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Post subject: Guardian Legend
Joined: 8/25/2004
Posts: 44
Location: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
I've watched the movies on this site for a few months now, and I've always thought about doing a Guardian Legend movie. I'm not entirely sure how entertaining this movie would be, and I'm not entirely sure how difficult making this movie would be (I'm guessing extremely difficult :/ ), but a movie of this game with the character not getting hit at all throughout the game would be impressive, indeed. Those who have played this game will understand what I mean. However, judging from the difficulty of this game, it may take a month or two to complete. So, should I attempt it or not? ^_^ (As a side note, I once made an attempt to make a video of this game a couple of months ago. It started out good, and I managed to get a few weapons and get to the first level boss in under 5 minutes or so (maybe under 4, my memory is a little sketchy), but my HD crashed and I got a new computer, therefore everything was gone ;/ ) Oh, and if this post isn't in the proper forum, feel free to just smack me ^_^
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Guardian Legend has been attempted at least once. I don't recall much, but I remember it's a long and boring game. Try doing a topic Search on the forums.
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Feel free to make a run of any movie you want. They're all up for grabs. Granted, there are some movies that you should avoid, especially if youre unsure of your skills and there is a high amount of competition. I say go for it. And yes, technically this belongs in the forums of said game's console.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Joined: 8/25/2004
Posts: 44
Location: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Thanks, I'll be sure to start any new topics similar to this one in the proper forums.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Also, you should do a search on the topic before posting. It might have been discussed before. Thanks :)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 29
Ooh, Guardian Legend! There still might be hope for me as a speed runner. ...now if only the rom at Vimm's Lair worked. =/
~Seppel
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 29
Alrighty, I just played through it. The nastiest parts seem to be Grimgrin of Corridor 8 and the final boss. I don't even remember beating the final boss without game genie as a kid. Anyway, I mapped out a route that takes advantage of dying while collecting as few items as necessary. Ending with a shield power of 3 instead of 7 and a life bar of 12 instead of 22 will make the last few levels hellishly hard. Weapons: Saber Laser x2 Cutter Laser x3 Back Wave Enemy Erasers x2 Items: Red Lander x7 Consecutive Firing x2 Attack Power x2 Shield Power x2 Also required to get but useless: Spiral Shot, Multibullets, Seeker x2, Bullet Shield The route planned battles five optional bosses for the two Attack Power bonuses and three Red Landers. There's 8 Red Landers in the game, and you only need 7 to have enough chips to beat the final boss. Six would most likely take more time than the 20 seconds it saves to grab one more, as random luck of powerups is pre-planned way ahead of time. The only glitch I know about is the instant chip/life refill on the walkaround map. There might be one or two places that this could be useful. Anything else I should be wary about before recording a run?
~Seppel
Joined: 4/26/2004
Posts: 213
Location: Montréal, Québec
There's also the enemy eraser exploit. On vertical scroller stages, you can use the enemy eraser repetitively to spawn mutltiple power-up boxes from a single defeated enemy. If you're lucky enough, you could get additional enemy erasers from these boxes and continue the process indefinitely (or until the screen has too many sprites). Good luck with your run, especialy with Optomons. I hate them so much.
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 29
Yes, with the 40 enemy erasers the linear pats grants you, I intend to use them on bosses such as Grimgrin and the final boss. Each enemy eraser takes about one second to execute (swapping to it and then back), so I don't think it would save any time to pass up one additional red lander. Skipping the earlier ones means that you wouldn't have enough to buy the 600-chip red lander when you walk by it. You could possibly skip one of the two minibosses that grant you one in areas 6 and 8, but that would mean having to fight bosses with only 400 or 800 chips, which is definitely not enough against Grimgrin. Also, for the Optomons, the fireball works best, but it wouldn't save the extra minute it takes to get it, so Saber Laser and Cutter Laster are going to be my friends throughout the run. Thanks, I'll see what I've gotten myself into now. =3
~Seppel
Former player
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH
One of my all-time favorite NES games, was considering doing this but it looks like I don't have to. Besides, after I finish Wai Wai World, I doubt I'll want to touch another long game for awhile. Good luck, Josh.
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 29
Also I broke down and turned turbo on because of how horribly keystrokes seem to be handled, so the consecutive firings are nullified. Probably 95% of my rerecordings are due to pushing a button and not seeing any attack appear. I'm going for 100% kills in the flying levels, but there are some levels like the first one and probably Corridors 7 and 8 which have stationary enemies on the left and right that zoom by fast enough so you only have your choice of attacking one. This excludes enemy projectiles -- they can be shot down and I'm doing my best to get all possible, but they're impossible to all defeat. So due to the nature of the game, I'm going for 100% theoretical kills, heh. Yeah, it's one of my favorites too. It's also very well-programmed.
~Seppel
Joined: 7/20/2004
Posts: 108
I love this game, it was one of my favorites back in the NES days. Shmup + adventure hybrid = genius, and it hasn't been attempted since. Towards the end of the game (area 7 onwards), I always found myself using the Fireball (lv 2/3) exclusively during the shmup corridors. It slices through everything like a hot knife through butter, but it does cost a lot of chips, so I can see where it might not be suitable in a time attack. Oh, and the last boss is a piece of cake - just get right up next to him and use the cutter laser. How you will accomplish this without getting hit remains to be seen, though. Good luck, I'll look forward to the completed version.
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 29
Yup, cutter laser is the way to go. Also I just realized I didn't die efficiently at one spot, crap. TIME TO REDO Maybe this thread should be moved to the NES games forum?
~Seppel
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 29
Oh no. With only three flying stages left to beat, I decided to view the movie in full... and it desyncs about 75% into the movie so far. I'm gonna play it at 1x size and 100% speed to see if it still desyncs. Yup, still desyncs. I'm not gonna continue or fix it unless there's an .fmv editor out there.
~Seppel
Former player
Joined: 3/19/2004
Posts: 710
Location: USA
Its called a hex editor. Edit: Anyway, why are you stopping? Having it only desync after 75% isn't so bad.
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 29
Alrighty, fixing with a hex editor... this is oddly difficult to fix. I think I need to insert a few frames.
~Seppel
Post subject: Guardian Legend
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
I just did a search as I thought I remembered someone doing a run of this game. However I coulden't find anything relating to it. Anyone is making this game? I would really like to see it.
Former player
Joined: 6/21/2004
Posts: 72
Location: Michigan, USA
I started it, but didn't go very far when I realized that there were 21 autoscrolling areas, which would make the movie very long, and I think not very exciting. Due to the keys, you can't really go to the areas out of order either.
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Hmm... Wasn't there a glitch allowing you to skip almost ALL levels, ending up near, if not the last, level? I would probably watch this anyways since I played it alot at my friends house when I was a kid.
Joined: 7/28/2004
Posts: 57
Unless I am entirely mistaken, only half of the areas need to be completed to finish the game. The game is VERY difficult imho. There's a certain amount of leveling up (by points and collecting blue/red landers) that is helpful, and maximizing item collection/usage would be quite tricky. As noted, the game is fairly linear - the introductory stage, the 10 stages that are required to complete the game, and the final stage are all autoscrolling shooter levels, as well as the 10 extraneous shooter stages which serve only to provide (often very helpful) items. In between the shooter stages is a legend of zelda-style overworld, with new areas being opened up as the key stages are passed (granting access keys), and minibosses (which provide attack or defense upgrades, as well as subweapons (which have multiple levels of potency). The game is both faster paced and slower paced than Gradius... the ship has a fixed movement speed, but the stages scroll more rapidly than the stages in gradius - someimes drastically so. There are no walls to crash into, and the only hazards come from enemies, which can be dependant on the terrain (and thus approach at a rate relative the speed at which the stage is scrolling) or independent from the terrain (which tend to be the same general speed no matter what stage you are on. This WOULD be a lengthy speedrun; I estimate no less than 40 minutes. However I believe it would be more interesting to watch than say, the Gradius runs. The novelty of seeing Vic Viper spazzing around the screen wears off rather quickly, and there is a wide variety of weapons and enemies in TGL that can be used to keep the action interesting.
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Good to hear that someone else can put it in such a way. I even forgot most of what you were explaining. I get even more excited by hearing that. Someone PLEASE take up this run!! =)
Joined: 8/25/2004
Posts: 44
Location: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
It's been attempted. I started the topic last time long ago, but the person who gave it a shot had the video desync pretty far into it, and instead of hex editing it (which he didn't know how to do), I think he just gave up. I did try this at one point, though. Got to about the third (maybe second) corridor. I guess with some help I could give it another shot, although I don't know if there is high demand for a game this long. It would look neat to those who have played it, though. Here's the thread in question: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1017&highlight=guardian+legend
Emulator Coder
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 453
Location: Norway
Too bad, this is a great game that will kill the encoding codec ;)
Joined: 8/25/2004
Posts: 44
Location: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
TNSe wrote:
Too bad, this is a great game that will kill the encoding codec ;)
Yeah, this game is way sweet. I think it was the music more than the gameplay that did it for I, though. I'll look around gameFAQs and any other sites people suggest to I for a good route to take and good boss strategies. I think with FCEU I would have more success with a run than my previous attempt with Famtasia. I just like the way FCEU is laid out, is all...
Joined: 6/13/2004
Posts: 37
I'd like to see two runs for this one. the tgl version (put in the password TGL and you only will play through the shooter stages) you get set powerups at the end of each level, and its much harder (limited powerups) then the normal game once you get to the later stages. normal mode. a few glitches I know of if you rapidly pause when buying items you can buy more then one item provided you have enough chips (you normally can only buy one item in a shop) if you aproach a powerup from a diagonal you can pick it up repeatedly (very usefull for refilling your life/chips with a single blue chip. abusing the lightsaber weapons would be a must in said run. i'd be looking forward to it myself :-)
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