The Guardian Legend

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The Guardian Legend

Developer(s)	Compile
Publisher(s)	Brøderbund/Irem
Release date(s)	1988 (U.S.)
Genre(s)	Action-adventure game/Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	n/a
Platform(s)	NES

The Guardian Legend (Guardic Gaiden in Japan) is a game created by Compile, produced by Irem, and released by Brøderbund in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the sequel to the MSX game Guardic.

1 Story
2 Gameplay
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Story

Title screen of The Guardian Legend, with a depiction of a distant Naju.

The guardian faces an underwater boss called a Green Optomon. It shoots long strings of seaweed and small bullets; a few palette swap versions of this boss exist elsewhere in the game that are more difficult.

In The Guardian Legend, the player takes control of the guardian of Earth, a "highly sophisticated aerobot transformer". It is the guardian's mission to infiltrate Naju, a spaceship the size of a planet which is hurtling towards the Earth. While inside, the guardian must activate ten self-destruct switches to destroy Naju before it reaches Earth. However, Naju is infested with alien lifeforms which the guardian must battle in order to successfully activate the switches and escape.

[edit] Gameplay

Throughout the game, the player's character takes control of the Guardian (Miria), both in humanoid and spaceship form. While in human form, the game plays as an action-adventure game; the player explores the surface of Naju (the "Labyrinth") - a mazelike section of the game divided into several Areas that are viewed from a 3/4 overhead perspective. She is armed with a primary weapon that has unlimited ammunition, but the player may discover many secondary weapons that are fueled by "chips" which serve as ammo. In these surface levels, the player can find many such power-ups and fight enemies (including cordoned minibosses). These areas are separated into screen-wide sections, individually plotted as X-Y coordinates, for which a grid can be viewed on the pause screen. Many screens are separated by portals; these bear a symbol that reflects the particular Area the player is in, and there are keys which must be earned to gain access to each new Area. Portals lead to rooms that contain messages (which give clues and flesh out the story) as well as shops and password retrieval areas run by round creatures known as Blue Landers. The password is atypically long and complex for an NES game, involving many characters that are similar to one another, so that using codes is a chore.

Some rooms contain entrances to "corridors" collectively known as the "Dungeon" - the interior of planet Naju and home to much larger and fiercer creatures than those found on the surface. These areas are typically accessed by performing a particular move or activating a certain weapon inside the location of the entrace. The guardian's objective is to activate self-destruct mechanisms and advance further in the game by completing each of the twenty corridors. In these, the player takes the form of a spaceship and the game becomes a scrolling shooter, where the player faces often rapid waves of enemies as well as a boss at the end of every level. Defeating these bosses will award the player with a new weapon, power-up, or a key to gain access to another Area.

Defeating the game grants the player a password, "TGL", which gives the player access to a streamlined version of the game in which only the shooting levels (corridors) are played. Weapons and power-ups are given in increments at the end of levels, so the guardian is weaker at points than would otherwise be the case within the normal game, making this mode more difficult.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Blue Lander

The Blue Lander character that you speak with to acquire the 'save passwords' can also be found in the Sega Master System game Golvellius.

[edit] Glitch

The first release of The Guardian Legend contains a glitch regarding scores. There is no room in the score slot for eight digits, so if the game reaches 10,000,000 points, it will freeze up. This was fixed in future versions so that no one can get more than 9,999,990 points (the highest 7 digit number, since points are given in multiples of ten), keeping the game from crashing.

One glitch which can be exploited occurs in the action mode. To perform this glitch, you must locate a blue energy sphere. There must be two impassable blocks touching two adjacent sides (such as one to the right, one underneath), and an empty spot between the two, as shown by the following diagram:

O = blue energy sphere
X = impassable block
* = player

OX
X*

If the player walks diagonally towards the blue energy sphere, the energy bar will quickly fill but the blue energy sphere will not disappear. In the diagram above, the player needs to walk diagonally up and to the left. Additionally, an empty "pyramid" graphic (which appears after collecting a blue sphere) will appear below the player.

[edit] Changes between Japanese and U.S. version

The ending of the two games differ slightly. The Guardian Legend shows the guardian moving through space, while Guardic Gaiden has the guardian remain stationary.
The introductions are in English for both games, but poor translation is apparent in Guardic Gaiden:

The Guardian Legend: "Long ago, an alien race sent a huge world hurtling toward the Earth, loaded with a cargo of mysterious lifeforms. You must battle your way deep within the alien world to destroy its vicious inhabitants. You are the guardian of the Earth and your saga will become The Guardian Legend."
Guardic Gaiden: "A huge unidentified object is approaching the Earth. It was made in the far past by another life than the human race, and occupied and inhabited by a vicious creature in the long period. In order to save the Earth, the strongest women warriors go into action."