History VideoGame / TheGuardianLegend

* AwesomeButImpractical: The [[HomingProjectile Seeker]] special weapon. It launches too extremely fast homing missiles that do very good damage, but uses up a whopping ''120'' chips per shot at level 3, which is roughly four times more than most other weapons.

* HitboxDissonance: The game is extremely lenient when it comes to what parts of your sprite take damage, and what parts of enemy sprites give damage (especially the bosses). The fact that the game is still NintendoHard in spite of this says something.

* BossRush: "Corridor 21", and "TGL mode", which puts you through only the flying stages.

The game is about a [[RobotGirl female robot]], codenamed "the Guardian", who is commissioned with stopping an alien-infested planet called Naju from [[ColonyDrop crashing into Earth]] and killing everyone. To do this, she must set off ten strategically-placed explosives within the corridors (by transforming into a spaceship and flying through them) and defeat the bosses within.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: In the Organic Corridors, there's a small green eye enemy that's NighInvulnerable, and absorbs pretty much all your weapons except the [[SmartBomb Enemy Eraser]]. To beat it... you need to run into it, which kills it instantly. This is probably the last thing one would do, given that enemies deal pretty painful CollisionDamage at this point.

''The Guardian Legend'' (known as ''Guardic Gaiden'' in Japan) was a hybrid ActionGame and ShootEmUp created by {{Compile}} for the NintendoEntertainmentSystem. Released around 1988, it's likely forgotten by all but the most hardcore of gamers, but this game did a great job of blending the two genres.

* GodDamnBats

* GoddamnedBats

''The Guardian Legend'' (known as ''Guardic Gaiden'' in Japan) was a hybrid ActionGame and [[ShootEmUps Shoot Em Up]] created by {{Compile}} for the NintendoEntertainmentSystem. Released around 1988, it's likely forgotten by all but the most hardcore of gamers, but this game did a great job of blending the two genres.

** Which is strange, as other counters go up to 9,999,990 (score) and 9,999 (chips).

* UndergroundMonkey: LOTS of enemies, including some bosses.

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* EveryTenThousandPoints: The game rewards high scores by increasing you health meter every so many points, starting at 30,000 points. At the same time, the game will '''crash''' if you reach the score's {{cap}}.

* Oculothorax: While eyes are a pravalent theme among many bosses, special mention goes to Optomon, who is a giant eye wrapped in tentacles.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The North American box art for the game, shown above, has pretty much nothing to do with the game. The European box art ([[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guardian-legend-european-box_7490.jpg seen here]]) and the Japanese box art ([[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guardian-legend-japanese-box_4961.jpg seen here]]) are slightly better in that it they least show a RobotGirl, even if said girl looks nothing like the protagonist. Pretty much the only thing either the American or European covers get right is the phrase "[[PasswordSave Includes Password Feature]]". Oh, ''boy'' does this game include a password feature.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The North American boxart for the game, shown above, has pretty much nothing to do with the game. The European boxart, [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guardian-legend-european-box_7490.jpg seen here]], is slightly better in that it at least shows a RobotGirl, even if said girl looks nothing like the protagonist. Pretty much the only thing either cover gets right is the phrase "[[PasswordSave Includes Password Feature]]". Oh, ''boy'' does this game include a password feature.

* RandomDrop: One of the most important mechanics of the game.

* PowersOfTwoMinusOne: The "count" display will only go up to 255.

* ShootOutTheLock: You have to do this for Corridor [[spoiler: 1 by shooting out the gate]], Corridor [[spoiler: 5 by shooting out the corridor display panel]], and Corridor [[spoiler: 6 by using a special weapon on the gate.]]

* MinusWorld: The "[[FanNickname Lost Frontier]]" - a region outside the playable bounds of the game, which is accessible by putting in certain passwords. It's a glitchy region where new rooms are all randomly generated and should be traversed with caution as it is entirely possible for a new room to generate without an exit.

* PasswordSave: Deemed on of the flaws of the game, the password system is overly complicated and long.

** GreenHillZone: Area 0, which is also the HubLevel.

** TheLostWoods: Areas 3 and 4, the Forest region. Given their oddly geometric shapes, the foliage here may also be MechanicalLifeforms.
** DugTooDeep: Areas 5 and 6, the Crystal region, which has the appearance of some sort of mine.

[[caption-width-right:220:[[CoversAlwaysLie Pretty much the only thing this cover gets right]] is the phrase "[[PasswordSave Includes Password Feature]]". Oh, ''boy'' does this game include a password feature.[[note]]32 characters long, case sensitive, and including numbers![[/note]]]]

* CoversAlwaysLie: The North American boxart for the game, shown above, has pretty much nothing to do with the game. The European boxart, [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guardian-legend-european-box_7490.jpg seen here]], is slightly better in that it at least shows a RobotGirl, even if said girl looks nothing like the protagonist.

* TheLostWoods: The forest labyrinth area as well as the forest corridors.

* UnderTheSea: The Water area (although interestingly, some of the Water bosses are recycled for ''other'' areas).

* WombLevel: The Organic area corridors.

* DungeonShop: The giant Blue Landers you come across in the game either own these or operate PasswordSave rooms. Some of the Lander shopkeepers offer a choice of three purchases, only one of which you're allowed to have. (Though there is an [[GoodBadBugs exploit]] that allows you to take all three if you can pull it off properly.)

* GuideDangIt: Corridor 4 caused a lot of players trouble. For that corridor the only hint given on how to open the gate was "Ask the round creature for help." Most players quickly realized the "round creature" was a giant blue lander who operated a DungeonShop nearby, but what they didn't know was that "asking for help" meant leaving and re-entering the room a large number of times, with no text or indication that it's helping at all, until eventually the Lander tells you he'll help.

* KillItWithFire: The Fireball weapon. [[InfinityPlusOneSword Especially at max level, when it can cause massive damage AND destroy enemy attacks]].

* DestructibleProjectiles: Most enemy projectiles can be destroyed, and you can even get random drops from them. The few enemies whose projectiles can't be shot out of the air tend to be among the most difficult in the game.

** The Spiral Shot, also called the Repeller. It creates a spinning energy ball around the Guardian which, at higher levels, slowly moves forward as it spins around. As pointed out by Creator/LordKaT in one episode of ''Until We Win'' (in which he referred to it as "the circle cannon") it can be used to beautiful effect against bosses as it spins around slowly on top of them to rack up hit after hit after hit.
** The Fireball weapon can be hard to use due to being a PainfullySlowProjectile, but does large amounts of damage and makes the Optomon bosses trivially easy by burning up the tentacle lines they shoot at you.