GOTD 6/2/2016: Heavenly Guardian (PS2)
Heavenly Guardian was a late release for the PS2 that was a failed attempt at revitalizing Taito/Natsume's Kiki Kai Kai/Pocky & Rocky franchise. As they were unable to get approval for their product, Starfish completed the project, and converted it to be about a snow goddess named Saiyuki. Like its inspiration, it is an overhead run 'n gun with minor exploration elements. It lacks the frenetic action of Pocky & Rocky, instead choosing to play up the searching for secrets aspect for a slower, more methodical expeeience that ends up feeling a little closer to Namco's Legend of the Valkyrie.
Saiyuki by default hurls bolts of ice at her enemies, but can also cast some basic spells and use an evasion maneuver. Her shot can be changed to different types such as a wide shot that spreads, rapid fire, bomb shot that has a small explosion radius and deals strong damage, and a homing shot. Each of those can be powered up by collecting additional crystals of the same type, but you can lose your crystals by dying, having them stolen by a monkey, or changing colors. Technically you keep your crystals when you switch colors, but you'll change weapons to whatever you just grabbed. You have a snowstorm spell that can take out enemies quickly and freeze projectiles, and in single player, a spell that causes your snow bunny familiar to dance about as a shield and damage whatever he touches. These are powered by use of snowballs, which are dropped by most enemies.
The exploration really is what they hung their hat on in this one, as each stage has a group of snow boys hidden throughout the level. These are found by casting your snowstorm in areas with snowfall, and unlock extras like boss rush mode and stage select mode. There are also many hidden items and chests in each stage found by searching the suspicious areas. These include not just extra lives and restoratives, but also snowflakes, which extend your life bar when you collect three as well. Most are pretty obvious, but there are some well-hidden ones as well.
There is also a scoring system should you be interested in playing for score, and it centers around combos created by damaging multiple foes at once, usually with your snowstorm spell, and end of level bonuses. These come from lives lost, secrets found, snowballs left, and combos performed. It's interesting as a side note, but the game is so long that its hard tokeep it a focus. In two player mode, there is a competitive component in which the player who has collected the most snowball is the snow queen.
The music is pretty forgettable, but the graphics look okay if a little cheap. The bosses are big and the backgrounds fairly detailed, but the graphics have a pre-drawn, almost flash-like quality at times, and would probably benefit from having a lower-res, more pixelated look for the style of game. Play is slower than the games that inspired it, and while it can be pretty fun, the levels are a bit too long, and there are too many at that length, especially without the ability to save between levels, which should have been done. I do have fun with it, but I like the boss rush better than the main game. Also, there isa basically identical Wii version.
Played it?
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Originally Posted by Emperor Megas
