Advance Guardian Heroes INFO BOX SYSTEMS Gameboy Advance RELEASE DATES Japan - 09/22/04 PUBLISHER Treasure Advance Guardian Heroes was released and recieved much criticism. "It's nowhere near as good as the original", they say. "The graphics and characters are lame", they whine. "This game sucks" has been heard on more the one occassion. Pardon me, what? As far as I can tell, Advance Guardian Heroes is a lot fun. Hell, I'd rather play this over Astro Boy any day. In fact I've played through this game a handful of times while I've only played through Astro Boy once in the time I've had it. So what's actually wrong with this game? I suppose the action's been toned down when compared to the original Guardian Heroes' ridiculous onslaught of enemies. You rarely fight more then four guys at once in this game, but that can often prove more then troublesome for our poor hero. The lack off buttons also means there's only one melee button this time, but when combined with hitting directions on the d-pad you can pull of a variety of moves. I don't know what people expected. The loss of the plane system is not that big a deal, sure the new characters are about as generic as can be, and I still can't figure out how anything in this game could possibly make sense in connection with the first one, but I don't care. I have fun playing this game. I guess the lack of multiple paths is a little disappointing, and some of the levels are really boring, but so were some of the levels in the original. Walk forward, fight the next batch of enemies, it still hasn't changed. I haven't spent any time with the multiplayer so I can't comment on it, but it's one thing I'm sure this game simply can't compare with the originals multiplayer. But since I can't actually test this theory, it will remain just that. So, if you like to play your Treasure games on the go, or just like beating up knights and other... things, then pick the game up. All those people who say it suck are probably just mentally ill.