Once upon, there was a company called Starfish SD that announced they were working on a new game in the Kiki KaiKai series, which most of you know better as Pocky & Rocky. But Taito decided to pull the licensing rights away from Starfish and the game was assumed dead. But it wasn't. The main characters were reworked, and the game was released as Heavenly Guardian. It hit the PS2 in February and the Wii in April. I picked up earlier in the week.

The game is basically Pocky & Rocky 3 in all but name. (Or Pocky & Rocky 4, if the GBA game is considered part of the main series.) The game is damn fun, but it has received largely negative reviews from mainstream critics. The main criticisms are:

1. The graphics are too SNES-y
2. The game is too hard
3. The levels are too long and don't have enough checkpoints

So basically, their complaints are just crybaby bullshit. The game is good old anachronistic fun, and since everyone's getting hard-ons for Mega Man 9, I don't see why this game should be any different.

I thought the controls were fine. Did it need motion controls? Probably not. But the controls are straightforward and easy to use, and it's not really an issue. Honestly, shaking the remote to execute the special attack is actually quite useful.

I could copy my savefile to an SD card of you want and then you'd have level select. Honestly though, level select is inadvisable. You'll be at a severe health disadvantage if you start in a later level.

Well, with RE4, you can always pop in the GCN version.

I sympathize and agree that multiple control schemes would have been a nice addition, but this game was developed and produced as a budget title by companies without huge financial backing, so they were more interested in creating a playable releasable game than loading it with extras. It's understandable, but it's no less disappointing. I mean, look at Castle of Shikigami III. That was a budget title, but they gave you all sorts of modes to play through, and the funny interactions between the different characters gave you a reason to keep playing over and over.