100%Xbox 360

Awesomesauce a very fun game with many braching paths a wide variety of moves and an insanely fun 10 player multiplayer mode I think more people need to play this game.

70%Xbox 360

I've never been interested enough to play a bmup (beat 'em up) for more than ten minutes before this one. Why the breakthrough? Probably because it has a little more depth in its systems. OutRun style branching path systems should be in more arcade (style) games. It's a lot more tolerable to lose over and over when there's a different background each time.

As it turns out the remix mode - which is the default in the 360 version - is actually significantly harder and faster than the original game. That's not how it works in most ports of old games, but Treasure have a reputation to uphold! I switched graphics to original too because the new ones look like they were upscaled with some primitive algorithm. The new version has some improvements, like not being on the Saturn.

90%Xbox 360

Story 7/10
Level Design 6/10
Characters 7/10
Gameplay 9/10
Graphics 7/10
Music/Sound 7/10

Difficulty MEDIUM

Overall 89%

90%Sega Saturn

Han play through

80%Xbox 360

This game requires skills which I didn't seem to have. After failing in normal difficulty setting we decided to change to easy which really was way too easy with 99 credits. The graphics are nice and beat 'em up controls are quite fitting and of course learning the combos and spells require some practice. Game wasn't too long but the replay value is superb because of the multiple endings, different storylines to play and different characters.

70%Sega Saturn

Guardian Heroes is a 1996 beat 'em up developed by Treasure, and published by SEGA for the SEGA Saturn. In 2011, Guardian Heroes was ported to Xbox 360 Live Arcade, and that's the version I played through. The plot concerns a rag tag group of medieval heroes trying to stop some wizard or something, I don't know, I didn't care for the plot at all (I started skipping the dialogue halfway through). Guardian Heroes supports co-op campaign play and a versus mode, with a large variety of playable characters. Although the graphics are 2D, this game has a pseudo-Z-axis; a series of horizontal planes on the battlefield are able to be independently fought within.

+Above average OST.
+Lots of playable characters.
+Branching mission paths encourages replayability.
+Game engine uses the Saturn hardware in intelligent ways.
+You can level up your characters stats.

-Lackluster plot with WAY too much try-hard "funny" dialogue.
-Combat engine initially seems more complex than it actually is.
-Stages offer little meaningful variety / environmental interactivity.
-Less TALKING more FIGHTING.
-Character portrait art is amateurish to a distracting degree.

Guardian Heroes is a cult classic, a legendary beat 'em up I've often seen praised to the rafters on forums. I'm afraid the experience did not live up to the hype for me. We've all got our own tastes, fair enough. I can certainly understand how '90s players would have found Guardian Heroes' frenetic mob battles exciting, and possibly even enjoyed its lame sense of humor. However the combat is extraordinarily repetitive, even for a beat 'em up, with boring stage designs, and button mashing tactics winning the day. Despite all the reams of dialogue and branching narrative, the plot doesn't offer tangible payoff, with the ending I received being bland to say the least. That said, I appreciated the strong OST, base concept, and Treasure's usual sense of grandiose bravado. However other contemporary fantasy beat 'em ups to Guardian Heroes did the same thing it did, but they did it better. I'd take Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara or Golden Axe III over this any day.

80%Sega Saturn

This game has a lot of good things going for it, theoretically, such as potential 6-player multiplayer and tons of branching pathways that can be played with different characters. But how fun is it? It felt just a bit repetitive going through single player. It's nice to have a AI-controlled teammate who is not worthless. Interesting game.