Guardian Force

Guardian Force is a multidirectional scrolling shoot 'em up developed by Success, released for arcades and later ported to the Sega Saturn . The player controls a futuristic tank operated by the Guardians, a secret society whose members wield the mysterious power known as "Force", on a mission to stop the ambitions of the Hammerbolt Empire . Unlike traditional space shooters, the tank can fire in eight directions by rotating its turret in 45-degree increments while the chassis cannon always fires in the direction the screen scrolls . There are five color-coded weapons—Tusk (red spread shot), Feeler (yellow lance laser), Fang (green yo-yo attack), Horn (purple explosive charge), and Beak (blue missile salvo)—each with a unique special attack . Levels scroll vertically, horizontally, and diagonally, each ending with a large boss encounter . A cooperative two-player mode is supported .

Arcade

Guardian Force was released for the Sega ST-V (Titan Video) arcade hardware in May 1998, published by Nihon System . The ST-V arcade system is essentially identical to the Sega Saturn home console, using ROM cartridges instead of CD-ROMs for storage . The arcade version runs on dual Hitachi SH-2 CPUs at 28.6 MHz, with 2MB of main RAM and the Yamaha YMF292-F SCSP sound chip . The game was initially planned as a Saturn exclusive before being moved to arcade hardware, and only a few boards were released commercially, making it a commercial flop in arcades . The arcade version includes four selectable difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard) and supports two players simultaneously with an 8-way joystick and six buttons per player .