Guardian of Paradise

Guardian of Paradise
Developer: Buster Platform: Windows Released in JP: September 9, 2005 This game has unused text. This game has debugging material.

Guardian of Paradise is a nice short indie freeware game from Buster (E. Hashimoto), who also developed Buster (for the Sharp X68000, then remade for PC), Akuji the Demon and Hydra Castle Adventure. While certainly a Zelda clone, it has enough innovative ideas to keep the gameplay fresh. Originally in Japanese, it later got an English fan-translation.

Debug Info

Under system.ini, you can change the value debug=off from "off" to "on". This makes debug info appear on the top-left corner of the screen, including FPS info, an object counter, and other unknown values.

"Hydra Castle Adventure" and "Buster" (which share some parts of the engine with this game) also had a similar debug value in the ini file, but it doesn't appear to have a direct influence on gameplay.

Unused Text

Under a script text named tk084.dat is unused text meant for the second boss battle, after which you get the freed Water Spirit. It seems that the boss was originally meant to be the water spirit possessed in some way, rather than the boss from the final game.

To do: Get the text from JP version.

Fan-translated script:

* Unused text? 
Bwaharahar! 
I'm the Water Spirit! 
You look tasty, human!
Time for crunching!
* Unused text?
Bwahaghk! 
Beaten by a mere human...!
This temporary body's 
no good.
No choice but to retreat! 
Bwahahar! You ain't seen
the last of me!!
* Unused text?
Durrr...
* Unused text?
Water Spirit

Even the replacement boss that appears in the final game has also unused text. The actual boss fight does not have dialogue before it starts in-game.

Fan-translated script:

* Unused text?
 (You hear an eerie
voice...) 
Pfeh! Who are you?
Did you come to save
the Water Spirit? 
You're not getting it 
back!
Anyone who dares defy 
the Eldest Dagon will 
pay the price!