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?
Maybe the first clue I should have taken was that despite the fact that Sega, who released the first to not nearly enough acclaim, did not bother to publish the sequel. UbiSoft picked up the slack, maybe hoping that between a revival of Guardian Heroes and releasing the critical darling Beyond Good & Evil, they'd develop a reputation for releasing the boutique titles everyone simply must have. I certainly don't blame UbiSoft for what happened. Treasure has been a reliable developer for so long, I probably would have bought the rights to publish one of their games sight unseen.
Of course, that presumes Treasure even bothers to work on the story at all. The game starts off referencing one of the most difficult endings to reach from the original, in which the heavens subdues the legendary knight and seals up the souls of the first game's heroes, binding them to eternity. At first, I thought this sounded like the introduction to a great storyline, featuring the rebellion of the original heroes and the freeing of the legendary knight and the soul sword. However, the game decides to go a completely different tack. Some time in the future, an evil sorcerer named Zur revives Kanon, the villain from the first game, and tries to use the souls of the previous game's heroes to take over the world. One small group of rebels uses the Soul Sword to sacrifice one of their own men and bring a heroic soul back to fight against the revived Kanon.
Now, first off, I have some serious issues with the game's setup. I want to play the incredibly nuanced and butt-stomping heroes from the first game. Especially Ginjirou, who was my personal favorite. No, instead I'm forced to play as one of three ciphers, distinguished only by the fact that they start with slightly different stats and their magical attacks are different colors. Moreover, these characters have absolutely no personality whatsoever. This right off the bat takes away from the appeal of the first game – you don't really control what's going on. You're more just a pawn used by more powerful beings, and you really just control a background character for the game. Even after you free the souls of the original heroes, they merely boost your stats and just sit there. You actually have to play through the game several times to unlock the legendary heroes, which is what most people bought the game for.
Moreover, I also think that the "good guys" really didn’t think this mission through. They sacrifice one of their own men to bring your character back from the dead, and they just let you go on your own. No weapons, no extra armor, nothing. This game takes place in a futuristic world, and you can't even spare a gun or a laser for me to wield? Apparently, you didn't want the world-destroying evil defeated all that badly. Seriously, a sword, a heavy lead pipe, a knuckle-duster, anything would have been appreciated. I really don't like going into battle unarmed against hordes of enemies, especially since they do remember to bring large amounts of ordinance.
The game play, though, is the game's worst problem. It does improve one problem the original Guardian Heroes had: while the original game only allowed you to stand on three planes and fight in a beat 'em up game, this game allows you to freely wander the field for the beat 'em up play. This is the game’s only improvement, however, as the characters are almost completely exact clones of each other. Anything remotely resembling unique attacks have been stripped out of the game, and the only difference between each character are their magical attacks. Even these, for the most part, are duplicated across characters, with about 75% of the available spells available to each character (each one is missing something slightly different). I could mention the new characters' names, but I can barely keep them straight in my head, they're so much alike.
The controls are initially smooth, but you'll quickly discover that the game does not treat you kindly as you're learning all the moves. See, several moves are extended attacks (like the uppercut or the dash kick), and you cannot cancel out of these moves at all. I hate it when you can't cancel out of moves, because it essentially is an artificial way to restrict your character's actions. I'm not saying that I should suddenly be able to stop momentum and drop straight down. But the ability to move my character's arms for defense or to switch attacks should be perfectly allowable. You'll find yourself mostly sticking to two or three attacks that will reliably take out enemies without leaving you open to massive counters.
However, the game's largest control problem lies in the treatment of defense. You see, for whatever reason, your character can't simply block attacks (maybe because nobody gave you weapons or armor to defend yourself). Instead, you have a magic barrier that you activate and will drain your magic meter. Of course, you need this to activate your own magical attacks, which can eat the meter quite quickly. Granted, you'll restore your magic meter by attacking enemies, but sometimes you just have to turtle and get through the assault when you have a clearing. But since your defense costs magic, you will eventually be unable to defend yourself, and you'll be forced to drop your guard whether or not you're actually ready to attack. Of course, there is a flip side to all this – time your blocks well, and you can deflect missile attacks back at their casters and stun melee fighters. Thus, once you get skilled at blocking, the game simply becomes a chore, waiting for enemies to attack so you can counter them and proceed to blow them away while they're reeling. It's a system with an excessively steep learning curve that becomes depressingly simple once you get past it. This is not the sign of a good beat 'em up.
Of course, another sign of a poor beat 'em up is a jumping puzzle. This game sadly throws many of them at you, from trying to hop around on debris while fighting a boss to jumping on missiles to reach an enemy base. What's worse is that the command to jump from momentary safe spot to momentary safe spot is the exact same command as the midair dash. You'll find it quite frequent to try to hop to your next platform and instead just dash forward a bit, then quickly start falling to your doom. I'm certain a slightly different control mechanic could have been found for the two actions, and Treasure was just sloppy in trying to find it.
The game's graphics aren't exactly the best the GBA has to offer, but to the game's credit they are a direct descendant of the original game’s solid visuals. Sure, they're less detailed than they were originally, but the graphics from the original didn't put so much emphasis on detail as they did a particular style and fluid movement. Some of this suffers from the vastly smaller screen and weaker resolution, but not nearly as much as you’d initially assume. Mercifully, the original heroes, when they do finally appear, look almost exactly like their original incarnations, with the exception of the switched color palettes (just to show they are currently enthralled; they revert when you defeat them). To be fair, if you are going to pervert a classic game, you should at least make it look as presentable as possible. The game also uses sharp contrasts well, so you shouldn’t have any problem playing this game even on the original Game Boy Advance.
As for the music...I did mention that this was a Game Boy Advance game, right? Well, to their credit, treasure did try their best to make a solid score (now if only they tried this hard with the gameplay). But a 10-dollar music box version of Tchaikovski can't compare to an actual symphony, and a GBA cart can't compare to a CD-based game like the original. The system's lousy speaker mostly kills the sound, and you'll notice almost no difference if you play it without sound.
Actually, the worst part of the package is something you'll only notice once you clear the game – you won't have nearly the amount of options that the original game presented with the actual gameplay. The original Guardian Heroes was popular not just because it had radically different characters to select and actual story and development, but because you could also choose which path to take through many parts of the game, and you could find dozens of paths for another dozen or so endings. Advance Guardian Heroes, however, is always a straight path, and each run through uses the exact same set of stages. Unless you're really fond of slogging through the same stages repeatedly, this game doesn't contain anywhere near the replay of its predecessor.
In the end, I don't know how Treasure could have fouled up this release. Heck, if they had just tweaked the original Guardian Heroes to play on the Game Boy Advance (sacrificing some of the music and graphical detail, they easily could have) or held out to make a DS or PSP version (which wouldn't have required much tweaking at all), I would have exhorted everyone to buy the game yesterday. Instead, Treasure threw together this game that, beyond the art style, barely resembles the original game at all. In fact, if not for the cameos of the original game's characters at opportune times, I would have sworn that this wasn't a sequel, thematic or otherwise, at all. I'm not opposed to sequels, but make sure that you don't throw out all of the classic elements of the original when you go out and make a new one.
