• Price: $4.99 USD
• Developer: der Mondhase
• Publisher: Flynn’s Arcade
• Switch Port: RAWRLAB Games
• Release Date: January 11, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by Flynn’s Arcade on behalf of der Mondhase. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

8-Colors Star Guardians + first caught my attention with its vibrant colors and interesting name. It’s described as a “turn-based, choose-your-boss-path game made with just 8 colors.” I got “Power Rangers meets Sailor Moon” vibes from the character designs and game description. Maybe with a little Godzilla/Kaiju battles sprinkled in as well. Anyways, let’s see if we can make these ladies the best guardians of the…galaxy. 😉

The game includes a Story Mode and an Arcade Mode. I started playing the Story Mode first. As the story goes, the princess predicted that eight monsters would arrive in the city; after a year of preparations, her prediction came true. The Star Guardians now must split up to deal with the big bosses, their minions, and protect the citizens.

Story Mode: Chapter 1

You can only use three out of the five Star Guardians in battle, and there’s no swapping out. (The other two are presumably dealing with the minions and panicking citizens.) All eight monsters are set up in a grid, but you don’t have to beat them in order. In fact, it may not even be possible to do so, as some bosses require you to use specific abilities to defeat them.

So you decide which boss you want to confront first. I decided to just try each boss to determine which ones were easier to handle. I was defeated by each of them on my first attempts, but my failures had a point to them: after each defeat the Star Guardians will talk about what went wrong and discuss what strategies will work with that boss. They only have that conversation once for each boss, so be sure to pay attention!

You don’t have any equipment or healing items, and there is absolutely no grinding at all. Eventually, some of the Star Guardians learn skills that restore HP or SP at no cost, which makes up for the lack of items. I liked the simplified, streamlined gameplay (and the simpler graphics worked for me as well).

If you’re going to save the city, you’re going to have to figure out the right team builds and strategies for each monster instead of spending time on training or buying better equipment. A few bosses will only take damage from abilities used by certain Star Guardians, and some skills might even heal the boss instead!

Once I got some tips, I managed to defeat all 8 bosses after some trial and error. When you defeat each boss, one or more of the Star Guardians will learn new abilities. Read the description of each new skill, and that should give you an idea of which boss you need to face next, as well as who you should take with you.

1 2 3

4 —— 5

6 7 8

If you’re curious, I defeated them in this order (highlight the text below):

7, 1, 6, 2, 5, 4, 8, 3

It was fun figuring out who to bring to each battle based on their collective abilities. Once you’ve set the Star Guardian(s) with the required skill on your battle team, do you then also add the one with the healing ability, or do you bring the one that can triple their own attack with a buff? 🤔

In between battles, I enjoyed the short storyline and cute character interactions. The dialogue often includes some silly humor that made me giggle, although I acknowledge that player responses will vary.

There’s some minor romance between the female characters, which was an unexpected yet welcome surprise. The length of the story doesn’t give the writers much time to flesh out the relationships, but I still liked the characters together. Every once in a while we also get to see a “CG” of sorts that enhances the scene.

The first chapter in Story Mode took me about an hour or so to complete. Completing Chapter 1 of Story Mode unlocks Chapter 2, plus the Arcade Mode. Arcade Mode includes Classic Mode, Extra Mode, and Free Play Mode. (I believe Extra Mode was unlocked after completing Chapter 2 of Story Mode.)

Story Mode: Chapter 2

If you thought Chapter 1 of Story Mode was challenging, wait until you experience Chapter 2! Now there are multiple bosses in each battle, and you get to fight as a full team of five, which should give you an idea of the increased difficulty. You also start with all abilities unlocked. And unlike Chapter 1, Chapter 2 has you fight enemies in a fixed order; more than a dozen battles await you this time.

One battle may have you fight two different bosses at once, three of the same boss, or one boss with a new ally who complicates things. These enemy teams are no pushovers, that’s for sure. The last two or three battles are the hardest ones, though – even knowing what strategies to use may not help you if an enemy hits you with the right move or you fail to manipulate the turn order.

It took me many attempts to beat the final few bosses in Chapter 2, but it was worth it in the end. The additional story content was short but entertaining again, and some familiar faces return as part of the cast. I think the characters – especially the Star Guardians – have enough personality to warrant a visual novel spin-off. Perhaps they could write about how they all met and came together as a team, or they could expand on Rhea and V’iri’s love story.

Arcade Mode: Classic

•Start with same abilities as Story Mode for each chapter: single ability for Ch.1 then unlock more, Ch. 2 start with all

Even in Story Mode, the game tracks how many turns you’ve taken. But it doesn’t seem to matter until you play Classic Mode, which allows you to fight the bosses again in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 without the story. You’re given 120 turns to beat all of the bosses in Chapter 1, and 500 turns for Chapter 2. It’s harder than it looks, and if you exceed the turn limit it’s game over. Then you’ll have to start all over again.

Arcade Mode: Extra

Extra Mode allows you to use a bonus character from Chapter 2 on your team. This mode is almost the same as Classic Mode, as it uses the same turn limits. The only difference is that the bonus character has all of their abilities available from the start in Chapter 1, and you get to use all 6 characters for Chapter 2. You get to experiment with team builds that include the bonus character, and kind of imagine how battles (and even the story) would have been different with that character.

Arcade Mode: Free Play

Free Play includes the bonus character again, and all abilities are available for each Star Guardian right away. There aren’t any turn limits here, and it seems like this mode – as the name would imply – allows you to more freely experiment with team builds without restrictions.

Unlike Classic and Extra Mode, Free Play Mode shows all of the bosses at once, including the final bosses that usually aren’t unveiled until the end. When you defeat enemies they don’t get crossed out, so I suppose you can use this mode to test out different strategies on the same bosses.

Overall Thoughts

8-Colors Star Guardians + is a very reasonably priced game with a pretty decent amount of content. (It also boasts a small download size of 88 MB, for those worried about their storage space.) Although the storylines aren’t very long, they did manage to write likable characters who amused me with their banter and occasional pop culture references.

I loved how they animated the bosses, and the Star Guardians appear to be almost dancing in battle. I also liked that we can unlock new costumes for the Star Guardians. They may have only used 8 colors in the game, but they used them effectively in my opinion. The soundtrack complements the game well, and it really got my blood pumping.

The gameplay is deceptively simple but hard to master, and players will spend several hours testing their strategies in each mode, fine-tuning their setups for the modes with turn limits. This was a nice start to another year of gaming in 2024.