Heavenly Guardian Game Sample - Playstation 2
0We had the Wii version of this game for a while now, but bought the significantly harder to find PS2 version a few days ago and can play it, so we put up a video for it. It is the spiritual successor to the Pocky & Rocky series and was originally meant to be part of the series until it was scrapped (when it had the name of Kiki Kai World and had Sayo on the cover), then picked back up and greatly altered into "Heavenly Guardian". The U.S. box art is kinda sucky. It is old-school in practically every sense of the term, and this, oddly enough, caused the game to recieve poor scores in magazines (3s and 4s out of ten), claiming that the game only gives off the illusion of an old-school classic.
Some reasons? Outdated visuals, no saving inbetween, challenging gameplay with enemies coming out of nowhere, and being bare-bones when it comes to extras. Well, I hate to be the guy to state the obvious, but if you're gonna "go old-school", you can't do much better than that.
Before the conveniences of modern console titles came along like "memory cards" and tutorials on how to push a simple button that they'd remind you of through the whole game, you had games with little to no checkpoints, save points, few cheat codes, and ya had to beat it in one sitting. This game takes me back to my youth when I wanted to smash the likes of Ninja Gaiden with a hammer but felt so damn accomplished when I won. Scarily enough, Heavenly Guardian fits that to a tee. It's so retro that if you pause the game, the music resets back to the beginning. So as a classic gamer, I can relate to this... but that doesn't mean I like it.
Sayuki shoots ice in four different ways: Rapid 3-Way, Homing, and Bomb. Each weapon can get upgraded five levels. When you die, you lose all your power. Sayuki also has a roll to dodge attacks (which you will master if you want to survive) and can use her partner Toto to protect her and help her defeat enemies. Sayuki can also summon cold winds in the direction she's facing to freeze all enemies, which helps produce combos, more snowballs, and rack up points. The levels are pretty big and finding all the secrets is difficult.
This game seems a little too rushed and unrefined for its own good. The game has virtually no options like a sound test or adjustable difficulty and the controls aren't very good (lacks certain targeting traits that the Wii game implemented). Looking for a bunch of snow boys just to fight bosses whenever you want is a very lame addition. Sayuki and her abilities just aren't very appealing compared to Pocky & Crew. The game is more straightforward and limited than even many classic games of its kind, and combined with frustrating mechanics, that's what makes me dislike this game. It's an interesting bargain bin title for sure, but maybe it was originally cancelled for a reason. Even in its current state, this game gives off a great sense of incompleteness.