until they die in mid-air. The game also contains a "karma" mechanic measuring the players' humanity as exhibited through gameplay. Repeatedly beating on already-dead foes is a no-no, as is thrashing innocent passerby or wailing on enemies trying to run away. A player's karma score can affect which of the game's endings appear after the final stage ends.

Each of the four main pals has their own innate advantages, but their strength grows as they level-up during combat. Between stages, players can assign bonus points to their stats to further shape their progress. Want more magic power? Prefer to have a healthy base of hit points? Just looking for sheer, blind luck? It's up to you!

Adding to the chaotic nature of Guardian Heroes is the Versus Mode, a multiplayer arena divorced from the main narrative. While the game normally only supports two player co-op, up to six players can have at it in Versus Mode thanks to the Saturn's multi-controller adaptor (sold separately). Even wilder, Versus Mode allows players to choose absolutely ANY character in the game—and I mean ANY character. The primary heroes have the largest movesets, of course, but there are also massive beasts, as well as all the final bosses, who can fill the screen with area-of-effect energy blasts. There are also hapless villagers available who can’t attack at all—pick six of them and see who comes out on top! While other fighting games seek to achieve a sense of balance between combatants, Guardian Heroes shrugs and says, "Just go for it."

It must have been easy for unknowing American consumers to scratch their heads when Guardian Heroes showed up in 1996 stripped of its distinct, colorful cover art and instead sold itself with packaging that says "fight this ugly monster" when you do not, in fact, fight that monster (European Saturn owners were treated much better). The game received rave reviews and, being a Saturn exclusive, it turned into an expensive collector's item, which only further restricted the number of players capable of enjoying the game. A Game Boy Advance sequel was released in 2004, but that seemed to be the end of the story…

...until we all got a surprise announcement 10 years ago that Guardian Heroes was getting remastered for Xbox 360. This HD version—backwards compatible on newer Xboxes—does the concept a great service by expanding the playfield to fit modern televisions. The need for multiplayer adaptors is gone, and instead players can simply team up online to play the main game or go nuts in the arena (now with up to 12 fighters at once). A new Arcade Mode challenges players to fight infinite enemies for as long as they can, and the entire game was re-localized to give the stiff dialogue more flavor. Being a 2011 release, there's also the option to play with all-new smeary sprites if you hate blocky pixels; that look must appeal to someone, but that someone certainly isn't me.

Thus, this week's tale of a lost classic is a happy one, because Guardian Heroes completely holds up 25 years after its original release. Its now-retro remaster is both the easiest and best way to experience the game. I was even able to transfer my decade-old data over to my new Xbox and save myself the trouble of unlocking all the endings again—not that any aspect of playing Guardian Heroes could ever be considered a chore.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan and is an active Twitter user.