A COMPILE-created, Irem-produced, Broderbund-distributed (at least in the states) fit of sheer shoot-em-up/adventure/rpg genius. Essentially a bastard son of Aleste and Legend of Zelda, it first hit Japan in 1988 and came out in the United States in June of 1989.

The plot is a basic shooter-style plot, you being a female-robot-spacejet-Macrossy-transformer-thing, you have to go into the heart of this renegade alien planet called Naju and blow it up before it collides with earth. The execution in gameplay, though, that's where it's at. It starts off as an Aleste-style shooter, but what's this, you have a life bar. Now some people think that having a lifebar in a shooter is a copout, but this sort of game, not only with the all-around gameplay, but in the sheer volume of stuff the game throws at you in the shooter levels (or "corridors" as the game calls them) is just insane, so such insanity calls for a lifebar.

Once you get through this first corridor, the game really starts up, you run around Zelda-style collecting chips (your money in the game), buying/finding/winning new weapons (11 different types) and upgrades (3 for each weapon), getting trapped in rooms with enemies, and finding secrets to unlock more corridors. When you beat some corridors(1 through 9) you'll get a key to unlock another part (or "zone") of the world map. There's 9 more corridors (11 through 19) to go through for bonus experience and to help get your weapons maxed out.

For all sorts of fan-type information, you can check out The Guardian Legend Shrine at http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/guardianlegend/.

one of the best nes games ever.

it is a hybrid of life force/salamander (top-down shooter scenes), the legend of zelda (top-down adventure scenes), transformers (you turn from a jet to a person) and metroid (you're a chick!)

long ago, an alien race sent a huge, robot planet(but not unicron, doh!) called naju hurtling twoards earth. this mechanical world has been headed our way for eons, and the life aboard has become twisted and evil.

you have almost no help, except from the one last race of good aliens on naju, the landers. they are round, red or blue balls with big eyes, little feet, tiny mouths and no noses. (you call that help?)

deep within naju are self destruct mechanisms that must be activated to save earth from the monsters aboard naju. now, you have to battle your way to naju's core (dude! even cooler! kernel hacking!) and destroy this alien world.

you are the guardian of earth, and your saga will become the guardian legend!

It should be interesting to note that the name of the main character of The Guardian Legend, or Guardic Gaiden in Japan, is Saikyou Senshi System D.P.--aishou Miria, or "Strongest Warrior System D.P., pet name Miria." Wonder why they didn't point that out in the non-Japanese versions? All this overseas cult TGL fandom without knowing her name, lol

Hmm...

Oh, yeah, if you have the fireball and enemy erasers, then you're already on your way to beating the game!

Too bad The Guardian Legend Shrine hasn't been updated in a long time... and I can't e-mail the Webmaster because his address on the site appears to be no longer there.

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