The Guardian Legend

Developer: Compile     Publisher: Broderbund     Released: April 1989     Genre: Action

I am sure like legions of children growing up I was not the only one that looked forward to Christmas morning. The promise of a new game was unlike anything in the world and you prayed you got something awesome. I remember Christmas of 1990 like it was yesterday. After tearing through all of my other presents I finally came to the last one that was in the vague shape of a NES box. The Guardian Legend greeted me, a title I was unfamiliar with but would soon become one of my favorite games in the system’s library.

Aliens have sent the space station Naju hurtling on collision course with Earth. The previous guardian of Earth tried to activate its self-destruct mechanism but failed. Now it is up to you, the new Guardian, to decipher the clues left by your predecessor to destroy Naju before it crashes in to Earth. Plot is usually an afterthought when it comes to shooters. But in the Guardian Legend it serves as an important guiding force for your actions. The messages left by the previous Guardian are often somber as they hope to succeed but also realize there is a possibility of failure and so leave clues for their eventual successor. I like it and wish more shooters would have attempted a similar format like this.

The Guardian Legend is a game with two distinct halves. You explore Naju as the guardian in human form. The overworld map is similar to Zelda in that it is comprised of a series of rooms. Every room has X & Y coordinates which helps with navigation. Dotted around the overworld are shops, items, mini-boss encounters and most importantly the corridors that make up the game’s second half.  Naju has five sections, all locked by key. The game will usually highlight the next area you should visit but offers a surprising amount of freedom to get there.

During the course of your travels you will earn chips. Chips serve multiple functions, be it currency, restoring life, and powering your weapons. Your chip limit starts low but as it increases your main cannon will become more powerful. The Guardian Legend has a legion of subweapons that can be used in both parts of the game. Each weapon uses a different amount of chips and as they become more powerful chip consumption increases. Balancing your chip usage is key; even though your main weapon becomes stronger as your chip maximum increases if it dips under that it becomes weaker. Luckily you can find Red and Blue Landers to increase the max everywhere; it pays to explore every dead end on the map.

Eventually you will stumble across one of Naju’s twenty-one corridors which are the Guardian Legend equivalent of Zelda’s dungeons except these take the form of a shooter like Zanac. Those familiar with any Compile shooter like the previously mentioned title or Gunnac will be in familiar territory. The pacing of each individual corridor varies from slow and methodical to a breakneck run. Naju has five distinct areas that influence the enemies you will face in each corridor. But because there are so many corridors there is a high degree of repetition. To the game’s credit you don’t have to complete all of them as most will only offer a weapon upgrade or chip increase. Not that they aren’t worth it but I don’t blame anyone for wanting it to be over at a certain point.

That being said for a game that is only half shooter the Guardian Legend does it better than most. The individual themed areas of Naju present new challenges for their associated corridors. The initial swamp area is populated with slow moving aquatic enemies. The forest region presents a significant bump in difficulty as there are exploding flower buds, aggressive mushrooms, and laser firing lobsters. The crystalline region represents the biggest jump in difficulty as enemies become more aggressive and plentiful in number. Despite the seemingly overwhelming odds the game is incredibly generous with chips and energy tanks. Somehow even though the challenge jumps significantly the game remains accessible for even novice shooter fans.

Part of that is because you get what you put in to the game. If you take the time to explore nook and cranny you can max out your defense quickly which helps tremendously. The better you score the quicker your life bar will grow in addition to finding blue landers. It might be tempting to be conservative with weapon usage but will only hurt you in the long run. The frequent chip drops encourage you to use the best weapon for the situation. In fact I would say it is impossible if you don’t by the mid-game. Even during the brutal boss battles it does its best to keep you in the game. Even though the Guardian Legend has many features to keep you on track the difficulty toward the end is still high. But never so much that it is unfair.

In Conclusion

Combine a great shooter with an awesome action RPG and you have one of the best titles for the NES. The Guardian Legend is an incredible game that blends two genres to create something better than the sum of its parts. And as a bonus with a code you can play just the shooter stages in order. That’s like having two games in one, creating an insane value. Buy this game.