The Guardian Legend is allegedly an underrated entry in the vast NES library. I sure as hell had never heard of it before scrounging around the internet and uncovering it among the scrolls of games on Nintendo’s first home console. It’s also apparently the fourth and last entry in a series called Budruga released on the MSX, but this information is Greek to me. Still, its esotericism is what beckons me to play it. The internet promised me that if I burrowed under the surface and brushed past Mario, Mega Man, Castlevania, and all of the other medium molders on the NES everyone is familiar with, I’d be rewarded with an 8-bit title that only so few have had the pleasure of experiencing - a Hellraiser cubic puzzle box of sorts. The curious glow of The Guardian Legend’s reputation as a hidden gem is what allured me towards it, and caving into curiosity resulted in playing one hell of an NES title…for the most part.

The Guardian Legend’s plot is a tad more involved than the average princess-saving narrative fare seen from the utmost high-ranking titles on the NES. In fact, The Guardian Legend has ostensibly taken a progressive, feminist note from Metroid and placed a woman named Miria in the starring role of this galactic adventure. The damsel(s) in distress here is the collective populous of Earth, as they are unknowingly about to be invaded by a whole habitat of hostile aliens whose mothership is their entire planet of Naju. To prevent condemning all life on earth to a terrible fate of either enslavement or total obliteration, Miria must unlock Naju’s self-destruct sequence by rooting around the planet’s ten different corridors.

The game’s direction doesn’t treat this potentially harrowing prospect with gripping urgency, but it’s fitting for a game with constant adrenalized action such as The Last Guardian. Immediately, the player is rocketed (literally) into the first half of The Guardian Legend’s gameplay: a scrolling multidirectional space shooter a la Gradius. Whenever she stumbles into one of these sections, Miria will launch herself into the dim, anti-gravitational pull of space and gracefully fold into a spaceship like a piece of paper into an origami swan. For approximately two to five minutes, she’ll blast through a smattering of Naju’s eclectic ecosystem surviving the onslaught of enemy fire until reaching the level’s boss. If you’ve played any games of this ilk before, The Last Guardian doesn’t offer much that you wouldn’t already anticipate. Still, the effectiveness of this game’s particular usage of this commonly-used mechanic is in its pacing. I generally enjoy the zooming action found in games from this genre, but the repetitiveness that comes with the constant coaction of aiming and dodging tends to overstay its welcome. The short bursts of multidirectional shooting interspersed with other pronounced gameplay elements better ensure my attention is preserved. Plus, after the introduction, the space shooter sections are all allotted to vital points of progression, giving weight to what is usually too superficial with overuse across the genre.

The other half of the gameplay hybrid in The Last Guardian sees Miria traversing through Naju’s grounds. Here, the multidirectional shooting shifts to a top-down perspective where Miria is on foot. Considering the contrast between the two directions, I initially thought that The Last Guardian’s primary influence was Sunsoft’s NES magnum opus Blaster Master. However, The Last Guardian is instead reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda, and not only due to the top-down view we see our protagonist from. Naju’s interior is designed as a labyrinth just as Hyrule was in the first entry of Nintendo’s high fantasy franchise, where its entirety can be mapped out on an X-Y grid (that the developers have fortunately plotted in the menu after Nintendo made the unperceptive choice to omit one). Every new screen that shifts broadly introduces a wave of enemies that are optional to engage with, which leaves goodies for the player if they oblige. The objective hidden across the intricately zigzagging pathways is finding the corridors, which is where Miria launches herself back as a space vessel to shut down its power. Some of these corridors are locked with typical cryptic rubbish common in this primitive era of gaming, so Miria will need some guidance in order to meet her goals. An omniscient guide will constantly be in Miria’s ear to aid her, and he looks like a blue jawbreaker with googly eyes glued onto it as opposed to the archetypal wizened sage that told Link it was too dangerous to prowl Hyrule without a sword in hand. The not inanimate inanimate object also provides wares to Miria in deep corners of the map like a certain old man. Call it derivative, but I fully declare that The Last Guardian uses the hindsight of the first Zelda’s mistakes and improves upon it. Miria’s gun doesn’t jam after losing a smidge of health, and the improved visuals make the map easier to traverse. Still, finding one’s way back to the area with the green astroturf at the center can still be irritating after the blips of interest dissipate when Miria completes her objective. Above all else, setting the space shooter portions as this game's “dungeons” with the Zelda direction provides such a magnificent dynamic between both gameplay types.

Besides her standard blaster, Miria’s inventory of additional firepower is also as stacked as Nintendo’s boy in the green tunic. In the same menu as the map is an array of supplementary weapons that she scrounges up as the game progresses. When one of these weapons is selected in the menu, the player can activate their deadly potency with the opposite button on the controller. It’s recommended to mix the rapid fire of the standard blaster with these auxiliary tools for full effect, as it's liable to blow the enemies to bits much quicker. My weapon of choice was the double-sided lightsaber that stems from both of Miria’s hips as swinging it around in circles made numerous groups of enemies drop like flies. Other alternate weapons include a spinning circle of red death, a fiery laser beam the size of the one that blew up Alderaan, and a juggernaut one that just blows everything on screen to kingdom come. I presume that “EE” stands for “extreme explosion?” All of the alternate weapons translate perfectly to the space shooter sections, which is where the player will likely find them most effective. Offering a myriad of additions to Miria’s arsenal ups the ante of the gameplay variety wonderfully, especially at a time when games had so few actions altogether.

Alas, the glowing praise I’ve been slathering The Guardian Legend with stops here when I discuss the game’s approach to difficulty. Given that it’s an NES game, I never expected the game to give me the grapes of luxury. Still, it should shock and appall everyone when I inform you that if you die once in The Guardian Legend, it’s quite literally game over. No, not offering one continue. One. Fucking. Life. The penalty for dying once erases all progress, forcing the player to start from the very beginning. The Guardian Legend doesn’t borrow the limited continues from the arcades like all of its NES contemporaries that is already harsh as is: it spits the quarters back at the player with the force of a whizzing paintball and tells them to fuck right off. The game does provide the player with constant health items from enemy drops and stat boosts to stave off this untimely demise, but it only does so much to match the brute force of the Naju opposition. The later space shooter levels have a nauseating amount of things on screen that actually slows the frame rate considerably, and some of the bosses are no laughing matter. That red version of the big-mouthed boss with the multiple eyes is actually one of the hardest goddamn fights I’ve ever faced in my years as a gamer. However, not all hope is lost as this game features a password system to save an approximate amount of progress. Still, not only are the passwords overblown, but it seems the developers have attempted to integrate umlauts into the non-existent gibberish lexicon. It’s as frustrating as it sounds, and having to type in this rubbish over and over again diminished the game to practically performing paperwork.

I’d almost like to forget that The Guardian Legend exists. I feel as if I’ve unearthed the video game equivalent of the Arc of the Covenant: an indescribably beautiful presence that melted my face off as a consequence of engaging with it. It’s The Legend of Zelda in a science-fiction setting that manages to triumph over its fantasyland inspiration with some quality-of-life enhancements. The hybrid of multidirectional shooting and the way they are mixed across the game is as delectable a blend as chocolate and peanut butter. However, the bread melding this concoction together in a sandwich is made of glass, bloodying up my gums and causing me excruciating pain. The brazenly cruel difficulty stipulation in The Guardian Legend is a freshly laid turd in my finely shaken cocktail. Try not too hard to visualize that. Still, I have to remind myself that without the turd, The Guardian Legend would be one of the greatest games on the NES, and probably would’ve gone down as such in the history books. Who would do such a thing to ruin something so extraordinary? Why did the turd need to soil it so? Why indeed.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

A fascinating Zelda-like/shmup game that, despite being really fun, struggles to have as much content as it wants to.

On its surface, a Zelda-like with shmup dungeons is a very interesting idea, and it is a fun time: the game features a pretty sizable overworld with tons of weapons and some upgrades, but it plays its hand far too early.

The real strength of this game is ease of play. Despite being an NES game, it's got a really good map, and its translation is very solid. As far as I can tell there's no penalty for death, and enemies LOVE to drop health for you (even bosses often shoot destroyable projectiles that can drop items for you). It does feel like a game from further into the future with how it prioritizes fun over weird insurmountable challenge that most NES games thrived on.

However, even if it's quite short, I feel like it can't offer you enougg, as it eventually becomes really formulaic. You go to a new area, find two corridors (double-digit and single-digit ones), where the latter has some sort of lock which you open thanks to the clue you receive somewhere nearby. Single-digit "corridors" are usually tougher but provide progression keys, while double-digits will usually contain power-ups.

The unfortunate part is that by mid-game you'll pretty much see everything the game has to offer. You'll get all the weapons (which, granted, you can upgrade by finding more copies) and will see most of the bosses. If it had 2-3 more zones I doubt I would've finished it, as by the end I was really getting bored: overworld became linear, started featuring enemies that were way too tanky, and rewards would usually contain consumables.

Still, it's a fun game to play for a few evenings, but I wish it was more varied as it loses its charm quite quickly.

The Guardian Legend is a gem that perhaps got overshadowed by other classics at the time. Make no mistake, because this game is a classic that, at least to me, deserves to be on the list of the best NES titles ever made.

This game is a strange hybrid between a shmup and an adventure game that borrows elements from The Legend of Zelda, Metroid and Mega Man with a RPG-like progression system. Players can upgrade their health and chips (currency) to buy weapons and upgrades with in shops that are scattered throughout the labyrinths. Each labyrinth is like a hub world to explore, which is similar to the original The Legend of Zelda. Instead of dungeons, this game has Corridors. Corridors are essentially the dungeon-equivalent of The Legend of Zelda, except they're shmup stages that each play like your classic Compile shmup similar to something like Zanac or Gun Nac with a boss at the end of every stage. There are a total of 22 Corridors. It's not required to go through all of them to beat the game, making this a fairly non-linear experience. Though it's recommended to clear them all in order to be sufficiently powered up as the game becomes more difficult with each labyrinth and Corridor.

Through exploration and clearing Corridors, players find all kinds of helpful weapons and upgrades. Now the cool thing about this game is that the weapons can be used on ground as well as on your ship in stages. Some weapons are very helpful for certain stages and bosses. Just like in Mega Man games you can clear the stages without extra weapons if the player wishes to do so. The game also has a mode where you can skip the exploration part of the game and jump straight into the shmup stages, which I think is super cool.

The Guardian Legend can be a bit cryptic for today's standards, but the same can be said for the original The Legend of Zelda. In fact, this game has aged extremely well. Arguably better than The Legend of Zelda. It features a save system as well as a map. Also, in the overworld you can move and attack in eight different directions. While this doesn't seem like a stunning innovation now, back in 1988 it absolutely was.

Out of the NES library I find myself coming back to this game more often than its peers. Exploring this world is a blast, it has an awesome soundtrack, cool designs and lots of replay-value. It's an unique game that mixes the best the NES era has to offer in one package. It almost feels like a compilation and a final celebration of the NES era.

Undoubtedly a highlight for the system, combines two different genres surprisingly well, but the biggest detractors for me were the difficulty and the immensely grating sfx. You will be rapid firing a LOT and you will hear that noise a LOT. When the game starts feeling a bit samey in the last quarter you'll really feel it with the shooting and the music blaring in your ears. I guess that's just how old games can be though. Still really interesting and definitely one of my favorites of the NES library that I know of.

God I'm super struggling to come up with witty prose to describe that I've played something super old that is yet again interesting but also yet again super boring now.

I'm racking up historical weakass game points to start crafting my own museum to the mediocre collection of "ooooo neat!!!" Eventually the last one will be just a ramble about the tiring end of man and somehow I'll find a way to bring that back to the game itself.

It's a neat combination of (now) very bog-standard mechanics of shmups and 2d exploration games, of which never lead to anything particularly of note other than that the combination is done in a way that is very very functional.

Hidden gems, that was what this game was many years ago. For some reason when I think of that term, this one comes to mind. It's weird because it's not really a hidden gem anymore with how much more people have discovered about games. You think with the star character being female, it being rather obscure (at the time) and it being made by Compile would have meant I'd already played this game but I didn't. That's a shame because this was one of the best games I've played.

This game is a hybrid of sorts as it's part shmup and top down action game. It uses both genres pretty well, I'll talk about the shmup stuff first. You move pretty fast in these at times and you don't have to worry about dying in one hit. These can at some points feel samey but they never once felt dull or unengaging. The weapons you obtain in the top-down stuff can be used here and they add more depth to the shmup stuff and they aren't too easy but also not hard either. Even if you aren't good at the genre like me you shouldn't struggle too much with this.

The top down action parts will have you scouring the world for upgrades on attack, defense, and your weapons. You'll be fighting many enemies in rooms and you also need to find rooms to tell you how to open up specific corridors. So the game is never too cryptic about any of this. You can also find these helpers that are actually Compile's mascot that can hold a shop or give you a password.

The level design in these can also feel samey as they don't really have gimmicks as what mostly changes is the looks of them. In fact if that's one thing I have an issue with the game is the enemy variety isn't too grand. If it just had more enemy types I'd probably give it a 10/10, I'm not kidding. What makes this part of the gameplay so fun is just the variety of weapons you have to dispose of them and only like one of them I never found useful. It also helps that once again it's not too unfair.

The bosses also aren't too hard but a lot of them can die to the sword weapon without too much struggle. Even if you were to die you don't really lose any of your progress outside of just going back a little bit. It's surprisingly friendly for an NES game but it's a refreshing breath of fresh air compared to many other games. It also helps the game loves to give you health and chip restoring items.

The game looks pretty good for 1988 and it runs really well too. I was surprised at the speeds you could go in the shmup sections and a lot of the environments can look nice. The music is pretty good though I wish there were a couple of more tunes but what is there is great.

Yeah to say The Guardian Legend wasn't a blast from beginning to end would be an understatement. I love this game and I'll probably for now on play it every year as it's one of the best the console can offer. It's sad it never really got the popularity it deserved. It not only came out around the same time as DQ III in Japan (and Contra but idk how big that was there) but when the game came here, it got one of the worst cover arts for the console pretty much dooming it here. If you still haven't played this game, do it. You really need to try this game and experience one of Compile's best efforts.

Positives:
- A mix of top-down shooter and shmup that blends really well together.
- Excellent performance on the NES; shots and special shots can be fired at the same time no problem.
- A good world to explore with a map available at any time.

Negatives:
- The difficulty has the tendency to go up- and down pretty frequently, and not in a good way.
- Can potentially be a bit confusing at first. Or I'm just dumb. Probably both.

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The Guardian Legend feels like a game way ahead of its time, which shouldn't be all too surprising when the developer, Compile, has always been able to master the tech behind the NES to their advantage. In comes a blend between one of the most popular genres at the time, the shoot-em-up's, and the explorative side of the adventure genre with top-down shooter gameplay. And they blend together very, very well, as both sides of the game compliment each other. Special weapons found in the exploration part can be used during both these sections, and the same also applies to health, attack- and defence power etc.

I like the adventure part a lot because it's mostly non-linear. There's always only one area that you can explore before the next unlocks, but how you go about that area is up to you. They can also be revisited at any time, though there usually wouldn't be a reason for that unless you missed a shop or boss fight. The main objective here however, is finding the corridors that lead to the Shmup stages. What I like about them is that they are all locked, and the hint to open them is usually found in the same area--which fortunately are all clear understandable hints. I was admittedly confused at first about all the symbols I saw on the floor though, which apparently were keys but they are shaped like typical Shmup upgrades so I just assumed that's what they were for. I was pretty confused for the first half an hour for that reason, but to be fair, I feel that’s also partially my own fault. Could the keyholes have been marked with better identifiable symbols? For sure. But if I just did what the games asked me to do and open up the first corridor, I would have realised it much sooner.

The Shmup sections all controlled well, and since it shares all the stats with the adventure sections, it's one that's not too punishing if you go out of your way to collect everything. Special weapons are available to switch between at any time, and enemies drop health-related items often enough to recover from failure if needed. But… you know what, never mind, I lied. I did say it wasn't punishing but that's only half true. The Guardian Legend has one real flaw if you ask me, and that's the constant difficulty curves. Corridor 3 is infamous for having a boss that deals massive amount of damage and also takes ages to kill, while the next corridor has a dragon boss that almost can't hurt you. Until Corridor 7 this low difficulty remains, where it starts introducing green enemies that just won't die, and other enemies that do massive damage. Don't get me wrong, these difficulty curves are all doable but they're so... sudden. Fortunately, there are enough checkpoints that keep your progress even after a death, so trying again usually isn't too big of a problem. Also props to the very in-depth password system that is… very long to say the least, but it saves literally everything. And the same system can be used for neat secrets, like hidden worlds never meant to be seen, or a mode that is just the Shmups sections and nothing else.