I finished the game, watched credits, turned it off, turned the computer off and with my hands on a broken keyboard, there were remnants of madness in my eyes, I did watched an empty screen. It's dark color was like calming waters of ocean to me. The flame of rage slowly burned out. And then a question came on my mind: Who was that Golden Guard?

Story
TrueMG accessed storytelling with the most minimalistic route possible. There are no words. And that is why the game reminds me of Mario so much. The Kidnapping is exactly in its fashion.
The approach works pretty well with Golden Guard. Frankly, I don't miss information. And It's cute. Of course there can't be any development connected to characters or their relationships. Characters are basic if any. This lack doesn't bother me, but it has it's limitations and together with often frustrating game-play made me rage quit the game several times.


I'm Bowser's dragon cusin.

Gameplay
Hell, This was hella frustrating. It disguised itself in a friendly costume of Nintendo games and then killed me. And then again. I had to hit these pigs like thousand times to get them bent. It probably was difficult to make a working ABS in such a short period and it works surprisingly well sometimes. Still I would reconsider some choices. Like amount of lives foes have. It would be so more enjoyable with slimes being slain in one or two hits and pigs with three or four. This way I spent an unhealthy amount of time in King's Wood trying to survive.
Of course there is space for improvement of ABS itself and I came across some better systems, but It seems adequate to game's ambitions.
Golden Guard also includes lot of backtracking as you improve your arsenal of tools and can access places you couldn't. This would be fine and I wouldn't be bothered with it, if only there weren't these pigs. It's really clever sometimes, how it unfolds. And then there is one puzzle. It's fairly good, although the fact that you need to pull the lever multiple times stayed hidden to me for several frustrating minutes and i was running all over the game slashing enemies and being clueless.

Art
Golden Guard was created as an entry for A Golden Week of RPG Maker 2003 and so the author worked with limitations stated by the event. It uses only 2k3 RTP. It uses it fairly well, both music and graphics. It manages to make them look really cute. Maps have some pretty wild spots, where not everything is what it seems to be and not everything looks good.


My secret hangout place

Conclusion
Golden guards is a compact game, which works well with designated limitations. However the frustration is so big, that I can't recommend this game to anyone but masochists. It devolves my experience from something what is supposed to be fun. I can't see any philosophy beneath the surface.
It's not about difficulty, It's about these friggin hit points. Golden Guard could be a good 'average' game. It isn't.