Guardian War

Guardian War is a tactical RPG from studio Micro Cabin, one of the first attempts to show that the 3DO could handle slower, more thoughtful games too. In Japan it was released as Powers Kingdom, and the player leads a group of warriors against a dark power that has taken over the land. The story is classic fantasy that mainly serves as a framework for battles, where positioning of units and knowing what each character can do are what matter. The party grows over the campaign, and with it the number of ways any single encounter can be resolved.

Battles take place on a grid in an isometric view that can be rotated — an impressive trick on a console of the time, since the scene is fully polygonal and the camera circles the battlefield without stuttering. Characters upgrade into stronger classes during play, each with its own attack range and abilities, so success depends on who you send forward and who stays behind. Anyone who enjoys taking their time in turn-based battles gets exactly what they expect; anyone wanting a brisk pace will instead struggle with how long a single encounter takes. The game doesn't spare the player's time, but it rewards planning and knowledge of enemy weaknesses, of which it offers plenty.

Technically, Guardian War leaned into what the console did best: colorful three-dimensional scenes without the limits of cartridge games, smooth camera rotation, and CD music. Sound and color were exactly what the console liked to flaunt over its cartridge-based competition. At the time it was received with lukewarm to positive reviews — critics praised the look and depth, criticized the length and cluttered interface. Within the 3DO library, though, it holds a special place, since RPGs were scarce there and tactical ones even scarcer. Today it plays like an interesting detour: a game doing in the mid-1990s on a console what would commonly appear a generation later, just without the polish of later genre entries. For fans of tactical combat it's a find; for everyone else, more of a curiosity.