Handheld Wars # 179 - Guardian Vs. Gunstar (GBA Civil War)

Freaking awesome. The GBA had some incredible sequels. I do hope these games don't get lost and see themselves ported to modern collections.

I wish they would bring back the virtual console, but now we know it's not going to happen since everything is for rent with the online subscriptions, you can't own anything anymore and as soon as they pull the plug all those games are gone and you are left with the peripheral controllers for nothing.

I played Advance Guardian Heroes once and never went back to it but have beaten Gunstar Super Heroes several times. I don't remember AGH very well but still feel pretty confident in voting for SGH.

Also, Virtual Console was cool but that was never a solution for preserving games either as licensing issues/dead companies/etc still kept so many games from being released on Wii/Wii U/3DS VC.

I thought this comparison would make for a fun discussion since I know at least one of our posters, Cervantes, has actually played the first Guardian Heroes on the Saturn.

Unfortunately, I haven't played either Guardian Heroes or its GBA sequel, so I don't feel comfortable voting at this time. However, I own and LOVE Gunstar Super Heroes. I agree with Bogard that it's one of the best GBA games ever, even though it's widely regarded as being one of Treasures most disappointing sequels by Treasure fans because of its gameplay omissions and supposed lack of replay value compared to the first Gunstar Heroes on Mega Drive. But I say bah humgug to that because Super Heroes still trumps the original when it comes to visual and audio design, with it having the best handheld sprite work ever along with the GBA Fire Emblems, IMO.

I hope I get to play Guardian Heroes 1 and advanced one day. Despite the negative reception from fans of the first game, I'm sure there's at least some fun to be had in the GBA sequel.

I do have a 360 but I can't afford internet service needed to download stuff. I'm not even sure the 360 marketplace is still active and usable anyways. Can you still buy stuff on it? Or has it been shut down?

I decided that I would just emulate Guardian Heroes at some point, although I have very low expectations because of how fucking atrocious saturn emulation supposedly is.

The thing about Advance Guardian Heroes is that, while it's a competent enough beat'em up, it misses too much features from the original: among them, the huge number of characters to use in the arena mode and all the alternating routes and stories in the campaign. But here are its two major glaring flaws: first, while the original lets you use, from the start, four wildly different characters (in looks and moves) in the main campaign, with an extra one being unlockable, the sequel only gives you a few different pallet swaps of a single character. Second, the gameplay itself is too different: in the original, your character moves on a 2d plane: instead of going up and down like in most beat'em ups, the characters could be in one of three different 2d planes that you alternate using L/R; because of this, the up and down buttons on the d-pad are free, so Treasure used this to implement 2d fighting game controls and motions (using up to jump and having attacks like down down up, down down+right right, right down down+right etc.). It's pretty much Street Fighter as a beat'em up. GH Advance, on the other hand, ditches the fighting game controls and go for a standard beat'em up, with up and down moving the character across the screen; consequently, it plays too much like every other beat'em up. It's an ok game, but doesn't compare to the original. EDIT: I also don't know what happened to the art style. It's too simplified.

Gunstar Super Heroes, on the other hand, brings come changes that are good (the upgrade in graphics is welcome), others that are controversial (some of the new levels that feel too gimmicky), but it's at least on par with the original, maybe better in some areas. My vote goes to it.

Spirit Bomb - I haven't delved into Saturn emulation in years, but I remember it was getting much better, with some emulators running almost everything with very few errors and implementing extra options, like higher resolutions. Sadly, I don't know which ones are the most recommended nowadays, but you should look into it.