I haven't even heard of this game. Do you have any information on it?

Its like one of the most advanced and funnest NES games ever made, I'm not entirely sure how you could have missed it. I'd think its almost as well known as some of the more mainstram games like mario and zelda and megaman.


Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian_Legend

Youtube review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mng_DmrWdoY


Boxart:



Gameplay:




Basically its like one of the best NES games which I guess isn't all that big of a deal anymore but basically it combines zelda1 type of exploration and shmups. You start off in a shmup stage, nothing too much to mention here, then you get to the overworld from where you can explore, fight mini-bosses, buy new weapons, level up etc.

Your goal is to seek out all the dungeon gates and figure a way to open them up from various hints and trial and error basically. The dungeons are the shmup stages and once you clear them you get a key to a new area in the overworld. Iirc there's optional dungeons too from which you just get some new weapons. I think theres around 10 dungeons total and 8 areas, I'm not too sure though.

The game is easy at some points but usually its just a hard son of a bitch but not in any cheap way so its all cool.

No kidding it's hard, I just started playing it after finding the topic. And it took me 3 tries to best the opening stage, and I've found one of the most evil bosses ever. It's a blue version of the green squiggly thing in the screens above.

Although I beat that green one with 0 HP left, POWER TO THE SPINNING GUN!

I used to own this game back in the NES days. Damn it was hard but it was also a lot fun! Never beat it though. The shoot em up stages were tough. I even accidentally created a password that takes you to almost the end of the game (AAAA AAAA AAAA AAFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF or something easy like that). That made me feel so proud and awesome. 

This sounds pretty interesting.

I think I actually never beat this as a kid due to how much shit the last boss throws at you but I think it was like year back or so when I replayed through this and its was pretty painless experience (save sates) and iirc I got through it in 2+ hours, so its not exactly short either.

Kind of reminds me of Master Blaster, minus the shmup.

This was always in my top 3 nes games of all time. Guardian Legends was epic... and I can't believe there are people out there who've never played it.

Also, being a fan of Blaster Master.... I don't see how this is remotely similar.

Doesn't the chick from this game transform into the plane that flies around?  I have these fleeting memories of playing a shoot 'em up/adventure game where the main character has extending wings and turns into a plane or something.

This topic reminds me of Rocket Knight Adventures, an awesome game that mixed platform stages with sidescrolling shoot em ups. 

Totally one of those games I rented as a kid, and got pissed at one of the bosses I couldn't beat and never played it again. Definitely worth another attempt through emulation at this point. I did like the combination of top down and vertical shooter.

Doesn't the chick from this game transform into the plane that flies around?  I have these fleeting memories of playing a shoot 'em up/adventure game where the main character has extending wings and turns into a plane or something.

This topic reminds me of Rocket Knight Adventures, an awesome game that mixed platform stages with sidescrolling shoot em ups. 

Yar she does, first time she did that, I looked at the screen and thought 'Holy cow, it's a girl-plane-of-death'.

I'm stuck on a couple of bosses. Namely a giant lobster and a giant blue eyeball. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!