Changeable Guardian ESTIQUE

WHERE was this game 35 years ago? My childhood would have been so much better. Now, here are my thoughts about the game: 1. It's fantastic. 2. Play on HARD. 3. I AM NO. 1 on the leaderboards! So, yeah, I came here to ask you all not to buy the game, just so I can remain in the top 500 or something.

I first played this game in Akihabara on an arcade machine. It's good-old-fashioned fun. It's somehow reminiscient of Guardian Legend. Thought I'm not sure why you wouldn't use the plane mode. The mecha mode seems to have very little utility, aside from a different super attack. It's a really authentic game, as it seems to be some dude wanted to make a FC/NES side scroller shooter and that's exactly what it is. If you're on the fence, I'd go for it.

Just not a great shoot em up, and not even really a very *good* one. I'll be brief, as shmups are my favourite category and populate the largest percentage of my Steam library, and I know precisely why I don't like it, but perhaps you WILL like the overt simplicity. First, let's get the good out of the way.. The game has full controller remapping and very low input lag, with a nice CRT filter that I actually kept on. Curiously, it has rewind but no save states. I stopped at the level 3 boss as I genuinely had no interest in playing further (I got to level 2 boss in the English rom and then played the Japanese rom to see if there were perhaps any differences other than story text, and played the full stage before I decide not to bother with the boss). Basically, the game is presented mostly correctly for a retro rom wrapper, with all the screen size options you need, proper 1080p resolution, and proper control remapping. The big thing is that it's reliable and has no input lag to speak of, so kudos to that. Price is also acceptable. Oh, the music is catchy and well done for an NES title. Now to the bad. The game just isn't fun. The entire gimmick of transforming is basically pointless, as the larger mech just makes you more of a target and the ONLY difference is that the Mech form will blast a solid large single blats when you pick up a so called power up, and the ship form gets TWO seconds, yes, two seconds, of an expanded rotary pod shield and more powerful main weapon. The Mech form loses this upgrade so there's no point ever switching to the Mech, it's only really there just "because". And that's basically the issue with the game. You feel constantly underpowered and with an incredibly boring weapon system where you get a choice of two weapons. That's it. There's no real power ups, no stage where you FEEL powerful, and are constantly firing at bullet sponges. Not to mention the difficulty is really all about artificially increasing it with a bunch of indestructible objects (well I guessed they were indestructible, I don't know, as the weapon is so weak that I had to end up dodging) throwing stuff all around you whilst you are concentrating on the enemies that *can* be killed. It feels to ME, as a person who has played shmups for over 40 years, to just be very poor game design with no real satisfaction. As said, I genuienly stopped playing at level 3 boss, even though I was on my first life still and had a full energy bar (BTW this was on normal mode, I presume hard and God modes will be difficult and then very difficult, but I did not try them as I can only imagine they would be gaming torture as you try complete them with a pea shooter). The weapon doesn't look like it will be that weak, as it's a triple shot, but it really, really is. If your idea of fun is jsut dodging seemingly indestructible foes and dispatching some of the more destructible ones with multiple shots, and never feeling powerful, then you may enjoy it. But the gimmick really gets me, as it's added filler and doesn't even need to BE there as there's no point to it. And this is the proof that the game design itself is just SUCH poor game design. BTW, hot tip - your ship speed selection (from a total of 3 speeds) is done via the NES's select button, so I mapped that to RT and it worked well. I had Fire on A, change form on B, start on start, pause menu on select, and rewind on LT. If you are using a diamond faced traditional xbox controller layout, that worked really well and I recommend it. Sorry to the devs, they've done an admirable job of bringing this to Steam properly, unlike so many other rom wrappers. But the game itself is not fun. Not for me anyway.

Excellent collection! The Steam release includes both NES and FC versions of Changeable Guardian Estique as well as an early prototype of the game. Normally, I'd say "who cares!?" with regard to having various versions of the same game but the differences are made clear by the presentation. One cool aspect is that the NES and FC versions have different storylines. It's also worth noting that scores from both versions feed into the same online leaderboard. I'm usually skeptical of modern shmups made for NES because I assume they are either clunky or simply "Nintendo hard" but was pleasantly surprised to see how slick and accessible this is. It's absolutely worth checking out if you're either a shmup or retro enthusiast.

I saw this played before on a few streams when the physical version on a NES cart came out. It was a delightful little shmup that I wanted to play but lacked the means of playing it on a NES because of the lack of a CRT or cables for a flatscreen. So I had to wait for this release. And now it's here! First thing's first- this game is short! 6 short stages. You'll finish this in like 30 minutes. This is meant to be replayed, like all shmups should be. There are also 3 difficulties, what changes between them is how many Supers you have and how many bullets the enemies shoot. This game was made with NES cartridge limitations so there's not really a way to make this a long epic game. Especially with how detailed the backgrounds are and the gigantic bosses! This makes NES Gradius look really empty and plain with the backgrounds. You'll be wanting to replay this game a few times to tackle the harder difficulties and get a big score! Since this is a shmup that uses a Shield system rather than lives, you will game over when your shield's gone. If you don't get hit for a while, it will slowly regenerate! But don't worry, you can continue where you died from the title screen. It will be either be the start of the stage of at the boss. There are infinite continues so even a beginner can try over and over to win the game. There's no Power Up system in this game so feel free to swap weapons whenever you feel like. I suggest always picking them up because they will fill your Super Weapon Stock by one. If you're full and you pick one up, it will fire off a Super Weapon for free! Weapon Types- B- B.I.T. Single bullet shot with two spinning B.I.T. units around your unit. These will block most bullets and also do contact damage to enemies if you like to get up close and personal! W- WAVE Three-way shot. Learning what shot type works for each area you're in is important! Also make use of your Super Weapon a lot! You don't get points for not using it, you get all the points for USING it and killing enemies with it! There's two forms you can play as in this game, a ship and a mecha. What's the difference between them? Ship- Super Weapon makes the shots go really fast! Enemies killed with this award 500 points Mech- Sper weapon makes you punch out a moderate speed wave. Enemies killed with this award 1000 points So if you're going for BIG POINTS, you want to make good use of the Mech's Super Weapon. I'm not sure if the Mech's hitbox is taller or not, I haven't stared too closely. Why is getting BIG POINTS important? A cute cat named Maruino will show up every 80k points and you can collect them to restore your shield and Super Weapon stock! You'll see this fella pretty often if you're getting those points! The FC and NES versions have different stories but the exact same gameplay. There's subtitle options if you can't read Japanese so there's no reason to not finish both versions. I found the gameplay to be quite fun. It can be a bit challenging at first when you get new enemies thrown at you but after a few attempts, it gets far easier. It's important to learn enemy patterns and how to tackle them. Sometimes one style of shot works best for a particular wave, then another shot works for the boss. Also those gray orbs are tanky but still destructible! It can be fun to let your B.I.T.s ram into them a few times or pop them for big points with the Mecha Super Weapon! This is a great shmup that you can very easily pick up and put in a few runs with its quick gameplay. Also very welcoming to newbies with the shield gauge and continue system. No need to worry about starting at low power since there's only one level. If you feel overwhelmed, hit that Super Weapon button to blow away your enemies and do tons of damage! The only part that I found particularly difficult was the mini-boss with the multiple mechas that fly in and out. Using the B weapon and hitting the Super Weapon button a lot helped me take them down. I'm very glad this indie NES game is now available for PC players to enjoy and support the devs! I hope y'all have fun playing this game too!

This is quite interesting for a little NES shmup. I believe more thought went into this than is initially apparent, and on god of game difficulty there is quite a lot of use cases for both special weapons and transformations, which is where the systems of the game really seem to come into play. Nothing mind blowing, but if you like shmups its worth the asking price.

お疲れ様です。 FC実機でも動くーと言う事では有りますが…steamで遊ぶ分には関係ないのは痛い？所かなぁ。 其れは別として、雰囲気が気になったなら楽しく遊べると思います。 全クリアはまだですが、のんびり進めたいと思います。 コンティニューで終わらせるには惜しいですしね。 気になる所として、 敵の弾がすり抜けるのに、地形に当たり判定が有るのは何か納得が行かない… 壁の中から攻撃したりしますしねぇ、まぁその辺りは覚えろって事でしょうかｗ 個人環境かもしれませんが、 ゲーム内パット設定が変えても保存されないような？ steam本体の設定変えれば良い事ではありますけど。

Para quem gosta de shmup da era 8 bits, recomendo! O jogo acompanha as 3 versões (protótipo, NES e Famicom) e o enredo varia conforme a versão. Só não gostei que nas versões definitivas trocaram a música da tela dos bosses, prefiro a do protótipo. ^^

I like it. For a casual shmupper you can probably get thru this on normal using rewinds in about 35 minutes. That being said if you really want to have fun then make sure you turn it to the hardest setting and practice that because its way more engaging and interesting. A cool idea to make a modern NES shmup but part of me is always like "why?" Why limit your game to the specifications and limitations of NES hardware? I thought the same thing about GG Aleste 3 [one of my fav shmup of all time] but honestly its not a big deal and any retro-loving pixel-junkie will probably enjoy this.