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Guardian Heroes (Saturn) review"As you and your band of adventurers gather around the table, chatting about the sword you have acquired, a green-haired knight comes busting through the door. She warns about the royal knights raiding the place, and before you have time to process it all, you find yourself fighting off a group of soldiers in a burning building. You eventually escape, but as you make it to the streets, you see that more soldiers have been waiting for you. Everyone in your group escapes, but you stay behind with t..." |
As you and your band of adventurers gather around the table, chatting about the sword you have acquired, a green-haired knight comes busting through the door. She warns about the royal knights raiding the place, and before you have time to process it all, you find yourself fighting off a group of soldiers in a burning building. You eventually escape, but as you make it to the streets, you see that more soldiers have been waiting for you. Everyone in your group escapes, but you stay behind with the mysterious knight to fight off these annoyances. You're able to hold your own, but you're also impressed with the knight, Serena, who summons lightning bolts and ice storms that disposes her opponents.
The battle with the royal knights eventually get dragged into the graveyard as time passes on, where a giant robot awaits you. It'll pick you up and throw you into the sky, shoot bullets at you, and at times, release a huge death beam in your direction. You'll take a beating, but since it's two against one, you still have the advantage. However, halfway through the fight, something happens. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning comes out of the sky, hitting that sword you just found. The sword then gravitates towards a grave, where an undead warrior crawls out. He grabs the sword, destroys the robot in one swing, and belches out a loud roar....
That's just the beginning.
The action, incredibly, doesn't slow down from that point. Later on in your travels, you'll end up walking along a spooky road with bones scattered all around. Of course, just as you enter this place, soldiers encounter you in a surprise attack. At that same moment, a bunch of floating, green spirits pop out to give you and your pursuers trouble. Though, they end up giving the soldiers a harder time, because some of them actually end up possessing their bodies. Now, just as this battle dies down, a black knight, Valgar, confronts you. With ninja-like reflexes, strong attacks, and a dose of powerful magic, he's no push over. Thankfully, you get some help from the undead warrior, who now follows and obeys your commands. You can order him to protect you or attack on his own, and if you're feeling confident, you can tell him to stand back as you take on this guy.
However, before you even get a chance to defeat the black knight, a bunch of goofy-looking, buffed-up thieves interrupt and drag the three of you back to their hideout. You engage in some conversation, but it doesn't last long as Valgar insults the leader and starts attacking him. At that point, it's chaos. The cave erupts in a fury of punches and swings, as everyone ends up attacking each other. As you attempt to fight everyone off at once, you'll be weirded out by the thieves methods of attack, which include doing pushups and squats with floods of sweat flying out of their armpits.
But that's just one of many possible paths you can take.
In another area, as you move closer and closer to a castle, you end up in a graveyard. Off in the distance, you spot some soldiers, but before they even get a chance to flee, half a dozen skeletons crawl out of their graves. This ends up sending the soldiers running in your direction, where they actually bump right into you. This, of course, triggers yet another crazy battle. With everyone clashing with each other, you end up witnessing one heck of a fight with the undead falling to the ground, soldiers getting thrown into the air, your undead warrior slashing away, and everyone hitting every inch of your body.
If you somehow manage to survive that slaughter, it doesn't end. One more undead soldier comes crawling out of the ground and grabs a powerful sword that descended from the sky. As he starts attacking, you realize his strength rivals that of your undead companion, and you know things are gonna be messy. With that in mind, you don't order your warrior to just attack, but to go berserk. This sends him into a frenzy, swinging like crazy and shooting fire out of his sword. And if you're lucky, he'll be able to use his genocide attack, where he unleashes a giant, fiery ball of death that engulfs his surroundings. Though, you better keep your eye on the other warrior, because he has the attack as well...
No matter which path you go down, however, each and everyone of them leads to a confrontation with a powerful (and extremely cocky) sorcerer named Kanon. After a long talk with revelations up the wazoo, he ends up engaging you in an intense fight. Kanon is someone you should take very seriously, because this guy will show you no mercy. With incredible speed, he'll quickly summon an ice attack, which freezes your entire body. Before you can even break free, he'll throw you into the sky with a wind attack and electrocute you with bolts of lightning as you hit the ground. And just as you're about to do a counterattack, he'll suddenly float high in the air and start throwing a stream of fireballs in your direction, never letting up. You have Serena and the undead warrior backing you up as you fight this menace, but even with them, you still have a hard time defeating Kanon.
Amazingly, you're only at the halfway point when you fight this guy. You still have a long ways to go.
There's plenty of foes and places to explore, like a village with a giant, floating robot, a forest with wolves, goblins, and a huge plant monster, and unearthly surroundings where gargoyles and giants reside. Enemies will greet you with fists, swords, and magic galore, but your group, which consists of a former knight, a kid sorcerer, a ninja, a clumsy cleric, and an undead warrior, will return the favor in many, many intense battles. From beginning to end, the hot-blooded action never dies down.
This is what Guardian Heroes is all about. Play it.
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Community review by pickhut (March 04, 2007)
The Xbox Live Arcade library has a surprising number of shoot 'em ups. Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga, Sine Mora, Raystorm HD, Trouble Witches, and so on. Instead of those, I chose to review Triggerheart Exelica. Because oh well... |
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