Going back to the NES we get The Guardian Legend, a curiousity developed by Compile that is best described as Zelda plus Zanac. Originally released in 1988 for the NES, The Guardian Legend or "Guardic Gaiden" is the pseudo sequel to MSX game Guardic from 1986. While the developers insist there's no story links between the games, there's enough gameplay and music shared between the two that we decided to play a lot of Guardic music for comparison.

The music was composed by two individuals: Masatomo Miyamoto and Takeshi Santo. Masatomo Miyamoto worked with Compile from around 1985-1990 and soonafter left the game industry. Takeshi Santo worked as a sound programmer at Compile from 1987-1989 and then went off to found Sting where he's spent most of his career in a producer capacity.

The Guardian Legend (NES) - 1988 | Guardic (MSX) - 1986

Composed by Masatomo Miyamoto (both games) and Takeshi Santo (TGL only)

Track List:

0:00:04 Title Screen

0:03:16 Approaching NAJU

0:05:16 Boss Theme 1

0:06:58 Message Room

0:12:18 Main BGM (MSX)

0:14:05 NAJU Overworld

0:19:39 Empty Room

0:21:04 Title (MSX) | Password & Outer Space (NES)

0:23:19 Oceanic Area Overworld

0:24:20 Oceanic Area Corridor

0:25:29 Name Entry (MSX)

0:28:44 Boss Theme 2

0:30:27 Corridor Done (NES) | Stage Selection (MSX)

0:31:43 Randar (MSX) | Blue Randar Room (NES)

0:32:57 Forest Area Overworld

0:39:37 Forest Area Corridor

0:43:10 Stellar Area Overworld

0:44:13 Stellar Area Corridor

0:53:01 Organic Area Corridor

0:56:13 Wasteland Area Overworld

0:57:16 Wasteland Area Corridor

0:59:19 Boss (MSX) | Boss Theme 3 (NES)

1:00:48 Last Corridor

1:03:31 (Bedding) Ending (MSX)

1:04:02 Ending

The Guardian Legend (NES) - composed by Masatomo Miyamoto and Takeshi Santo

VGMrips credit to NewRisingSun

Guardic (MSX) - composed by Masatomo Miyamoto, sound programming by Takayuki Hirono

VGMrips credit to GTheGuardian