I'm getting old. When I was a kid, I was the first in town to get the coveted Nintendo Entertainment System the Christmas it was released in the U.S. (True, it was a small town in rural Indiana, but I was still first.) I could button mash with the best of them. I could sit and play that laser gun game Gumshoe for hours, clicking away at least 100 clicks a minute, for hours and hours on end, much to the chagrin of my mother.
To me, the arcade game Hyper Olympics was just a bit of light exercise, Centipede a bike ride, and Street Fighter a yawn. But now, I'm a "mature gamer," and they say the button combos are the first to go. My Ryu-kin has come and gone and I've lost the 2D fight mojo. So Advanced Guardian Heroes on the GBA was a particular challenge for me.
This Game Boy Advance 2.5D fighter / platformer is drenched in good old-fashioned Japanese fighting mayhem. From the barely there and confusing story, to the graphics and sounds, this is definitely an anime themed fighter. The premise is that following the original Guardian Heroes, your character goes back to the grave of the Undead Hero and claims the Soul Sword, summoning the Undead Hero into your body. Using this newfound power you and your character can once again save the Princess and the Kingdom.
I call the game a 2.5D fighter / platformer because your fighter can move both side to side and front to back during combat. The game has both one-on-one VS. fighting and training modes, and a story mode which functions as a pseudo platformer. There are a couple places where jumping skills matter, but a lot of the story mode is more like the "X-men" style gaming: fight through a bunch of low level cronies and then fight a big boss at the end. Stages are punctuated by fairly decent cut-scenes, again in the classic gaming/anime style.
While your character can punch, jump and kick, that doesn't get the job done. Instead, you have to use your spells to inflict a lot of your damage, and each character starts with five spells of various types. Each character's spells are different, but basically the same styles for game balancing purposes. Some spells you can fire off quickly and do slight, or less accurate damage, while others take a second or two to power up before firing but decimate most non-boss enemies. Usually, these types of spells are nearly impossible to pull off in actual combat, because any hits you take cause you to lose your concentration on the spell, rendering it useless. All of your spells, and your defensive shield, use up your Magic Points (MP), which regenerate over time. However, if you've run out of MP you are probably sunk, as your normal attacks just aren't powerful enough, and without an active defense most good enemies will make sushi out of you.
The other annoying factor of combat is that when you are being attacked by most spells, you simply can't get out of the way. While you can move up and back, most spells will seek you out, making dodging pointless. Furthermore, once you are caught up in the effects of a spell you can rarely get out of the way or pull up your shields, so you end up spending an agonizing second or two helpless to your enemy. What this does, in my experience, is make the "first-strike" very important and comebacks rare, which never appeals to me in a game.
Death presents new challenges as well. After you die, you are presented with the choice whether to sell your soul to gain temporary invincibility. Choosing this option gives you a remarkable 6 minutes of invulnerability, making it quite easy to get past that nasty boss and often through the next stage. But after the 6 minutes are up you pay the penalty, as your character dies when his soul is re-claimed. You also can't continue from the point where you sold your soul, nor do you get to keep any of the experience you pick up. So, while it lets you get a chance to learn what tactics to use in certain situations, it really doesn't help you get through the game.
If you choose the righteous path and decide not to hand your soul over, the game ends, but you can pick back up from the stage you left off. In the case of bosses, this means you get to start right back in front of the boss again. Unfortunately, this can still be a pretty frustrating experience, as it takes a few seconds to die, get out to the menu and restart. While fighting bosses that can kill you with one hit, this can suck a lot of enjoyment out of the game.
As you fight your way through the game levels, you can use "Soul Crystals" to level up your attributes, adding a bit of RPG flair. You can also "try before you buy," and test out what the new abilities would do for you before you commit to them. A fluff feature, but something I hadn't seen before in a fighting game. After the first stage, you can also invest your crystals in the "lab," where a mad scientist uses the enemies’ cells to create new heroes that you can use in the VS. mode. Only in anime...
This game definitely falls into the "advanced button mashing" category, with a nearly incomprehensible story and frustrating combat. But in the era of 6000 frames per second 3D cards and 7.1 surround sound, if you still want to get your 2D groove on, and have the patience to learn, this game will give you a nice taste of the "good old days" on the go.
Dave lives with his wife and three kids, doing independant software development consulting and fits games in every nook and cranny of his free time. He particularly enjoys seeing new and fresh ideas from the Indie Game Studios, and believes that they are the true future of gaming. He'll play just about anything if you put it in front of him, and usually like about two thirds of it. He's also an "0ld Sk00l" gamer, having cut his teeth on Adventure, the Vic-20, Apple II and Infocom. Back when playing a new game meant you had to type the program in from a Family Computing magazine, during a snowstorm, up a hill, both ways.
