Rate this Game Guardian force for Saturn

[Diabollokus]

Hey All

Just wanting to here some opinions on asega saturn shooter called Guardian force read some minor reviews across the internet so I bought it! for £15

Tell me what you think of it

[gundamalpha]

this game is not my cup of tea. the graphics aren't bad, the control is good, it provide lots of challenge and the enemies are "original". however i'm not able to sit down and play this game for half an hour because you're controlling a tank with uninteresting weapons, and the tank's movement is a little out of place (imagine a crab walking straight)

[Shatterhand]

While I cant say the game is bad, it never got hold of my attention either. I really cant say why... the game does all rightly, still it seems to be lacking something.

Not a bad purchase for sure, though.

[Frogacuda]

I like it, although I find some of the firing patterns, particularly from the bosses, very hard to cope with. Still, I fire it up from time to time, it's a fun game.

[alpha5099]

I love Guardian Force. A great game, probably the most underrated shmup I've played. It took a while to come to grips with the gameplay, but once I did, I loved it.

I seem to be alone on this one, pretty much everyone else seems to categorize it as varying degrees of meh. Buy it. Worst case scenario, you'll agree with everyone else and find it only decent.

[system11]

Thumbs up from me - only game I have the ST-V cart of.

[Diabollokus]

Yeah I've seen it in a few top 10 lists to buy

Only saturn games really left for me to check are:

battle Garegga
Hyper Duel
Blast Wind
Thunder Force 5


But I won't be checking them for a while.

[subcons]

The super yo-yo rocks!

[dave4shmups]

I LOVE Guardian Force; best Tank shmup ever, IMO. I even like it better then my beloved Assault! The control is perfect, and the graphics and firepower are great, and you really can't ask for much more then that out of a Tank shmup.

[D]

First of all Guardian Force has a really great title song.

Alot of work went into making that game and it shows!

Well, this game is .... different and that's just what it is. If you're looking for something different then this is it. If you are looking for a 'normal' shmup then move on.

I guess it's like Ikari Warriors (with fixed scrolling) and a more advanced control mechanism. (the two brothers are riding tanks now)

If had acquired a license and called it "Ikari Warriors Force", it would probably be appreciated more......

It's TWO player!

[Diabollokus]

Damn!

I can't wait to play this! I'll let you know what I think of it when it arrives.

Graphics, weapons, music 2 players rockin./

[tehkao]

Well I got to about stage 3, and got kinda bored.

It's not a BAD game....I mean it's no Skull Fang or Planet Joker...but there's nothing really outstanding about it either...it just feels really generic graphics and design wise...the novelty of controlling a tank wears off after a while....

[Diabollokus]

It certainly seems either a love or not like that much as opposed to hate affair.

Yeah I like inovations, should be good fun in 2 player.

[system11]

I'll tell you why I like it, aside from the music and quite nice graphics.

It's a good honest solid old fashioned shootemup. It's not trying to be extreme in any way, it's not trying to copy something else, and reminds me of the golden years of the Megadrive.

The green yoyo is a cool weapon too.

[Tychom]

I'm not a fan of it, I find some of the bullets hard to see, the attack patterns overall more frustrating than fun.

The weapons are either gimicky are gimicky and ineffective, the controls awkward, the graphics and sound to me are unappealing, the whole game is just a bit boring :/

[jp]

See sig




Or if you're lazy, I think I gave it a B-, its decently a solid little game.

[Sundance]

Its a quality old-school game w/ a unique set of controls. Its an aquired taste and def not for everyone but it's worth trying a few times before you write it off.

[Diabollokus]

Yeah I've checked your page a few times Jp, always like seeing a good shmup collection.

PM me your top 10 some time

[LoneSage]

Got it yesterday from dewclaw for a cool $25; pretty weird how this game's price has been fluctuating recently.

Anyways, I don't think/can't remember if I've ever played a Success game (they are the Cotton guys, right?), and after playing through it, it felt like a Success game should; vibrant colors, not-so-serious shooting action, and a sweet soundtrack (was one of the songs ripped straight from Pulp Fiction? I was playing it last night and thinking "Man, that sound familiar! Wait, I think I've heard someone saying this game had a PF track in it.."). I'm kinda surprised how a bunch of you guys think of this game as meh, I think it's great.

What's even better is that this is a real shmup! Looking at the screenshots and from what people said, I thought it would be something akin to Granada, but nope, it's a shmup -- a fine one, at that.

Gotta say what were they thinking naming Stage 1 "Practice Stage" seeing as how it's the real thing and you can die. Foolish!

[DBH87]

I just received it and I think its pretty decent. Anyone else Notice Stage 3's music is Pulp Fictions Theme Tune.

Pretty Damn hard though i think, i heard it was easy, but it aint.

[Jeneki]

Yes, I am bumping a 7 year old topic, because THIS GAME IS AWESOME. I can't believe I've had this sitting in my Saturn collection for so long and never really played it much (my Saturn is usually hooked up to the rotated TV).

It almost seems Raizing-ish to me. Medal chaining, multi-part bosses you can dismantle piece by piece, enemy vehicle design and style, explosion and shrapnel style, trashing set pieces for extra medals, balls hard.

While it doesn't seem to be a popular game here, I'm enjoying the crap out of this at the moment.

[BulletMagnet]

I like a lot about this game, but for some reason the controls always felt a bit too floaty for me...it seems to have a Night Raid-esque propensity for sliding me into bullets when I'm sure I'd put on the brakes.

But seriously, forget the zombie apocalypse, the necro-bumping around here has reached epidemic proportions!

[Ed Oscuro]

The medals don't disappear off the screen...

well that's a good thing, I think. I ought to play it some more. And yeah the thing does feel a bit floaty unfortunately.

[Jeneki]

Are people playing this on PCB, MAME, Saturn hardware, or Saturn emulation?

Out of curiosity, I tried out the MAME version this morning. It does feel a bit more laggy than playing on Saturn, however that may be because it doesn't run full speed on my PC so it exaggerates the input delay.

[BulletMagnet]

Are people playing this on PCB, MAME, Saturn hardware, or Saturn emulation?

I have a genuine Saturn copy, it still feels somewhat squirrelly to me.

[Ruldra]

The game is great, back when I joined the forum it was one of the shmups I played the most (even wrote a mini ST for it). I got pretty far until I realized the MAME version I was using had a lot of slowdown. Found another version with no slowdown but emulation wasn't perfect and the normal game speed was too much for me. The input lag was massive in both cases.

I'd play this again if ST-V was emulated properly and with no input lag.

[Dave_K.]

Very likely the polar response to this game is because of the controls. Playing the Saturn version on a pad is going to feel a lot different than arcade stick and buttons. Once I got the STV cart, everything clicked with the controls, and I now find it really solid.

My only gripe with the game is the stage music and sound effects are severely lacking, which is what I believe bores people. It just doesn't seem to build in excitement. Shame really, as the bosses with their mechanical weapons are quite cool.

[Tokyo-J]

I had the ST-V cart back in the day and remember that I liked it quite a bit.

Really cool game to play on the Arcade. I only have experience with a stick however so not sure how the port plays.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Honestly, among Saturn vertizontals I've played, I enjoyed this one most (Radiant Silvergun and Souky being the other two).
It's a Fun Weapons™ game, a lot like Zanac Neo at that. Also, once I tricked my US Saturn into outputting RGB signal, I got to appreciate some of its graphics more.
It's a Fun Settings™ game as well, not unlike Mahou Daisakusen. Oddball stuff. First of all, the "tank" isn't a "tank" really, even doesn't handle like one (unlike the Assault and Spectre tanks). I'm pretty sure it floats in the air, above the ground, like a flying carpet. The shadow indicates so. Then it only gets better... Rarely shmup worlds make me want to learn more about them like that.

[Casey120]

I have my eye on this game, played it on Mame and really liked the pace and action .
It's on my hunt list for next month in ST-V form but I want an original and not a boot .