Together Retro: Guardian Heroes

[dreamcast4ever83]

The story is just gibberish, from what I've seen so far. Not that I'm playing for the story, but it's there, and there's just too much of it to ignore. It reminds me too much of silly mid-90s anime like Bakuretsu Hunters or Slayers.

If anyone has any tips for making this game a bit more enjoyable to play, I'm all ears.

The story makes as much sense as any other Treasure game. Just turn the logical part of your brain off and enjoy it.

If the enemies get too out of hand, set the Undead Warrior to berserk, and stay toward the other side of the screen.

I agree this is a very! enjoyable game in every sense from the fighting, upgrading to the story and level branching I personally feel this is one of the top 10 even 5 games on the system. I love it and have played it to death and still like to go back though

[Ivo]

1. The story is just gibberish, from what I've seen so far. Not that I'm playing for the story, but it's there, and there's just too much of it to ignore. It reminds me too much of silly mid-90s anime like Bakuretsu Hunters or Slayers.

2. Also, it can be really difficult to discern which row some enemies are on, and some of the layering completely obscures my character and the enemies, making it almost impossible to see what's happening behind the trees/statues/etc. Also seem to get caught in this trap with a group of large enemies.

3. Anyway I made it to the two magic spamming, orb assholes in cloud city. (That's in this game, right?) I swear I still had two credits left when it gave me a game over, though.

If anyone has any tips for making this game a bit more enjoyable to play, I'm all ears.

1. I found the stories (there is more than one and your decisions control which one you play through) reasonably decent. Other than Zur the story is actually not silly. It can get a bit confusing though because the translation wasn't exactly great I guess.

2. The visibility thing is indeed an issue sometimes, and it often occurs when there is a pile of enemies on you so you really don't want to not know what is going on. A tip is that changing planes helps evade mobs on each side of you, even if you are surrounded everywhere. If you press a side direction, the plane changing is diagonal, and you can do two or three plane changes in a row and get away from many hairy situations. Sometimes if it is really bad you just have to keep blocking (you won't take much damage) until the Undead Hero decides to do a spin-attack that will gain you some space to do something without getting you comboed by the many surrounding enemies.
You should also very actively try to avoid getting in that type of situation in the first place, arguably as your main priority.

3. You have gone through what I consider the hardest stage in the game (although as discussed earlier in the thread, there is another path that is at least close in difficulty). You can make different choices to avoid that particular stage in the clouds - the one I consider the 2nd hardest also takes you to clouds but only in the very end and you only fight bosses there.

If you want to see that ending or otherwise just want to play through that stage anyway, one possibility that really helps is setting the Undead Hero to berserk as has been mentioned (and if you can screen for the Hero to unleash his "explosion" special without getting hit, he will damage them immensely). You can also block a LOT and carefully approach the flying orbs of death, and throw them some fireballs (even Han has this) to hit them to the ground for long enough to close in. If you can get close to them on the ground you can usually get a pretty big combo on those orb enemies, and repeat that - although in this case it is particularly bad as there are two of them simultaneously and even as you are nailing one of them, the other may very well disrupt you (but in doing so the other orb is also getting damaged, as spell effects are contagious).

Ivo.

[pierrot]

2. The visibility thing is indeed an issue sometimes, and it often occurs when there is a pile of enemies on you so you really don't want to not know what is going on. A tip is that changing planes helps evade mobs on each side of you, even if you are surrounded everywhere. If you press a side direction, the plane changing is diagonal, and you can do two or three plane changes in a row and get away from many hairy situations. Sometimes if it is really bad you just have to keep blocking (you won't take much damage) until the Undead Hero decides to do a spin-attack that will gain you some space to do something without getting you comboed by the many surrounding enemies.
You should also very actively try to avoid getting in that type of situation in the first place, arguably as your main priority.

3. You have gone through what I consider the hardest stage in the game (although as discussed earlier in the thread, there is another path that is at least close in difficulty). You can make different choices to avoid that particular stage in the clouds - the one I consider the 2nd hardest also takes you to clouds but only in the very end and you only fight bosses there.

If you want to see that ending or otherwise just want to play through that stage anyway, one possibility that really helps is setting the Undead Hero to berserk as has been mentioned (and if you can screen for the Hero to unleash his "explosion" special without getting hit, he will damage them immensely). You can also block a LOT and carefully approach the flying orbs of death, and throw them some fireballs (even Han has this) to hit them to the ground for long enough to close in. If you can get close to them on the ground you can usually get a pretty big combo on those orb enemies, and repeat that - although in this case it is particularly bad as there are two of them simultaneously and even as you are nailing one of them, the other may very well disrupt you (but in doing so the other orb is also getting damaged, as spell effects are contagious).

Ivo.

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll probably switch to another character when I play it again, but if I'm feeling particularly masochistic and use Han again, I'll keep that in mind.
On the subject of blocking though, when I press and hold the block button, Han seems to cycle between a blocking animation for a couple seconds, then he stops briefly and continues the cycle. I thought this was why I was constantly getting knocked out of guard, and flying into the air, but should I actually be able to guard everything?
N00b question: How do you activate the undead hero's berserk mode...?

Also, I'm curious about something I encountered in the second stage. I suffered an early death to a group of those disappearing mages in cloaks (which was the only death I had until Kanon started raping my face off) but when I restarted from the beginning of the level, I didn't encounter that particular group of enemies. Do the groups change depending on how quickly you defeat certain groups, etc?

I'm playing the Japanese version of the game, so it's not the translation that's getting in the way of my enjoyment of the story.

[Duane Dibbley]

N00b question: How do you activate the undead hero's berserk mode...?

If you haven't been controlling him, then it's no wonder you're having such a hard time. Press X, and you can cycle through commands for attack, defend, follow, hold, and berserk.

[alienjesus]

N00b question: How do you activate the undead hero's berserk mode...?

If you haven't been controlling him, then it's no wonder you're having such a hard time. Press X, and you can cycle through commands for attack, defend, follow, hold, and berserk.

It's not like it's necessary to win though. I normally prefer to set him to hold and not attack at all.

[Ivo]

1. Thanks for the advice. I think I'll probably switch to another character when I play it again, but if I'm feeling particularly masochistic and use Han again, I'll keep that in mind.

2. On the subject of blocking though, when I press and hold the block button, Han seems to cycle between a blocking animation for a couple seconds, then he stops briefly and continues the cycle. I thought this was why I was constantly getting knocked out of guard, and flying into the air, but should I actually be able to guard everything?

3. N00b question: How do you activate the undead hero's berserk mode...?

4. Also, I'm curious about something I encountered in the second stage. I suffered an early death to a group of those disappearing mages in cloaks (which was the only death I had until Kanon started raping my face off) but when I restarted from the beginning of the level, I didn't encounter that particular group of enemies. Do the groups change depending on how quickly you defeat certain groups, etc?

5. I'm playing the Japanese version of the game, so it's not the translation that's getting in the way of my enjoyment of the story.

1. If you want to use Han, I recommend his sword attacks (right or left + C, or the same while crouching) are quite long range, do 3 to 4 hits usually (good enough to refill the MP) and knock enemies back. You can hold your ground, keeping enemies to a single side of Han and knocking them back, with the odd fireball here and there. He also has a flaming move if you jump first, which is very handy, and you can go up (hitting some enemies hopefully) with his down, down, B or C attack move, then activate the flaming move going down again with down, down while in the air.

2. Pressing and holding A (the default block button) should make any of the story characters keep his block. Double tapping A will instead make a character dodge. Maybe you did this accidentally?

3. Berserk is the last command as said earlier, but the first command is actually "protect me", it is the second which is "attack". My strategy is usually "Hold" so I can get more experience, and I use "protect me" otherwise (I believe the Hero defaults to this at the start of a new stage). I set him to "Attack" for many bosses, and "Berserk" for Kanon and if I'm in or expect to get in real trouble (in the last stages and bosses).

4. When the skeletons appear, if you just run to the right instead of defeating them, you get some more soldiers instead of the wizards + cyclops. Wizards can be very dangerous. There is a stage somewhere in the castle setting where there's a bunch of wizards. Be careful and try to target them and kill them quickly, if you can, as if you are busy with other enemies they will be casting at you and they deal a bunch of damage.

5. Fair enough! I thought the story was ok.

[pierrot]

Awesome, thanks for the help. I'm feeling a little bit more invigorated about playing the game.
I think I need to not use an arcade stick for this game, 'cause I didn't even realize that there were more commands for the x button menu. Every time I hit the x or z button it seemed to just kind of auto-select the first option.

Yeah, I was a little bit more prepared for those wizards the second time, but are there other spots in the game where you can skip waves of enemies like that?

I know I'm being a little bit harsh on the game's story, but I can't bring myself to just skip it, so I just end up resenting it for making me feel like it's wasting my time. I'll lay off of the story now.

Edit: Cleared the game with Randy, which was much more enjoyable. Still don't love the game, but I definitely had more fun with it not playing as Han. I didn't even touch Randy's strength stat and it seemed like his physical attacks were doing more than Han's throughout the play-through. Fought the leaders of the people of earth and the people of heaven on this one. Anyone know how many endings there are, and are they independent of the character you beat the game with?
A bit more interesting knowing what to do with the Undead Hero, even though I only really switched him into berserk mode once or twice, and otherwise forgot about him....
Honestly those command menus are a bit clumsy. Randy's magic spells do come in handy, but it's pretty tough using certain magic spells in the thick of it, particularly the more close range ones. I know their range grows a bit with stats and charge duration, but occasionally I'd just want to move to the back row and use the lightning spell for instance, and I'd be chased and immediately knocked out of the menu.

Also, I think when I was playing with the arcade stick I probably had turbo set on most of the buttons without realizing it, and that's why I was constantly dodging instead of blocking while holding the guard button before. Used the regular control pad this time and had no issues with guarding.

[Ivo]

Yeah, I was a little bit more prepared for those wizards the second time, but are there other spots in the game where you can skip waves of enemies like that?

I'm not sure if there are more places you can skip enemies, but there are parts where you can end the scene faster by targeting a particular enemy (in both scenes with the bandits), and there are parts where you can unnecessarily trigger a 2nd wave by advancing more when if you are careful you can clear a half without the reinforcements. You can actually get into a bit of trouble if you just try to escape forward in some scenes.

I know I'm being a little bit harsh on the game's story, but I can't bring myself to just skip it, so I just end up resenting it for making me feel like it's wasting my time. I'll lay off of the story now.

You can't skip a couple of cutscenes that you have to go through regardless of path chosen (Undead Hero rising and Kanon explanation), which makes it annoying when replaying the game.

Cleared the game with Randy, which was much more enjoyable. Still don't love the game, but I definitely had more fun with it not playing as Han. I didn't even touch Randy's strength stat and it seemed like his physical attacks were doing more than Han's throughout the play-through.

As strange as it may seem, Randy has extremely good combos and moves, and on top of that his pet Nando really helps rack up the combo counter. It is also possible that while you are keeping the enemies in the combo the Undead Hero swings and does a wallop of damage, and you are doing lots of damage with the spells as well.

Fought the leaders of the people of earth and the people of heaven on this one. Anyone know how many endings there are, and are they independent of the character you beat the game with?

That path is the one I think is the second hardest. You have one extra boss near the end, and then possibly the most difficult final boss. But the mobs in the earth spirit I found easier than the orbs you had complained about before.
There should be 5 endings and they don't depend on your character, just on the path taken when you meet Kanon (previous paths all go through there).

A bit more interesting knowing what to do with the Undead Hero, even though I only really switched him into berserk mode once or twice, and otherwise forgot about him....

I agree they could have made things better. It is easy to set the Hero on "protect me" - just double tap X. Getting him on berserk is a pain because it is the last option and you can't go left from the start, otherwise X, left, X would do it. And usually you want to do it when you are fighting mobs or bosses that are particularly vicious, so X, right many times, X is not ideal.

Honestly those command menus are a bit clumsy. Randy's magic spells do come in handy, but it's pretty tough using certain magic spells in the thick of it, particularly the more close range ones. I know their range grows a bit with stats and charge duration, but occasionally I'd just want to move to the back row and use the lightning spell for instance, and I'd be chased and immediately knocked out of the menu.

I think people are a bit harsh on the Magic menu. It isn't good if you actually are browsing it. If you already know what you want, it can be great.

In emergencies wit Randy you can get used to the Ice pool which is very good.
So you could switch row and do down, down, Z, Z then hold A to block (it is very common that you will get frozen if you don't block). You may not need the 2nd Z, it interrupts the charge and does a smaller Ice pool but does it right away. Try it!

Anyway, the lightning spell is not too hard to pull off without the menu,
but if you don't want to memorise the "proper" lightning combination, try: Z, right, right, Z. It is basically a regular "fighting game combination" with an extra Z input at the start, you can do it rather fast as well. The only think is you need to do right regardless of whether you are facing right or left.

For the beam, which is not good to use if you are too much under pressure anyway, I actually never memorised the "proper" combination - I always did Z, right, right, right, right, right, Z. I can tap the same direction faster and more reliably than I can pull off the more complicated one. I also like doing Ice pool first, then Beam.

So I'm really glad the Magic menu is there, it is a great asset if you know how to use it well. Would be amazing if you could cycle left from the start though. Beam just with Z, left, Z, for example! Maybe they didn't want that to be possible.

Also, I think when I was playing with the arcade stick I probably had turbo set on most of the buttons without realizing it, and that's why I was constantly dodging instead of blocking while holding the guard button before. Used the regular control pad this time and had no issues with guarding.

I was going to ask you about that, as the thought you had a turbo controller had occurred to me - but it was enough to tell you about the dodge and you figured it out.

[noiseredux]

Not sure why, but I can't seem to get into GUARDIAN Heroes at all. Again, it looks amazing (because Treasure made it), but the game play just doesn't do it for me. I find it all so... "clunky"? And the whole planes thing... I'm just not feeling it. I still might just try to jump into a random co-op game and see what happens, but it's almost the end of July.

[Gamerforlife]

Yes, if you get the hang of nailing someone to the side of the screen with Barrier they are gone (and that is even if they are blocking). I managed to do that to one of the bosses. I didn't know you could cancel the Barrier move and most importantly I did not realize it would get so freaking HUGE with Intelligence! With that huge bubble it is much easier to nail someone (and everyone) to the edge.

Hehe yeah. With high intelligence and luck stats, Nicole will make your Saturn beg for mercy.

I think the cancel command is to tap block twice.

Nicole is the only character I ever used, and I probably wouldn't have liked the game much if she wasn't in it. I just found every other character a pain in the butt to use effectively. Nicole made the game playable for me

How much is the XBLA version? I'm kind of jonesing for another beat 'em up after playing Lollipop Chainsaw, and I don't feel like hooking up my Saturn. The new version I hear is much improved anyway