If geeks love it, we’re on it

The Guardian Legend: Most underrated NES game ever

The Guardian Legend: Most underrated NES game ever

Guardian-Legend-1

And so it begins…

“If someone is reading this… I must have failed.”

With those words begins an epic adventure that consumed several weeks of my childhood. When most people think back to their favorite games of yesteryear, they fondly reminisce about the NES classics such as Zelda, Metroid, or Mario–but not me. If I think long and hard about my top five NES games, The Guardian Legend is definitely in that list.

In 1989, when The Guardian Legend came to North America, it arrived with little fanfare. While games like Dragon Warrior, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Ninja Gaiden were stealing the spotlight and taking up multiple rows of shelf space in my local video store (yes kids, we old folks used to have to rent our games from video stores), there was a lone yellow box at the end of the row with a cool looking piece of art on the cover. I shrugged, rented it, and the rest is history.

The Landers act helpful most of the time, but they are shady merchants...

The Landers act helpful most of the time, but they are shady merchants…

I will never forget my first experience with The Guardian Legend. From the pictures on the back, I took it to be a Zelda-like, top-down adventure game. When I pushed the power button, I was met with a sweeping spacey soundtrack. I pushed “start”. With no fanfare, I was instantly hurtling towards a rogue planet, as a spaceship; shocked to find that I was playing a fast paced shoot-em-up. Stunned, I died immediately. There was no second chance, no “lives”, just a rapidly depleting shield, and tons of enemies hurtling towards me that I could only weakly fend off with a slow, single-bullet cannon.

Game over. 30 seconds after it started. Oh, you kids have no idea how good you have it nowadays. Back then, games were hard.

I regrouped, shook myself off, and jumped back in, this time prepared to fire and dodge immediately. I made it to the end of the level, and fought a giant battery of robotic cannons as a first boss battle. Then, my ship transformed into a cybernetic female warrior, with wings and a gun. At the tender age of 12, I was in love.

New areas are accessible only after you have proper key

New areas are accessible only after you have proper key

The story behind The Guardian Legend is deep, and is revealed to you through messages left behind by a mysterious survivor. It goes something like this: Earth scientists discovered a huge planet hurtling towards the homeworld at an alarming rate. They have sent you, their half-human, half-machine Guardian, to investigate. Upon breaching the planet’s outer defenses (the opening shoot-em-up level), you land in a control room where it is revealed to you that the planet is called Naju, and it has been taken over by evil beings who slaughtered all the natives and have turned it into a galactic weapon; their destination? Earth, of course.

You are not alone, however. There is a race of helpful merchant beings called Landers that upgrade your weapons, sell you information, and enable you to access new areas of Naju as you progress. And there is the matter of the lone person who left all these messages for you…

The goal of the game is to explore each of 10 alien zones, find a hidden corridor that leads down into the core of Naju, and activate the self-destruct mechanism at the bottom. Once all 10 self-destruct mechanisms are activated, Naju will be destroyed.

A mutant cyclops-fish is one of the bosses in the underwater zone

A mutant cyclops-fish is one of the bosses in the underwater zone

For an NES game in 1989, this was a huge world. This was probably one of the first games to ever utilize the “hub” concept; there is a large central area that you keep returning to after clearing each of the ten alien zones, slowly being able to access new areas as you get weapon and item upgrades, and revealing more and more of the story through computer terminals and Lander shops.

The Guardian Legend is a “mixed-genre” game. In the hub area, it is a top-down exploration game like Legend of Zelda. Once you enter one of the ten alien zones, it becomes a top-down adventure/shooter. Each alien zone also contains two stretches of vertical-scrolling space shooter levels, as well.

The shooter levels are no slouch; this is not a “tacked-on” gimmick; The Guardian Legend could have been released strictly as a shooter, eliminated the top-down hub and exploration zones, and still been an awesome game. The bosses are wildly varied, some of them are exceptionally difficult, and the action and bullet spam gets intense.

The pacing is perfect: the mix of shooter and exploration/combat is extremely well balanced. You finally beat an intense and wild shooter level, your heart is beating rapidly, you’re sweating, and you don’t think you can take anymore: it’s an awesome relief and change of pace to land and walk around the surface, exploring, finding items, and upgrading your weapons.

There are bosses and difficult encounters in the top-down levels as well; they don’t only appear in the shooter levels. In fact, the exploration zones are probably more difficult overall, in terms of number and strength of enemies. When you enter a screen that has a boss, an alarm sounds and you have about two seconds to back off before you are walled in with the boss. Once the walls go up, it’s Thunderdome: Two enter, one leaves.

There are many RPG elements as well. Your main gun is relatively weak in the beginning. You soon realize that this is because you can only carry 50 “Chips”, and the strength and speed of your gun rely on Chips. Chips are like the currency of Naju; you start with a “wallet” that can carry only 50. When you get your first wallet upgrade, your main gun suddenly doubles in size and speed. The gun’s power works on a tiered system. At 100, 200, and so on, the gun gets progressively more powerful.

You can spend your Chips, though. You get access to dozens of secondary weapons; everything from frag grenades and laser swords to screen-filling fireball-hurling monstrosities. Each shot with these secondary weapons spends Chips, however–so as you use them, your main gun weakens. Luckily, Chips are relatively easy to come by as random drops from enemies.

There is a strategy involved in using the secondary weapons; occasionally they can be extremely helpful, but sometimes it’s better to keep your Chips full so that your main gun stays at full power.

As an added twist, the architects of Naju created doors that could only be opened in certain ways. There is a puzzle element to opening some of the corridors. For example, some of them require a hit from a special secondary weapon,  and some require standing in a certain spot and waiting. You can find the answers to these puzzles by searching every computer terminal and talking to every Lander.

For a Nintendo game, in 1989, the breadth and scope of this game was pretty remarkable. Besides the sheer size of the world and its 10 zones, the variety of zones is exceptional. There are underwater, desert, jungle, and volcanic areas just to name a few. This was a pretty snazzy technical feat back in the days of NES cartridges with 128K of space on them. I remember thinking, even at the limited experience and technical knowledge of a twelve-year-old kid, “Wow. This is really advanced.”

I'm reasonably sure no language on Earth uses f with umlauts.

I’m reasonably sure no language on Earth uses f with umlauts.

There are some minor complaints. The password system is horrendous. I’m pretty sure that they invented a bunch of letters for the passwords. It’s understandable, because the amount of character customization that had to be stored was intimidating in a time before battery-backed-up save games. Still, writing down and re-entering the passwords in this game are an exercise in madness. They may has well have put them in hieroglyphics. Luckily for us modern kids, emulators take care of this onerous part of it. The NES purists out there, however, will have some hairpullers with the passwords.

The game gets exceptionally difficult towards the end; the bosses are extremely fast and powerful, and the unforgiving system of zero lives can induce those “chuck the controller” moments. You get passwords at Lander merchants, and those can be very far away from some of the harder boss fights. Dying, re-entering the maddening passwords, and making your way all the way back to the boss can ruin your day.

Other than that, The Guardian Legend is basically a perfect game. Take a vertical space shooter. Toss in a top-down overworld exploration and fighting game on a massive scale. Add in an RPG with upgradeable weapons, armor, and items. Mix in a few puzzles. Throw in a well-written and compelling storyline and top it off with great graphics, hours of gameplay, and a fantastic soundtrack. They did it twenty years ago, and ended up with The Guardian Legend.

PS: Amazingly, you can still buy this game on Amazon. Wow.

Comments

  1. Cliff_Forster
    Cliff_Forster I don't believe I played Guardian Legend? I need to check that out. I do recall a number of 3rd party titles that have also gone mostly unknown by modern audiences.

    Golgo 13 Top Secret Episode - A game that was years ahead of its time. Mature themes, an adult story, varied game play and a high body count, it was a mature game at a time that games were still considered a pastime for kids only.

    Section Z - This game is for the truly hardcore. A skill based shooter so hard that it will make your throw your controller, then pick it up to re try.

    Crystalis - it borrows heavily from the first Legend of Zelda. While its not as original or innovative, in many ways its a more complete, more enjoyable adventure, and that is saying allot.
  2. Starman
    Starman I used to play this a lot when I was a kid. I could never beat it though. THIS is what the Virtual Console needs.
  3. primesuspect
    primesuspect Golgo 13 was indeed way ahead of its time. Great game.

    I LOVED Crystalis. Another fantastic, overlooked game. I sense a trend here. :D
  4. chrisWhite
    chrisWhite Great article man, good job! I missed this and all other NES games (well, played Duck Hunter at friends...) We had an old Atari, not sure which series, that broke pretty early but my first real console was a SNES. My parents got that for me when I read my first book.

    Feel old yet? :)
  5. chrisWhite
    chrisWhite Best SNES game no one ever played was Soul Blazer, I think I played through that five or six times, I don't even think I played Zelda: A Link to the Past that much.
  6. SirCandle
    SirCandle
    chrisWhite wrote:
    Best SNES game no one ever played was Soul Blazer, I think I played through that five or six times, I don't even think I played Zelda: A Link to the Past that much.
    Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes
    I love that game. Every time I go into the used dame store around here its thirty dollar price tags taunts my existence.
  7. TiberiusLazarus
    TiberiusLazarus Makes me remember some of the other more obscure NES games I loved. Clash at Demonhead. Legend of Ghost Lion. Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy. Blaster Master. Nightshade.

    Man those were some good times. Almost want to fire up an emulator now.
  8. primesuspect
    primesuspect Name this bead art that Perry is working on:

    tgcad.jpg
  9. TiberiusLazarus
    TiberiusLazarus HELL-FREAKING-YES!

    Also, I feel sad that I had to google the name :(
  10. CB
    CB
    chrisWhite wrote:
    We had an old Atari, not sure which series, but my first real console was a SNES.

    Atari was real!
  11. primesuspect
    primesuspect Atari was a real console...

    :hrm:
  12. Starman
    Starman Soul Blazer was really good. Gotta say ALttP has its reputation for a reason though. My favorite SNES game is probably Super Metroid. Also <3 Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Demon Crest, Secret of Mana, and Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Nobody will ever guess what my other favorite SNES game is.
  13. UPSLynx
    UPSLynx E.V.O.? ...becaues I loved that game :3

    I remember renting games at video stores when I was little! I was always angry because my parents wouldn't let me go in the little room with the swinging saloon style doors on it. They also wouldn't tell me why for a long time, which made me want to go in there even more.

    oh, to be young again.

    I never played this game. Very cool perspective though. Did it age well?
  14. primesuspect
    primesuspect It did. In playing through it again for this review, I have found it just as good (albeit easier and shorter) 20 years later.
  15. TiberiusLazarus
    TiberiusLazarus
    UPSLynx wrote:
    E.V.O.? ...becaues I loved that game :3

    <3 that game!
  16. jokerz4fun
    jokerz4fun I can honestly say I rented this game and hated it. But at the time I was all over the map with NES games. I should give it another try.
  17. Murmel Thanx a lot for bringing back some lovely memories... About 20 years ago I used to love this game, still call an old NES and a few games (TGL included)my own... After this long time, it's still challenging me and this year I was able to beat it!!!
  18. Tim My favorite NES game of All-Time.
  19. Arseniy When you die you not need re-enter password. There is choosebetween continue and end. Also when you die your experience points are kept.

    One of my favorite game on NES and unique music.
  20. Arseniy OH BTW. I created a http://theguardianlegend.com/ site related to that game and also some desired goal is to produce a sequel to this game. If someone intrested plz join.
  21. D TGL is the best NES game I have ever played. If you like that style of shoot em up though, play Space Megaforce. Same company I think (there are Landers in the game as 1-ups). Space Megaforce is my favourite shooter of all time. Also if you want to play TGL strictly as a shoot em up, then just type "TGL" as a password.
  22. NintendoLegend Wow -- This is the second article I have recently read concerning how underrated The Guardian Legend is. I was vaguely familiar with it before, but it sounds like I may have to give it another spin! Excellent job on a thorough, detailed, in-depth description and review.
  23. IanOVER9000 Amazing article, I don't need anymore convincing to know that I need to download an NES emulator right now.
  24. BHHammy
    BHHammy If we're talking about underrated SNES games, Super Adventure Island 2 is a good one.

    Basically, take most of the gameplay you know about Adventure island and throw a majority of it out the window. Then add in exploration, magic, and of course some swords and armor with some rather fine platforming.

    And, of course, you can find in game versions of your old Adventure Island classic weapons in there too.

    I don't know much about how well it was received. I'd imagine most people barely paid any attention to it at all, and the gameplay is so incredibly far removed from the rest of the series that it probably didn't find too much of a home for the fans the series had. It's a shame, since there's a lot of fun to be had with it.

    ADDENDUM: Adventure Island 4 seems to have messed around with the gameplay elements found here as well, though that's for the NES, and isn't quite so far removed from the series as this one is.
  25. Zack Smith Great read! You hit the nail on the head with this one. I found this article because The Guardian Legend is one of my favorite games of all time and I am currently doing research for a massive article I am writing on it. I finished it tonight for probably the third time and the game holds up so well even today. Just a really fantastic mostly under rated NES game.
  26. d3k0y
    d3k0y
    Best SNES game no one ever played was Soul Blazer, I think I played through that five or six times, I don't even think I played Zelda: A Link to the Past that much.
    I totally played Soul Blazer. Also did you know Legend of Gaia is a sequel to Soul Blazer? It took me years to remember the name of Soul Blazer after playing Legend of Gaia thinking "This fire-y guy looks really familiar".

    I was a huge RPG fan back in the day, sadly I sold a lot of my collection. I am slowly trying to build it back up again. While I was too young to really be able to get my hands on any games for the NES that my dad didn't want to play as well, I did play all all the Dragon Warriors, and Final Fantasy.

    But as for my favorite SNES game, I can't even remember the name of it. All I remember was that it was a top down like Zelda, but it had a stupid amount of puzzles in it, and you collected sprites that followed you around and helped you in battle. I always thought the name was Puzzle Quest, or something like that but through all my research I never found an SNES game by that name. I am still looking though, I am only really missing that and Lufia games for my SNES collection.

  27. Bandrik
    Bandrik
    Best SNES game no one ever played was Soul Blazer, I think I played through that five or six times, I don't even think I played Zelda: A Link to the Past that much.
    I totally played Soul Blazer. Also did you know Legend of Gaia is a sequel to Soul Blazer? It took me years to remember the name of Soul Blazer after playing Legend of Gaia thinking "This fire-y guy looks really familiar".

    But as for my favorite SNES game, I can't even remember the name of it. All I remember was that it was a top down like Zelda, but it had a stupid amount of puzzles in it, and you collected sprites that followed you around and helped you in battle.
    Legend of Gaia? You mean the Illusion of Gaia? If so, I played the crap out of that game. I've played a bit of Soul Blazer for fun, but I see I'll have to give it another go.

    As for your "puzzle quest" game, I've played quite a few SNES RPGs and yet I'm not sure. You can start by going through this list and see if anything jumps out at you. If not, consider that it may have not even been a SNES game and was actually a Genesis or even a Gameboy Advance game, and thus expand your search. Yes, unlikely you remembered wrong, but the fact you can't find it yet leads me to this thought, and the GBA is basically a portable SNES so the graphics are very similar.

    Good luck in your hunt, and be sure to report back if you do find it. I'm intrigued to try this game.
  28. d3k0y
    d3k0y Yeah, Illusion of Gaia. (I am bad with names). Also you have to be fucking kidding me, the first game on that list "Brain Lord" was the game I was thinking of.
  29. primesuspect
    primesuspect This game STILL rocks. STILL.

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!