Finding The Best Pose to Make When Saving The Earth: An 8-Color Star Guardians Review

By Manuel

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Steam

8-Color Star Guardians + is the latest version of a browser game that released early last year. It saw an enhanced release on Steam following its browser game days, and is now arriving on the Nintendo Switch. It's a love letter to sentai shows, anime, and retro video games, but also has a style all its own. We're going to be taking a look at it now, and see if this is one you're going to want to add to your collection, or if things are better left to our perky heroes to handle themselves. Let's transform and get right into it!

V'iri has a lot to learn about Earth.

Ghidorah is that you?

8-Color Star Guardians features a cast of five girls, Rhea, Bree, Dua, Juni, and V'iri. They are your standard sentai team who have been given powers by V'iri to defend Earth against a horde of alien monsters who have wrecked several planets in the past. Each of the four girls have their own personalities, such as Rhea being the leader, Juni loving BL manga and fishing with hand grenades, Dua having a special connection with ghosts and the supernatural, and Bree being something of an instigator between the others' arguments. I already mentioned that V'iri gave them their powers, and she's also the fish out of water character who says some of the most off-the-wall things. The Star Guardians have special powers and skills that are able to take out the eight monsters in due course, but you'll have to suss out their strengths and weaknesses by taking facing them head on. Our dysfunctional team of heroes get stronger after every victory, but they also regroup and discuss why they lost if the monsters defeated them their first time out. You learn more about the heroes through the course of the journey, and may even see relationships between them begin to blossom. Things come to a head once the Big Bad Evil Guy behind the alien monster invasion is revealed, but I'll stop there for now in the hopes of not spoiling anything. I actually found the story and dialogue the most entertaining aspect of the game, and it's something that is best experienced for oneself.

Probably the hardest of the first eight.

The real reason for the season.

Battle in 8-Color Star Guardians takes place in a turn-based JRPG fashion. You can only bring in three heroes for the first eight monsters, so much of the strategy relies on knowing what skills will work better than others in any specific situation. While this might seem like pointless padding as you'll most likely only realize what you have to do following an initial loss, it also ensures that you learn about and use every character's skills at least once. Later battles will see you use the entire team, and it's these that require you to take everything you've learned from those early battles and apply it in encounters that are far harder than the initial eight. While you do gain new skills through each victory, there isn't any levelling mechanic, or even random battles for you to grind out your stats. This is essentially a collection of boss battles where you only get stronger at set points within the game. There aren't any items to use, but just about everything you'll want is available within each characters skills. You can attack using various elements, you can buff and debuff, and even heal both Hit Points and Skill Points. None of the battles in this game are simple "hit them until they die" affairs either. Each one requires particular planning and techniques to survive. Some will have you hide behind shields, others have you slow down an enemy so they can't perform powerful attacks as often, most have you use attacks of an element the monster is weak to, and some even have you kill several enemies as close to simultaneously as possible. For a game that only has a couple dozen battles, each is very unique and its own set piece within the game's story.

Make them all look like this.

Why would you do this?!?!?

Going back to story, the real draw here is the interactions between the characters. I defy anyone to play this game and not grow to love the characters by the end of the first chapter. Each have their own goals, personalities, and even bones to pick with each other. Not a single one feels under-developed, and the writing for them is top notch. I laughed at loud more than once, and there's enough references to anime, sentai, and video games to keep one engaged. Their reactions to the monsters are all over the place too, and part of me wishes that more of the enemies had the ability to talk too. I'm sure that would've added a whole new level of ridiculous to this already hilarious game. I don't want to make it sound like this is Shakespearean level writing, but you get a story that is surprisingly full for a game that's rather limited in other ways. The game even wraps itself up perfectly too, and you're even given you a full second story to try out once you beat the first. This second chapter is not only more challenging, but also gives you even more insight into what our cast of characters have been up to following their Earth-saving escapades. It also introduces a special new villain. I'll also leave that for players to experience for themselves though.

The Devil Is A Part Timer

Pay attention to hints after each loss.

While saying that I loved 8-Color Star Guardians is an understatement, there are a few issues I had with it that I want to mention. First off is the game's difficulty. While losing battles is part of the experience, it may be off-putting that you seem to lose about 2-3 battles for each one you win your first time through the game. It's possible to breeze through everything once you know what you have to do, but that first run will most likely be a battle of attrition. RNG is also your enemy here, as a lot of battles are simply a matter of luck. The entire Second Chapter seems to be made up of battles where you have to hope the enemy doesn't do certain things that wreck all your work, or that your turns comes up quickly so you can get off a life-saving skill or two. It never feels completely random, but since there's no way to make your characters stronger directly through gameplay, you'll have to settle for just retrying some battles over and over again until everything aligns perfectly to grant you an eventual victory. The game is also very short, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. It comes off feeling more like a handful of episodes of a really good anime or sentai show as opposed to a game that is just lacking in content. I'd understand though if others don't see it this way. All this said, I think that these are all small points pick out. While the game can feel pretty unfair at times, it's never so punishing that you'll think about giving up on it.

"Feed me, Seymour, feed me now!"

An entire sequel for everyone is included!

The graphics in 8-Color Star Guardians are amazing. That's it, that's the paragraph. Really I don't know what can be said about them beyond that they perfectly emulate an 8-bit aesthetic, but are also well animated and extremely colorful. Well, "well animated" may be a bit much as it usually only consists of a few frames, but they're all spot on, and many of them add to the overall character of the game. I live for the various poses the Star Guardians make, and everyone sort of looks like they're dancing along to the amazing soundtrack. It's not just them though, the enemies, cutscenes, and character portraits are all well-done too. The sheer level of detail is just off the charts as small things like the battle backgrounds, and even the enemy death animations, are near perfect and set up a world that you'll most likely want to see more of. The only minor slight I'd have against this is that the outside of battle screens can be a bit plain at times, especially in Chapter 2. I get that this was probably done to not overwhelm what is essentially a level select menu, but I couldn't help but feel that it feels out of place since it's the only area of the game that isn't full of vibrant colorful art. A small nitpick, but I didn't want to rave to uncontrollably about how much I loved the graphics. Though I can do that too if I really wanted to.

Music fares about as well as the graphics do, and that means that it's all awesome. Similar to the graphics, everything sounds like it resembles an 8-bit game, but with more sentai sensibilities when it comes to the tracks themselves. Everything is upbeat and gets the blood boiling, even if the main theme sounds like it lifts more than a little from the OG Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme. There isn't any voice acting, and there aren't a whole lot worth noting in the sound effects department either, but the game always feels lively thanks to its sound design. There aren't a whole lot of tracks here, which makes sense when you consider the length and scope of the game, but I never once got bored with the music. You'd think that hearing the same few tracks again and again in a single playthrough would grow stale after a while, but nothing here ever overstayed its welcome. Perhaps if the game was longer I'd begin to want for more variety in the music, but as it stands, it's the perfect package.

That damn space racism!

Never change Dua, never change.

8-Color Star Guardians is a rather short game. You can beat the first chapter in under an hour if you stick to it and take in all the hints. The cool thing about this version of the game is that there are other modes. There's an entire second chapter, and even a time trial boss rush of sorts that you can go through. The second chapter is actually a fully realized sequel of sorts, and is far more difficult than the first. You'll probably spend 2-5 hours seeing everything here, but there's still a lot of replayability to be found here. The game actually keeps track of the amount of turns you've taken, and I can easily see doing a challenge run where you try to complete the game in the lowest number of moves possible. Also, it's worth replaying just to see some of the other dialogue scenes you may have missed, such as losing to the bosses the first time around that you might've "accidentally" beat on your first encounter. There's also a lot of unlockable costumes if you beat all the gameplay modes. Oh, and have I mention the price yet? This game comes with the absolutely low price of $4.99. It's a steal at that price, and you get far more content than you'd think for that amount. Part of me actually thinks that this game should cost more, as it definitely has the quality for that, but I'm also sure that the current price point will make it so that it reaches a pretty large audience.

Later battles can still be handled in similar ways.

A new villain appears!

Have I made it clear that I absolutely fell in love with 8-Color Star Guardians? It's not a perfect game by any means. It requires a lot of RNG, has some inconsistent difficulty spikes, and isn't exactly the most robust game out there. But it is chock full of charm and endearing characters. It's a refreshing take on several genres, and has really fun and witty writing to boot. And that price? You can buy this for what's most likely less than what a cup of coffee costs. Buy both, and have a good time playing this game. You can thank me later. I just hope that this game gets some sort of follow-up soon, maybe another chapter in the Star Guardians story. I'll definitely be checking that out if it ever happens!

Check Out 8-Color Star Guardians + on The Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/8-colors-star-guardians-plus-switch/

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Story: A
Gameplay: B+
Graphics: A
Music/Sound: A
Value: A+

Overall: A

Pros:
+ A great mix of genres that looks and sounds near perfect.
+ Lots of easter eggs and references to anime, sentai shows, and even other video games are sure to keep players engaged.
+ The colorful cast of characters are the biggest draw here, and they are all full of charm.
+ Has two complete stories, and even some extra content to keep one entertained for a long while.
+ At just $4.99, this seems like a steal.

Cons:
- Difficulty spikes and wonky RNG can be a bit off-putting at times.
- While the experience is an amazing one, this is a rather short game.
- It can be hard to feel heroic when you spend much of the early game getting defeated over and over.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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