Guardian Hunter: SuperBrawlRPG is a free-to-play, online social action RPG on mobile devices with cute, cell-shaded graphics, action-oriented combat, many stages to play through, multiple Guardians to collect, and additional modes such as Infinite Dungeon, Guardian Arena, and Boss Raids.

Guardian Hunter is a 3D hero-collecting action RPG developed by TOAST and published by NHN Entertainment. Join the world of Bellia and turn ferocious monsters into loyal Guardians. Defeat foes with fluid, fast-paced action combat combined with simple controls, skills, and the ability to dodge. Play as a Warrior, Archer, or Mage and create a party of Guardians to fight by your side. Collect over 100 different Guardians and upgrade and evolve them to make them even more powerful. Customize your Hero with various active and passive skills including special combo moves. Participate in the Infinite Dungeon, Guardian Arena, and Boss Raids. High quality, cell-shaded graphics will enhance your gaming experience. Join the Super Brawl today!

Full Review

Guardian Hunter Review

By, Herman Y.

Guardian Hunter is a free-to-play, 3D social action RPG developed by TOAST, a global mobile game developer most known for their hit game, Crusaders Quest, and published by NHN Entertainment, the Korea-based parent company of TOAST and Hangame, a well-known Korean game portal. After soft launch-testing for 1-2 months in select countries, mainly in Asia, Guardian Hunter launched globally on July 6, 2015 and acquired over 1 million downloads in less than one month. Guardian Hunter is yet another hero-collecting social RPG, which are very popular in Asia, and is very similar in gameplay to Soul Seeker by Com2uS. Despite the standard, uninspired gameplay, Guardian Hunter offers unique artwork, polished combat, and many collectable Guardians that keep the game entertaining and competitive in the Android and iOS marketplace.

Character Creation

When players begin Guardian Hunter, they can choose one of three character classes. These classes include a male Warrior, a female Archer, and a female Mage. Despite having to choose one of these classes in the beginning, players can actually switch between these characters at any time. However, each class has separate stage progression, meaning each character has to be individually leveled but all items and Guardians are retained. The Warrior is a tanky fighter with high defense but decent damage as well, the Archer is a ranged sniper that has high critical chance and attack power but low defense, and the Mage is a ranged, splash-damage sorcerer with the highest attack power but also the lowest defense. Each class has different gameplay and many skills to unlock and upgrade. In addition to these characters, players can also have two other Guardians in their party which makes the gameplay more strategic and varied.

Fighting Through Stages

Like most mobile social RPGs, Guardian Hunter is stage-based and features over 100 stages to play through and three different difficulty levels (Normal, Hard, and Elite). These stages are divided up into multiple different maps with about 12 stages in each map. Each map also has a special dungeon stage that is more difficult but has better rewards. Environments and monster types differ in each map, which adds more variety to the levels. Each stage consists of running through a map, fighting through waves of monsters, and ends with a boss battle. Each stage is fairly short and can be completed in 2-8 minutes, depending on the difficulty level, and provides quick fun for both casual and hardcore players. Players have a chance of obtaining Guardians by defeating monsters and can pick one of five bonus boxes for special equipment, gold, or potions at the end of each stage. Players can also choose to have two of their Guardians accompany them in each stage, or one of their Guardians and one random other player’s Guardian, which is a useful option if players only have one powerful Guardian.

Colorful Anime Graphics

Despite many mobile games commonly having cartoony graphics, few actually have cell-shaded graphics. Guardian Hunter went with unique 3D cell-shaded artwork that makes it stand out from the other social RPGs out there. While the environments oddly aren’t cell-shaded, the characters themselves are cell-shaded and look fairly good although they could use a little more detail in my opinion. The overall graphics style, however, is very cute and cartoony, with an anime-look, and can appeal to both kids and adults. The environments themselves are well designed and look very detailed. All of the Guardians, monsters, and bosses have varied appearances and their attacks and skills are impactful and flashy. Overall, the game has very cute, colorful, and visually appealing graphics, as well as fluid animations.

Polished Action Combat

Guardian Hunter features fast-paced, action-oriented combat. Once in a stage, players can move with a virtual joystick and attack with an attack button. There is also a button to dodge and character skills as well as companion skills to use. The combat is very polished, the controls are easy to use, and the animations are smooth. Enemies get a lot harder at higher difficulty levels so timing when to dodge and choosing when to use skills requires a good amount of strategy, as well as choosing the right supporting Guardians. Each stage has a boss at the end which is significantly more powerful than minion monsters and is fun and challenging to fight. The 3 different classes have relatively unique gameplay as the Warrior is more of a frontline combatant and the Mage and Archers have to stay back and attack from a distance. There are also combo skill moves such as attacking right after dodging or attacking after getting knocked down. Additionally, there is an “Auto” feature that these kinds of games typically have, that allows the game to essentially play itself. It is, of course, less efficient than manually playing, but busy players that want to farm while AFK will appreciate this feature.

Collectable Guardians

Guardian Hunter has many Guardians to collect. These Guardians can either be summoned via Gems (premium currency) and in-game Medals, or obtained from completing stages. Unlike some other hero-collecting games like Summoners War, players cannot play or directly control any of their Guardians. They can only play as their Warrior, Archer, or Mage character (mentioned in “Character Creation”) but can have Guardians as AI-controlled companions. There are over a hundred Guardians to collect and they come in a large variety from walking mushrooms, to ninja assassins, to giant, fiery golems. All the monsters (except bosses) can potentially become Guardians in this game and the more powerful human Guardians can be summoned with Gems or Medals. Guardians also have special abilities that can heal, deal AOE damage, or buff allies/debuff enemies. Guardians can be upgraded by sacrificing other Guardians, and evolved by sacrificing specific Guardians in a recipe. Evolving Guardians add a star to their rank (max 7 stars), makes them more powerful, and changes their appearance.

Infinite Dungeon, Guardian Arena (PVP), and Boss Raids

In addition to the main campaign stage mode, there are also three addition modes called Infinite Dungeon, Guardian Arena, and Boss Raids. Infinite Dungeon is a survival mode where players can team up with two of their Guardians to fight through endless waves of monsters. The longer players can survive, the more gold they get and Infinite Dungeon is a great way of farming gold, although each wave of enemies gets significantly harder. Guardian Arena is Guardian Hunter’s asynchronous form of PVP. Players can set up a team of up to 5 Guardians (which does not include their main character) and there is a Guardian Point limit such that players cannot have 5 super powerful Guardians together. After setting up the team, players are matched up with random other players and watch as the two sides battle it out. The combat in Guardian Arena is completely automated but players can choose when to use skills. It is somewhat interesting to watch although the lack of real-time PVP makes it feel a little boring. Finally, in Boss Raids, players with a team of 4 of their Guardians take on a super powerful Boss with huge amounts of health and have multiple attempts to defeat it within a certain time limit. The Boss retains its lowered HP each time but players are only given a small amount of attempts to defeat it. Infinite Dungeon and Guardian Arena both have a ranking system so although there is a lack of real-time multiplayer interaction, the leaderboard helps add some online competitiveness to the game.

Cash Shop/In-App Purchases (IAP)

The in-app purchases in Guardian Hunter are similar to those of other hero-collecting RPGs. The main “attraction” is the Guardian Summons, which summons random Guardians with Gems (premium currency). Players can purchase 4-6 and 3-6 star Guardian summons with Gems and can purchase 3-5 star, 2-4 star, and 1-3 star summons with in-game Medal currency (from completing quests and achievements). From the numbers, it is possible to summon up to 5 star Guardians without spending money but given the very low Gacha rates, it would be very rare to obtain Guardians of higher stars from both the Gem and Medal summons. Players can also purchase Premium Weapon, Armor, and Accessory Summons, revives, energy, and Skins (costumes) with Gems. Fortunately, the game gives out a good amount of Gems and free Summons from login rewards, achievements, and from completing stages, but paying players will always have an advantage in better Guardians and equipment. However, it is possible to level up and evolve Guardians to max rank without spending gold; it would just take a very long time.

Final Verdict – Great

Guardian Hunter is yet another hero-collecting mobile RPG but manages to pull ahead of the crowd with polished action combat, lots of Guardians to collect, and fun casual gameplay. It does have some pay-to-win aspects but players willing to devote a lot of time farming, or just playing for casual fun, will find a lot of content and enjoyment to be had.