Beat-Em-Up

Many young players will see Guardian Heroes and have no idea it’s actually a port from the Sega Saturn. This anime-styled brawler supports three 2D planes rather than a fully traversable 3D plane, tons of characters to play and unlock, a branching story arc with several different endings and encounters which, if opted out of to go down a different path, will never be experienced. This fast-paced HD-ified port brings some old mechanics into the present. The good news? It doesn’t feel a bit dated.

The controls are fairly intuitive, with X standing in for light attacks, Y for heavy, and A for a quick dodge back. B is reserved for special abilities—in the case of our Mage demo, that was magic. Those straightforward controls were balanced by a unique addition: the left bumper and left trigger, which jump planes toward and away from the player. Navigating planes takes a little getting used to, but it soon becomes second nature. (Though the adjustment period is a little more extensive when you’re trying to do this in the heat of combat.

In the interest of time, we skipped through the dialogue of the story—we were in a bit of a rush to see the meat of the gameplay. The story was told in pretty typical old-school fashion though: portraits of the characters would pop up on the screen and the camera would shift to them. It certainly feels very retro; it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but gamers that have gotten used to rich cinematics and other “modern” accoutrements may feel a bit estranged.

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What we have here is a lovely new teaser trailer from GameTrailers showing off the 4p Co-Op Beat-Em-Up game that is Lucha Fury. This summer will see a lot of …
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