Guardian Force - Saturn Tribute

I participated in the development of this game as a programmer of the original version (Sega Saturn and ST-V). However, the Steam version of the game does not credit me or the people I worked with at the time. I strongly condemn and denounce this act as it shows too little respect for the creators of this game.

This was a hidden gem on Saturn/Arcade. I have always been a fan of the art direction, the color scheme is beautiful. Like other CITY CONNECTION releases using this engine this is a passable port with decent functionality and easy achievements, I had to remap the rotation controls to the left/right bumpers to make it comfortable on Steam Deck. To comment on a review posted here by another user who was a developer on the original game, the full credits from the original game are actually included here. Just as in the Saturn release, you must finish the game to see these original credits. The credits accessible from the main menu only acknowledge those involved in producing this re-release.

Guardian Force is a port of the Saturn version on a new engine so it can run in modern systems. It also comes with a plethora of improvements, including a rewind option (extremely useful to try bullet patterns), free play and quick save/load. Really, it runs pretty well but it suffers a few issues the affect other STG ports, especially the input lag that makes dodging the heavy ordnance quite cumbersome, especially since the tank hitbox seems a bit uneven. There is also a slow mode you can trigger with the shift key but I've yet to find its purpose other than to cheat through some bullet patterns. Also, the control scheme by default is weird as hell and I recommend changing it to something that may suit your style better. In my case, rotating the turret was all piled together between a button and a trigger in the Xbox Controller. By mapping left rotation and right rotation to the triggers and shot to A or B you can least get a partially more modern control setup but that's just me. Thankfully you can remap controls in the game's contextual menu. (There is an in game option menu but that one let's you control credits and lives as well as the difficulty.) Anyway, presentation and m…

Perfect game, nice port, graphics, soundtrack (1st level is so cool) and art are awesome. After button reconfig zero issues and imho no noticeable lag with it. Absolutely playable on fast OLED and vsync off.

I never played the actual Saturn game, but I'm a big fan of shoot 'em ups. Guardian Force switches things up a bit in that the player controls a ground based tank instead of some space fighter jet. To help with the limitation of being on the ground, the player's tank' turret can rotate in 8 directions. Which becomes key to survival. Additionally there are both main gun and secondary weapon upgrades. Although, I found many of the main weapon upgrades to be limited in effectiveness. To the point they didn't feel like upgrades at all, but down grades. And getting the weapon the player likes can be a challenge. Since the upgrade is a little tough to capture rotating around as well as waiting for the weapon type desired. Perhaps the weakest element of Guardian Force is how slippery the tank movement feels. It just doesn't feel accurate or like any other Shump I've played. Especially since this game is a borderline bullet hell. I suspect it has something to with the emulation than it being how the game played on the Sega Saturn. Since the new UI menus are also quite squirrely as well. Overall, it does feel like this game isn't quite the way the original played. Too many things feel l…

This is a really unique shooter that I totally overlooked in the Saturn era. I remember seeing it for sale in import shops but never quite got around to trying it. It's challenging, looks great, and has a really unique control scheme. Now I wish I really played it back when it game out--hey, you've got to live with regrets. I really wish these Saturn Tribute titles had better emulation performance--but so far this series is all we've got when it comes to Saturn revival titles. So, I'll take it.