Guardians (Arcade) CO-OP Playthrough / A little-known game but one of the best in the genre. Crazy!
4Guardians (1995) by Winkysoft is one of the most elaborate as well as the best beat'em ups, from the arcade era, which hardly anyone has heard of. And this was due to the fact that unfortunately the game was released only in Japan......., which was undoubtedly a great pity for the Western market. The game, as far as I know, has never been localized to another language, so we don't really know what it's all about since almost all the subtitles in the game are in Japanese. From observation I conclude that we have to stop evil forces from invading our home planet. I don't know if they are aliens or perhaps the inner workings of some megalomaniac who has discovered or invented a new technology that allows him to do so. As for the game itself, in terms of graphics and animation it is on a really high level. The sound is unfortunately weak for 95 and the music is not very memorable. Apparently this was sacrificed in favor of more playable characters :P There is a lot of animation due to the large selection of characters we will have to control, as well as the enemies we will face. We have at our disposal 8 characters with an array of techniques and combos that could be the envy of other legends of the genre. Each character basically performs these combos in the same way, so you don't have to learn how to play each character in turn, but just move freely from one to another and quickly experiment with blows in order to find the most optimal combination. The combination of blows in different combos is really rich here, so the game doesn't get boring as quickly as in the case of mashing one combination over and over again in other games of this type. There's also the original aura/energy recharging mechanic, which allows us to use ranged attacks as well as special ones, without having to pay for it with our lives as was always the case before. Standing still, our character suddenly goes into a recharging animation, this is helpful because in cases where we play two people, one performs his most powerful combos, and the next one recharges at the same time to take its place. Really the fights look very spectacular here, until you want to play and juggle all these characters to see what they have for spectacular attacks. As for the backgrounds themselves that we will see during the game, they are probably one of the best in the genre. Very spectacular and detailed, stimulating our imagination, admittedly some of them lack color which makes them seem less spectacular, but as a whole they make a really good impression. Especially the last few levels. In general, we consider Guardians to be the top of the genre..... such a black horse that few people know about but can win with the best in its class. We highly recommend it.
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"Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"