...And Your Saga Will Become The Guardian Legend: Let's Play!

The Guardian Legend, known in Japan as Guardic Gaiden, is a game that came out on the NES and quickly was added to my collection. This is easily one of my most nostalgic NES games, and would easily rank in my personal top ten NES games.

Despite this, I've never completed the game, because the password system in the game is a total pain in the ass.



When you start up the game, you see that The Guardian Legend is a fairly basic shoot-em-up adventure, as you progress down the corridor. Sure, a shoot-em up can be interesting, but what makes this game unique?



After completing the first corridor, you're treated to the real meat of the game, as you get to explore a Zelda-style overworld. The Guardian is on a quest to destroy a large alien-infested world named Naju before it reaches the planet Earth. The Guardian, Miria, must explore this world, seeking the corridors, to activate the self-destruct sequence and destroy Naju before it crashes into the earth.

It turns out that the spaceship you fly in the beginning of the game is also Miria.



And really, how many games do you get to play as a transforming spaceship girl?

(No, this will not be stopping me from playing more Super Metroid.)

Table of Contents

Full Playlist

#1: First Stage and Passwords
#2: Area 0 Item Hunting
#3: Corridor 1 and Entering Area 1
#4: Area 1 Item Hunting
#5: Corridor 11 and Shopping
#6: Corridor 12
#7: Area 2 Item Hunting
#8: Corridor 2 and Entering Area 3
#9: Shopping and Corridor 13
#10: Area 3 Item Hunting
#11: Corridor 3
#12: Corridor 14
#13: Corridor 4
#14: Corridor 6
#15: Corridor 15
#16: Corridor 5
#17: Corridor 16
#18: Corridor 17
#19: Corridor 7
#20: Corridor 18
#21: Corridor 8
#22: Corridor 19
#23: Corridor 9
#24: Corridor 20
#25: Corridor 10
#26: Corridor 21 and Finale

Bonus #1: Corridor Rush (TGL Mode)

The thing I love about that diagram is how the giant red shoulder pads look like those awkward random bits often left sticking out of transformers in robot mode when in girl form, but then they ALSO look like that in plane form.

You mean "kibble."

I've heard of this. Should be interesting.

Somewhere, Manna is resonating.

#1: First Stage and Passwords

Where Red flies too fast for pickups, doesn't remember the Rapid Fire item, and complains about an annoying password system.

Item Pickups

- Restores 20 chips and a sliver of health.
- Restores 500 chips and 2 units of health.
- Restores 5 units of health.

- Increases the auto-fire rate of your shots.

The only thing I remember about this were the staggering amount of items and stage features that I never understood and that you could just spam the letter "J" on the password screen to get to the second level.

#2: Area 0 Item Hunting

Where Red doesn't wander efficiently, gets a ton of weapons, and doesn't think much of the Bullet Shield.


Item Pickups

Front Wave - Level 1
Bullet Shield - Level 1
Saber - Level 1
Bullet Shot - Level 1
Blue Lander - 10th Health Unit
Red Lander - Chip increase: 100
Seekers - Level 1

Hopefully I'm doing a better job of explaining the items, but if not let me know! As for the All-J Password, I did a post about that a while back.

This guys webpage taught me everything I know about Compile. It also pointed me to Zanac X Zanac which I ended up liking quite a bit, but I digress.

Regarding other games that might have the Lander mascot in them, there is a listing of their games.

#3: Corridor 1 and Entering Area 1

Where Red messes up on numbers twice, introduces you to Fleepa, and nearly dies to a pineapple.

Item Pickups

Energy Tank - Restores health to full.

First Key - Grants access to Area 1 and 2

Repeller - Level 1
Side Wave - Level 1

hey wait i've seen this post already

except everything was grey and not white/blue

...huh. :P

Thats a little freaky since we've been in a dark blue and black corridor, a green field area, a light blue corridor, and a light blue field area :P

It's a Fourth of July Red Silvers Video LP Bonanza!


#4 - Area 1 Item Hunting

Where Red takes the hard path first, kills more spiders than god, and runs from a lot of enemies.


Item Pickups

Fireball - Level 1
Cutter - Level 1
Red Lander - Chip Increase: 150

#5 - Corridor 11 and Shopping

Where Red hugs the bottom of the screen, gets tentacled, and just has to throw a grenade.

Item Pickups

Grenade - Level 1
Side Wave - Level 2

#6: Corridor 12

Where Red talks about fish again, gets jumped by enemies, and says hi to an old friend.

Item Pickups

Laser - Level 1

Goldang this game looks tight. Thanks for your work, Red. You're the shiznegackle.

#7: Area 2 Item Hunting

Where Red doesn't show you a clue, gets all the firepower, and confesses passwords are useful.

Item Pickups

Attack Up - Attack Power 2
Rapid Fire - #2 and #3
Blue Lander - 12 Health Unit
Red Lander - Chip Increase: 200

This thread needs a little sprucing up. You know? We need something cool to look at for a moment.



Ahhhhhh yeahhhhhhh.


#8: Corridor 2 and Entering Area 3

Where Red doesn't use any subweapons, talks about a couple LPers who influenced him, and is ready to be done with the underwater zone.

Item Pickups

Second Key - Grants access to Area 3

Saber - Level 2

better late than never? I started playing this again on my cell phone.

It's basically my mission in life to emulate TGL on as many devices as I can.

Those Landers are just so gosh darn happy looking. (Even though they appear to be cross-eyed.) I bet they'd get along well with the Dragon Quest slimes.

That is a good and noble mission and I wish you as much success as possible in fulfilling it.

Watching this, all I can think is that at some point when the game was like, 80% complete, a meeting went down like this:

"OK, we only have a few weeks left to work on this. We should really probably like, work on the 3/4 perspective bit, so your feet don't overlap the lower walls, and maybe make powerups not just kinda unceremoneously break the floor tiles by appearing in treasure chests wherever. Maybe not have computer screens with text be things in the floor you just end up standing on?"

"Or we can spend all that time making more sub-weapons!"

"Oh yeah that sounds way more fun!"

That's why my mind was blown when Kishi showed me a picture from one of Lander's Rander games on the MSX, where he was angry and had a sword!

I never knew such a game existed. Apparently it's an RPG (or series) starring the Lander (Randar). OK, now if there was a passable English language patch of any kind I would love to see someone LP that game or games.

edit: Also, can someone who isn't biased by nostalgia weigh in on this - what do you think of the music in the game? I had played it ages ago and had somewhat forgotten how well I had liked the music.

I picked it up at a convention a few years ago and enjoyed the heck out of it, music included.

Googleshng, I like your version better but one of the things that impressed me about this game is how stable it is. There are occasions where you might get stuck in a group of blocks but the game is programmed such that you can walk right out along the seams. Red Silvers pointed out that bit where the back-and-forth enemies would respawn if their path takes them off the screen. Stuff like that.

It's like more subdued MegaMan music or maybe more frantic Zelda music. I like it just fine! OK variation and solid theory.

My favorite song in the game is coming up in the next video, just sayin'.

Until then, have a picture of Fleepa!

#9: Shopping and Corridor 13

Where Red does a minor sequence break, doubles both score and chips, and spends way too long fighting a boss.

Item Pickups

Red Lander - Chip Increase: 400
Laser - Level 2
Shield - Defense Power 2

That boss (and to a lesser extent, all bosses) really just had entirely too much HP. That was full-on ridiculous. Particularly considering it's complete lack of any particular desire to damage you.