Guardian Tales

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG

Players: 1-4 Co-Op / Competitive (Online)

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS, WAIT MECHANICS, AND LOOTBOXES

Guardian Tales is a free-to-play Top-Down Action-RPG released on mobile devices in 2020, and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game takes place in a medieval fantasy kingdom in the role of a new trainee knight who gets caught up in the fallout from a villainous attack on the benevolent queen.

The story may seem like a pretty bog-standard fantasy RPG plot, but the game is well aware of this fact, and never takes itself too seriously. The game is full of fun little pop culture references, delightful character moments, and clever subversions of fantasy tropes throughout. Honestly, I’m shocked – most RPGs don’t have half the personality on display in this, a free-to-play game that certainly didn’t need writing this entertaining.

And speaking of things that this game does far better than a free-to-play game has any right to do, the soundtrack here is outstanding, with great synthesized songs like Kanterbury Forest – Part One, Battle – Normal #1, World 7 – Dungeon Kingdom (Main), Arena – Master #1 and Result. This is really a small sampling, though – the soundtrack contains nearly 300 songs, and while many of them are forgettable fantasy fare, occasionally one will be catchy enough to make you stop and listen.

It’s not just the writing and music that’s excellent here. The graphical presentation features wonderfully colorful visuals with a faux-low-fi look that combines simple 3D visuals, pixel art characters, and absolutely gorgeous character artwork, resulting in a game that evokes the aesthetics of nostalgia while still looking clean and modern. There are still the elements of this game’s mobile roots in its interface (especially the extremely-crowded and confusing menu screens), but otherwise this game is absolutely delightful to look at, albeit not impressive on any technical level. What’s more, it’s so full of fun little personal touches, like how unlocking characters plays out like opening a package full of FuncoPop toys.

When it comes to the gameplay, this game starts with something roughly similar to top-down Zelda games, splits the game up into mostly-linear levels, adds a party system with upgradeable equipment and levels where players can invite additional characters to assist them in their quest, and adds a ton of optional side-content and game modes, with plenty of potential for grinding and character/party customization to keep players invested for a good long while.

While the game’s levels never have quite the same degree of ingenious level design as the Zelda games have, they’re almost always fresh and interesting, bringing different story and gameplay elements into the mix to keep things interesting – one minute you’ll be fighting goblins, next you’ll be off on a quest to get the fabled slime face cream from the secret forest that everyone knows about. This game kept constantly finding ways to surprise and delight me.

You know what didn’t delight me? All the microtransaction junk in this game. Yeah, this game really goes to town with the “gacha” mechanics, with players needing to either wait or pay to open up new levels as they progress. Thankfully, it takes a good long while for this to become an issue, but it still made me wish that this wasn’t a free-to-play game, but a regular-priced game without all the frustrating monetization.

Still, despite my frustrations with the microtransactions, Guardian Tales is one of my most delightful surprises of 2022. The gameplay is fun and varied, with tons of depth for those who want to dig into it, the presentation is wonderfully nostalgic, and the game’s fun sense of humor is fantastic. If you’re a fan of Zelda-style Top-Down Action-RPGs who can tolerate some microtransaction shenanigans, do yourself a favor and get this game.

tl;dr – Guardian Tales is a free-to-play Zelda-style Top-Down Action-RPG with fun gameplay, lots of variety, an appealing presentation, and great writing with a superb sense of humor. The only thing that detracts from this otherwise outstanding game is the overbearing presence of the countless ways this game wants to catch you up in its microtransactions. However, if you can stomach all the gacha mechanics, it’s well worth a look – everything else about this game is outstanding.

Grade: A-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Winner:

Best Action-RPG – You wouldn’t expect that adding linearity and gacha mechanics to a Zelda-style game would make for a very compelling formula, and yet Guardian Tales shows that if it’s done right, it can be an absolute delight. There weren’t many strong contenders in this category this year, but even so, Guardian Tales is more than deserving of this honor.

Best New Free-To-Play Game – Overall I must say I was somewhat disappointed with free-to-play games on Nintendo Switch in 2022, but Guardian Tales managed to come out of nowhere and completely surprised me with its charm, polish, and fun gameplay. I could have done without the wait mechanics, but otherwise this was definitely the free-to-play game that I definitely think Nintendo Switch owners need to try.

Most Overlooked – I had heard not a single peep about this game before playing it. It does have a few reviews, but no Metacritic score for either the Nintendo Switch or mobile versions of the game. What’s more odd is that every review I can find of the game is absolutely glowing, so why aren’t more people playing it? Even more bizarre is that there’s no buy-in required to try it, since it’s a free-to-play game. If you’re only just now hearing about this game, do yourself a favor and download it to give it a try. I think you’ll find it well worth taking a look!

The “Wow, this game was way better than I expected!” Award – It’s a free-to-play game I had never heard of with a generic-sounding name. I honestly expected this to be disposable, if not outright garbage. Upon firing it up, I was genuinely blown away. This just reinforces my belief that every game deserves a chance.

Runner-Up: Funniest Game, Worst Microtransactions

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