Advance Guardian Heroes

Advance Guardian Heroes
Action - GBA
Battery Backup - 1 slot
2 players

I did not like Guardian Heroes on the Saturn. There I said it. It's nothing more than slapping a beat 'em up together with RPG leveling aspects and street fighter moves. There is no cohesion to the design, and although there's some neat things about it (multibranching paths/stories, crazy sprite fest) you could have just button mashed your way through and it wouldn't have made a difference. But this isn't Guardian Heroes.

And that's a relief.

Advance Guardian Heroes is in many ways a sequel to GH. The storyline continues, albeit at a future timepoint. But other than the mythos, AGH plays quite differently from its older brother.

It's still a frantic beat 'em up with juggling tendencies. But Treasure does something different here and adds a new mechanic - the counter system. The counter system works similar to the parry system of Street Fighter III. You need to time the counter so that it executes right when you are to get hit. If you mistime it, you're generally wide open to get hit. But it's in the details that Treasure distinguishes itself.

Whenever you attempt a counter, your magic bar goes down. So you have a limited amount whether successful or unsuccessful. If you counter a melee attack, the enemy is stunned for a couple seconds so you can unleash a combo. If you counter a projectile, the projectile is reflected back toward its original owner.

This one addition is a rebirth for this stale genre. Now instead of mash mash mash, there are many times where you have to coordinate with countering attacks going around you making it far more thoughtful and engaging. Not only is the counter system an addition, but the entire game is built around it. Bosses will have minions that shoot projectiles at you while you are trying to take him down. And some parts of the game you can only get through with counters. In some ways, it feels very much like parts of Sin & Punishment, except in that game you are shooting at enemies and whacking projectiles back at others with your sword.

AGH is very much like Guardian Heroes in a lot of aspects. You still got the juggle fest going on, the crazy spells, an arsenal of moves to choose from (although, all the Street Fighter moves are gone), and it remains a celebration of sprites. They did away with the 3-plane system, but now give you free Y-axis movement like other beat'em ups. Plus you can still level up at the end of each stage. The multi-branching is gone, however it's not really missed. I much prefer the carefully designed stages of AGH to the random sloppiness of GH.

The dueling is still here too! There are 2-4p battles (only 2 human though) and it's just as crazy as the Saturn version, except throw in counters and it's a whole new game.

There are tons of extras in the game, where you can unlock a slew of characters to play in single player and battle mode. There's multiple difficulty levels that in typical Treasure fashion, mixes up the enemies you fight rather than just increasing damage. Super hard is ridiculously hard, for all you enthusiasts. And finally, there's a time-attack mode that opens up where you take 50 enemies and compete for fastest ranking.

Advance Guardian Heroes is a total-package game. I've been lacking in Treasure love lately, but AGH shows me that they are back to their innovative selves. The English localization is pretty poor - awkward grammar abounds. But since it plays well, who cares? Seriously, this is one of the best games of "this generation". Every GBA owner should have this in their library.