SEGA? of America, Inc. and SEGA? Europe Ltd. today announced the upcoming re-release of Guardian Heroes?, a classic Action-RPG Brawler by celebrated developers Treasure. Originally released for the SEGA Saturn? in 1996, Guardian Heroes has been re-mastered with enhanced graphics, online co-op and battle modes, all-new modes of play, and more. The game will be available via Xbox LIVE? Arcade for the Xbox 360? video game and entertainment system from Microsoft this fall.
?Ever since we began to make SEGA?s classic Dreamcast and the Mega Drive titles available for modern systems, the fan response has been overwhelming ? and the demand for their favorite games has been pouring in,? said Haruki Satomi, VP of Digital Business at SEGA. ?Players have been clamoring for this treasured favorite from the Saturn days, and we cannot wait to show them what we have got for them.?
Guardian Heroes brings the Saturn favorite to life with new HD graphics, presenting Treasure?s iconic fast-paced gameplay on a new generation of hardware, with all of the convenience of purchase via instant download. The game also features:
Action-RPG Brawling: Choose one of five heroes to level up and guide along a branching storyline with five different endings Friends, Foes, and Fighters: Play the game?s Story Mode alone or with a second player, or challenge Versus Mode with up to 12 players at once Extended Gameplay: Time Attack Mode, Arcade Mode, Arrange Mode and more allow players to explore every nuance of 45 different fighters Fully Re-Mastered: All-new graphics and visual effects bring the classic to life in a completely high-definition, widescreen presentation
Let’s hope this does well enough for them to consider more Saturn classics.
A shame the HD graphics aren’t actual HD (and I hope the filters don’t end up making the graphics appear darker than the original like we see in the video), but since I didn’t play this game on the Saturn I’ll probably get it this time around. Hope to see more Saturn conversions in the future.
The game is out now, and although I’m disappointed by the graphical update (they used simply upscaling algorithms that end up ruining the original graphics in my opinion) I’ll probably end up buying it anyway (I actually didn’t play the original despite owning a Saturn). Apparently the success of this game might decide whether or not we get a Guardian Heroes 2 as well:
Despite playing and loving the Saturn original I have absolutely no problem with the graphics. I’ve noticed a few gameplay changes in the otherwise “original” mode, and the new remix mode opens a different can of worms that I have yet to wrap my head around (more substantial gameplay tweaks).
But honestly people, what on earth is your problem with the graphics? D-Unit, can you say they, I quote, ‘ruined’ the original when you never even played it?
Brandt, what I mean is that the sprites are still exactly the same as the original and the process used to upscale them does have its downsides. While “ruining them” might be an exaggeration, I believe the algorithm they used is too destructive, particularly on the backgrounds. Here’s a comparison I made just now from the demo.
While they got rid of the pixels, the backgrounds and colors end up being washed out.
I bought it. You can set the game to use the original graphical mode for the sprites, but still have the menus, etc, in HD. And it’s still widescreen, so it works quite nicely on a modern HDTV. I’ve played two sessions of the game so far, one with the graphical upscaling, one without it. I prefer the old style, even though it looks more pixelated.
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