I'm Baaaaaaaaack!...and slightly more different than ever before!!!

^^Excuse the title grammar^^

Hey everyone!  Belart here and I’m back from my long hiatus from the blog (and life) and am here today to announce my plans for upcoming blog content.  This hiatus is mostly from pure unadulterated laziness and confusion about dealing with my life’s journey.  The silver lining with all this is that I’ve kept fairly productive as far as the writing goes and have been noting down some really cool ideas for the blog, my life, and my stories.  So now that the soul searching is over (mostly) and I have a rough idea of what I want to do for the month and upcoming year, here’s what I plan to post:

#1 will be a post on this year’s NaNoWriMo and how I did **spoiler, not so good** and what I learned from it.

#2 will be more Average Joe profiles and videogame breakdowns which are long overdue.

#3 will be a blog hop post, which seems like it’ll be pretty fun.

After that I’m not quite sure what I’ll put up but I’ve been gaming a lot lately so probably more VG breakdowns.  I’ve gotten into Dark Souls and Armored Core like crazy lately and of course Borderlands 2 is always in the system.  I just bought a bunch of games digitally over the last few weeks.  So much so that my 250 GB Xbox 360 hard drive only has 6 GB left.  Xbox is really putting out some awesome deals of late.  I was able to get most of the stuff I’ve always wanted to play like the Fallouts, the Elder Scrolls games, Red Dead Redemption, RE6, a slew of Tomb Raider games, Tales of Vesperia, DMC, Eternal Sonata, Soul Calibur V, Tales from the Borderlands, Mirrors Edge, and a ton of stuff that I can’t remember right now.  Each ranged from $2 to $10 so I went a little crazy.

Anyways it’s back to productivity in all things and back to learning new things.  My next endeavor will be learning to draw.  So my life for the next six months will consist of writing, typing, editing, publishing, marketing, dishwashing, reading, drawing, training, family stuff, and maybe a little gaming.  Sounds fun, except for the lack of dating but all good things come in time.  Must focus and improve for now.  Thanks for reading and be sure to make someone you love smile at least once today.  It works wonders.

Guardian Heroes Breakdown: What is Guardian Heroes?

Guardian Heroes XBLA Version
Release Date: 10/12/11
System: Xbox Live Arcade

Guardian Heroes was originally released for the Sega Saturn in 1996.  This Game Breakdown will be focused on the new "Remix" version released for the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade.  This version is a high definition remake of the Saturn version with some massive gameplay, graphical, and user interface tweaks.

This type of article of mine will typically cover: a brief history of the game, what the game's about, a summary of the gameplay and story, who was involved in the making of the game, and what makes the game unique.  Later on I'll Breakdown which features of the game the games industry can learn from and which features could've been expanded on.  I'll also note what I liked and disliked about the gameplay.  If you're not familiar, these videogame breakdowns are not made for the purpose of reviewing.  I make these to take a critical eye to games I like and don't like to understand what makes them enjoyable or not so enjoyable.  This is, of course, all subjective to my opinion so take it with a grain of salt.  Now let's start!

Today we'll talk about the history of the game.  Particularly its release date and a little about the creators.  I should probably also tell you what the heck Guardian Heroes is even about.

History

Wish I had a Saturn :'(

Guardian Heroes was originally released January 26, 1996 in Japan.  I'm not 100% sure on the date that the game was released in the U.S.  Wikipedia lists it as January 25, 1996 while IGN lists it as May 26, 1997.  I've even seen it listed as January 23, 1996 while elsewhere other sites simply and safely list it only by year, the year being 1996.  It was released on the Sega Saturn by Treasure and Sega.  Treasure developed the game while Sega published it.  Because a lot of Saturn games didn't have a ton of media coverage in the U.S. at the time (mostly guessing on my part), this game went on to be considered a cult classic with a niche fanbase despite everything about it having mass appeal and in many ways being ahead of its time.  Maybe it wasn't dark enough for the 90's, oh well who knows.  To this day there isn't a beat 'em up quite like Guardian Heroes, discounting the Nintendo 3DS game Code of Princess whose development team is headed by the same brilliant lead designer and lead programmer as Guardian Heroes.

 

 

What is Guardian Heroes?

Guardian Heroes is a multitude of things but it is mainly a beat 'em up videogame with heavy role playing game (RPG) influence which includes character growth and a deep narrative with lots of world lore.  It is a bright and vibrant game that encapsulates the best of early nineties anime and videogames.  Think Slayers or Dragon Quest meets Streets of Rage or Final Fight.  There is plenty of character interaction, dialogue, and scenarios that seem right out of a novel or T.V. show.  The world of Guardian Heroes is inhabited by all manner of men and creatures: from swordsman and townsfolk to magicians, all manner of fantasy creatures, towering mechs, angels, demons, angelic and demonic monsters, and even more.  The combat is incredibly deep for a beat 'em up, I mean 2D fighter levels of deep.  Think of this as Street Fighter -- or better yet Blazblue -- except you're fighting a horde of enemies instead of a single opponent.  It's a multiplayer game with co-op and versus modes with nearly fifty playable characters.  The XBLA version sports some really good drop in, drop out online support and the game has multiple difficulty settings.

 The Creators

Treasure Co. Ltd early logo

 

This game was created by the now legendary Treasure Co., the developers behind such hits as Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Heady, Radiant Silvergun, and Ikaruga.  They have a much much larger library of hits and have also worked on stellar licensed titles like Wario World for Nintendo and Astro Boy the Omega Factor for Sega.

The team for this game was headed by Testuhiko Kikuchi (also known as HAN) and Masaki Ukyo who also worked as a programmer for Treasure.  Both had previously worked on several projects.  Between the two, albeit mostly seperately, are such projects as Silhouette Mirage, Bangai-O Spirits, Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force, Silpheed: The Lost Planet, Advance Guardian Heroes, Phantom Breaker, Rakugaki Showtime, Sin and Punishment: Star Successor, Yū Yū Hakusho: Makyō Tōitsusen, Mischief Makers, Gunstar Super Heroes, Half-Minute Hero, and most recently Code of Princess.  As you can see, they have quite a proven track record of quality titles between them.  I respect and revere the design decisions they've made and the ways they've blended several genres, especially in Guardian Heroes.  The pair is currently not with Treasure anymore and now (peddle) their talents independently.  Their design legacy and talents can currently be spotted in the Bones/Atlus title Code of Princess for the 3DS which borrows the core gameplay principles of Guardian Heroes.  Of course, Treasure has also given us the amazing subject of this very Breakdown, Guardian Heroes, remix version.

What Influenced This Game

The two games that the wiki stated to have influenced this game are the arcade games Aliens vs. Predator a frenetic side scrolling beat 'em up/shooter by Capcom and Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force an equally destructive combat experience featuring mechs from studio Fill-In Cafe.  I watched longplays of both of these games on youtube and can definitely see how they may have influenced Guardian Heroes.  With AVP you have powerful combos that have characters leaping across the screen to dispatch foes combined with strong projectiles which is a rarity in most beat 'em ups but also prevailant in Guardian Heroes.  It's even possible that some of Randy's and Han's attacks may have even been inspired by the Predator Warrior's attacks.  Some inpiration for the mech designs of Guardian Heroes as well as the idea to stick most of the combat on one plane or rather lane may have come from Mad Stalker: FMF.  Masaki Ukyo is even stated to have worked on Mad Stalker as a programmer and designer. Both aformentioned games are brilliant games in their own right and worth checking out and possibly playing if you can find the right emulator or if you have the money for an original copy.  You should check out extended playthroughs of the games at the Youtube channel of World of Longplays (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVi6ofFy7QyJJrZ9l0-fwbQ).  You can also go to their site at http://www.longplays.org which is where I found videos of these two rather obscure games.

Aliens vs. Predator, for Arcade

Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force for PC

Next we'll go into more detail about what makes Guardian Heroes so special including a detailed synopsis of its gameplay, story, characters, and the differences between the original version and the XBLA remix version.  Stay tuned for that and as always, thanks for the browse!

Bonus Post This Week!

As an  apology of sorts for my lack of posts last week, I've decided to post more this week.  You can expect at least two Average Joe posts and at least one video game post this week.  As always, thanks for browsing!

Next Gen Gaming Bonanza at E3

This year's E3 can be described in many words, the ones I choose to use are confusing, drama filled,  and distracting.  We watched as Microsoft put out a barrage of hard hitting titles and other titles that looked good but will probably disappoint (I don't think Ryse will be that good).  They were the masters of ceremony and what they successfully did, at least for a day, was pull the wool over people's heads.  Their rapid fire blast of exclusives hit hard and trumped up a ton of excitement.

I think their smartest move was grabbing up that super polished looking Dead Rising 3 as an exclusive.  Dead Rising as many of you know is a game that I have a mostly hate filled relationship with and one that I am currently analyzing to see why people like it so much.  This new Dead Rising actually got me excited to play with it's overhauled game engine, one that looks very similar to my beloved Resident Evil 6 I might add.  It looks like it might be the systems killer app to me.  Everyone's on a zombie kick and this looks like it'll be in many a household by the time it comes out.

My friends and I were bad mouthing the Xbox One for several days before Microsoft's press event but you wouldn't have known that by the way my friends were talking about Dead Rising and buying a One just for it.  This, along with the rest of the high octane trailers and the excitement on social media sites like Facebook got me thinking.  Did Microsoft just successfully distract people from their horrid gaming model (which from what I'm hearing may not even be that bad but more on that later.)  I certainly wasn't "duped."  I was as salty as ever.  From what I was hearing Sony would adopt a similar strategy for used games and so I felt like I was overall done with console gaming.  This and the Kinect and 24 hour internet check-in debacle on Microsoft's end made me want nothing to do with this "next generation" of gaming.  I felt that they had already started a slippery slope of gamer abuse with our current generation of Downloadable Content in games that weren't finished from the get go and DLC that was already on the disk that you still had to pay for.

I feel that when something gets too big that it never fails to start overreaching and that's what I felt and still feel about console gaming.  To be a console gamer (which I've always solely been) it requires a lot of dedication.  You buy a system that's expensive as hell and you shell out a quarter of your paycheck on new games for it.  Now we all pay an additional $50 or so to join or respective system's online service.  If you have both PS Plus and Xbox Gold yearly memberships then you are shelling out roughly that much for both depending on whatever hookups you may have.  You also pay for your own internet and the additional electricity that these consoles drain.  That's a lot of money.  That's a lot of money to pay for someone else to still have control over what you can do with your product.  I don't believe in that.  I also don't believe that these games that are coming out are worth all this money and effort.  I've been having more fun lately playing my PS2 than I have playing my Xbox 360, that I just got mind you.  I just don't see anything out there on the market that's worth all this hassle and hubbub.  I've preordered the Ouya and am hoping that they do something interesting with that.  The fact that it's so indie friendly and cheap makes me confident that I made the right purchase.

This article has trailed on a bit so I'll write a follow up to this in the coming days.  I need to investigate this whole Xbox debacle anyway but from what I'm hearing the Xbox One's "bad" features are not nearly as bad as we thought, there may even be a way to turn them off but I'll go into that and Sony's funny jabs at the competition and break down their statements.  Like always thanks for the browse!

Rediscovering the Joys of Video Gaming

With all this newfound time on my hands I have been able to do the one thing that I haven't been able to really do lately and that's play video games.  I have truly experienced a gaming renaissance not unlike the one that I experienced when I first started buying games for my PS2 years ago.  For the past few years all I've been able to do is play a game here and there, get a major ways through it and then drop it because of some other life priority but now I'm actually actively juggling about 5 or 6 games.

Let's see where to start.  I guess we can start with the games that I have decided to analyze and post here like Guardian's Crusade which I finally beat and am actively analyzing to post soon (bear with me please), Dead Rising, Condemned 1 and 2 which I finally beat, Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, Shining Force, Dragon Warrior 3, and Shin Megami Tensai 3: Nocturne.  Most of the games on this list I actually did start playing for fun but then realized that they were so cool and "different" that they warranted a closer look.  Though I beat Condemned and Nocturne I'm still "collecting" in those games.  I play SF and C:AoS on my laptop's GBA emulator and am having fun and learning many gameplay "tricks" from those.  I beat DW3 years ago as a kid but picked it up again because (Nostalgia mainly) I remembered it had such original ideas in it.  This is one of those games that needs to be remade.  Dead Rising started as me telling myself that I was about to have fun and troll around in the game but it looks like I was trolled and that game frustrates me to no end.  I added it to the Closer Look analysis queue because although I hate it so much I am still compelled to pick it up and challenge it again.  My friend Ryan shares my same opinions of the game and yet he loves it while I hate it.  I find that dynamic interesting.

Beyond playing to learn I am ecstatic that I can also play just to -- you know -- play.  I was able to play and beat both Onimusha 1 and 2 in only a few days and then started the third one.  I am delightfully enjoying this series but have decided not to put it in my Closer Look series.  Some things should just stay fun.  I had a nice run at Dungeon Fighter Online until the makers, Nexon, decided to shutdown the North American servers in June.  I'll be sad to see that go but oh well.  I'm always playing Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown and thanks to my friend Will have improved my technique at that.  I started a game called Dust for the Xbox but watched my friend Will run through it and was exhausted by the end of it.  I've even started playing the Indie Game Dreadmor and am having a blast (and high blood pressure) playing that.

So I can honestly say that I feel like a kid again, getting lost in so many worlds and exploring all these characters and situations and gameplay types.  It's a good feeling and even better because I'm both learning and playing for fun.  It's great because beyond all that I still manage to write, hang with friends, help out my mom, make a little cash, and live life the way I want.  I won't be able to keep this up for too much longer but I will remember this time and I will remember it fondly as a golden period.

(Belart)