Jeremy Parish checks out The Guardian Legend in NES Works 117

The NES gets a proper cult classic here with The Guardian Legend, another one of those games that blurs boundaries between rigid genres in the way that the best NES games so often so.

The Guardian Legend sees developer Compile merging their two greatest disciplines—shooters and action-RPGs—into a single, wholly unique creation in the history of video games. It’s a Zelda-style game where the dungeons consist of vertical shoot-em-up action.

Although it does have a few modest flaws (notably some wild difficulty wild early on, followed by the latter half of the adventure mainly consisting of the Guardian steamrolling everything in her path), The Guardian Legend stands as a singular work and truly embodies the best of what the NES is all about.