Guardian Heroes headed for XBLA

The back catalog of Japanese developer Treasure is finding new life on Xbox Live Arcade. The Xbox 360's downloadable storefront already plays host to the studio's Dreamcast hit Ikaruga and will soon give North American gamers their first taste of the Sega Saturn shoot-'em-up Radiant Silvergun. That selection will expand a little further, as Sega today announced that it will release Guardian Heroes for XBLA this fall.

Originally released on the Saturn in 1996, Guardian Heroes is a side-scrolling brawler with light role-playing game elements, such as characters that level up. However, the XBLA version of the game won't be a straight port; Sega is adding "all-new" widescreen HD graphics and online multiplayer with up to 12 players in the Versus mode (or two players in the Story mode).

This is the first time Guardian Heroes has been remade, but Treasure did produce a sequel in 2004. The Ubisoft-published Advance Guardian Heroes received fair reviews upon its release for the Game Boy Advance.