Game Boy Advance

Advance Guardian Heroes

Even if it didn't have extras to pad the play time, though, this would be a damn fine game. The counter system is simple and fun, while the combat is intuitive and complex. Variety is also an aid, whether it be the unique levels, the expansive cast of characters, or the myriad of foes. It also serves as an audiovisual showpiece, pumping out sublime visual effects and catchy tunes. Just don't let the other reviews dissuade you by constant talk of slowdown. It's hardly as omnipresent as they'd have you believe, even in the multiplayer modes. Advance Guardian Heroes is an essential part of any GBA library, whether you're a die-hard fan of the original or haven't even held a Saturn controller in your life.

Whether you're a Sega Saturn owner or a gamer looking for a fun beat-em-up, Ubi Soft and Treasure's Advanced Guardian Heroes is definitely worth a purchase. The sequel to the Saturn classic, you're an unknown soldier who's off to take control of the Soul Sword and defeat the evil Kanon in a side-scrolling fighter that comes fully loaded. The graphics and Mode 7 effects are stunning, the music is epic and superb, and there are tons of options to choose from, including over 20 fighters to unlock and 160 attacks to master! Also, you and a friend can play co-op, or two to four players can duke it out in the game's Versus mode, but be warned! While Advance Guardian Heroes is an excellent addition to Treasure's already impressive resume, the game gets hard very quickly, meaning only the most seasoned gamers may see it to its end.

For fans of the original, Advance Guardian Heroes will likely come as somewhat of a disappointment. It's too far a departure in terms of story and setting, and the game is simply not compelling as a handheld experience. Still, judged on its own, this is certainly one of the best beat-em-up titles on the platform, and it's definitely one that Treasure fans will want to still include in their collections (though, the truly awesome Astro Boy: Omega Factor deserves a spot before this). My only question now is when we'll see a handheld Gunstar Heroes -- the game every Treasure fan truly wants to see on GBA.

Despite these problems, Advance Guardian Heroes is a satisfying package. It has its warts - mediocre extra modes, laughable text localization, occasional slowdown, a Story Mode that's over much too soon - but it also has fun and addictive gameplay with a lot of interesting features. This is a good action game that falls short of being great. Fans of the original should enjoy it, and it may create some new fans as well.

There’s a tension of opposites in this game. At the far extreme, it is one of the finest brawler fighting engines I’ve encountered set amidst an imaginatively designed world of intense battles and impressive graphics. And on the other side is the game equivalent of suicide – slowdown on an unheard of level, completely destroying the game’s potential to shine at anywhere near the brilliance that it might have otherwise.

The beat-'em-up is usually a staid and boring genre, good for a quick fix in arcades but poor for long-term enjoyment. Thankfully, rare exceptions do exist, such as Streets of Rage 2 and Double Dragon (Advance). Now, you can add another game to that exclusive list in the form of Advance Guardian Heroes. Though not without some significant flaws, Advance Guardian Heroes offers more bang for the buck than most other recent brawlers, even the ones that come on those curious silver platters.

Ask someone that used to (or still) owns a Sega Saturn what some of his or her favorite games for the system are, and one of the titles that's likely to crop up near the top of the list is Guardian Heroes--a medieval-themed action game developed by Treasure, the same group of coders responsible for numerous timeless greats like Gunstar Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Sin and Punishment, Ikaruga, and Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Now, Treasure has developed a sequel to its classic Saturn game in the form of Advance Guardian Heroes. The new game picks up where the original left off, it shares some of the same features and play aspects in common with its predecessor, and it is generally a good action game in its own right. However, prospective buyers should definitely think long and hard before taking the plunge, primarily because the changes that were made to the combat system and level structure may not please everyone.

Old school gaming seems to be a popular trend, especially on the Game Boy Advance. It seems as if the Game Boy Advance is the system of choice for remakes and reworks of classic games from yesteryear. Everyone from Mario to Sonic, and almost everything in between, has been subject to the rework bug for the Game Boy Advance. Guardian Heroes Advance is the latest reworking of an old school game.

It's only been a short few weeks since Treasure unleashed one of its finest 2D efforts on the Game Boy Advance: Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Since then, the team's been hard at work duplicating that gaming success by continuing one of the company's properties it brought to life on the Sega Saturn: Guardian Heroes, a fantasy action game that pushed the Double Dragon-style of gameplay into new and exciting directions. The follow-up, entitled Advance Guardian Heroes, brings back the original Saturn game's style of gameplay, but its unbelievably irritating technical problems and underwhelming art style doesn't bring back the magic fans might be expecting.

Side-scrolling beat-em-ups in the vein of Double Dragon and Final Fight are generally known to be simple affairs. Punch, punch, punch, kick, punch... And so on and so forth. While the lack of depth generally hurts a game's longevity, beat-em-ups are often appealing because of this simplicity, where you can just pick it up and play. Many games like this have tried adding intricacies to the battle system to make them less repetitive, but generally they still remain widely accessible.

Owning Advance Guardian Heroes, if you’ve actually paid for it, is much like having a copy of Britney Spears’ first album lurking somewhere in your CD collection. Someday one of your friends will find it or catch you playing it, and then you have some explaining to do. Good luck with that, because from what I can piece together of the story is that those wacky angels up in heaven are at it again with their plans for world domination and creating the ultimate warrior. Your job, after they kill you and the “Soul of Warrior” (yes that is your name) inhabits your stinking corpse, is to stop them. Go figure.

Sans éclat, cette suite comblera probablement ceux qui voulaient connaître la suite des aventures des gardiens héroïques. Cela dit, avec les problèmes de jouabilité qu'elle connaît, je doute que de nouveaux joueurs se précipiteront sur la cartouche. A vous de juger et de voir si vous êtes prêt à fermer les yeux sur les combats brouillons qui tiennent une part importante du jeu.

I’d like to think that there is a special area of gaming infamy reserved just for people that make sequels that kill a great franchise. My personal classic example was Earthworm Jim 3D – I loved the previous two, but as long as the same people responsible for Earthworm Jim 3D held the license (believe it or not, it’s Rockstar – if Jack Thompson wanted to sue Rockstar over EWJ3D, nobody would stand in his way), I knew there would never be a new, good Earthworm Jim game again. In fact, the third Earthworm Jim game was so bad, I don’t think that anyone, even should they rescue the license, would ever want to make another EWJ game. Companies wouldn’t be so stupid as to repeat that mistake, right? I believed that until I saw Treasure had made a Game Boy Advance sequel to their Saturn classic, Guardian Heroes. Maybe I should have been warned off by the highly creative title, Advance Guardian Heroes, but how do you foul up a classic?