Video Game / Zodiac Story Of The Guardian

By the look on the Guardian's face, you could tell what ride you're getting into

Far into the future, planet Earth is embroiled in an interstellar conflict with the Allied Worlds. An asteriod drifting into the solar system past Earth's defenses houses a huge battle fortress for the Allied Worlds, dubbed as "Zodiac".

Earth forces responds by launching an attack using state-of-the-art transforming combat robots to infiltrate the Zodiac. Despite the robots efforts, the attack fail.

But all is not lost, as one single robot managed to reach the Zodiac.. a lone communication robot, called the Guardian.

As the Guardian, you're tasked with exploring the Zodiac to figure the Allied's plans and disable the asteroid's defenses for Earth's attempts to divert its course.

Zodiac: Story of the Guardian, or Zodiac TGS, is a game created by C-Dawg using Zelda Classic's game engine. The game takes inspirations from games such as Metroid and mainly The Guardian Legend, with the Guardian's ability to transform into a spaceship and going through "corridor" levels.

The last update for the game was on 2 March 2016, before C-Dawg disappeared out from Zelda Classic's forums.

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This game contains examples of the following tropes:

• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Pressing F6 will basically restore you to the last checkpoint with full health. The energy however isn't recovered.
  • You get to keep any upgrades and resources you got before dying, along with switches opened. Of course, any Life Tanks or Overdrive Adapters consumed don't return.
  • Whenever you die inside the Pandora, you're given the choice of continuing inside the Pandora, or simply returning to the Zodiac to pick anything you missed or grind for resources, at the cost of losing progress inside the Pandora. Funny considering that by the time you get to the Pandora, the Zodiac was blown up to smithereens.
  • Larger enemies have the rare chance to drop Life Tanks.
• Barrier Change Boss: Victor. He has 11 forms with separate health bars, and each form utilizes the attacks of the Zodiac Prototype he shifts into.
• Boss Corridor: Each Zodiac Prototype boss has one, showing said boss icon.
• Cap: The max number of capsule you can hold in the beginning is 255 capsule. You can later upgrade to 500 and later 999 by obtaining Capsule Storages.
• Conspicuous Electric Obstacle:
  • Pisces's electrified seaweed. Some areas forces the player into going through them and taking damage.
  • The electrified hallways in Leo. Luckily they do turn down for a while.
• Elite Mooks: The Allied Worlds' Elite soldiers. Take more than the regular soldier to be defeated, dash towards the target and fire explosive shots.
• Enemy Mine: Dr. Mo decides to team up with the Guardian against Victor, after the latter reveals his true colors. Iron needs some convincing however.
• Energy Absorption: The Leo zone has indestructible nodes that saps the Guardian's energy bar no-stop.
• Freeze Ray: The Ice Beam. Not useful for combat but can freeze enemies and turn them into Frozen Foe Platform.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Crabbor, and his other variants, are bosses guarding valuable upgrades that puts a hell of fight. And when they Turn Red, the gain the ability to float and slam their bodies on you.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: The Guardian becomes this, thanks to her interactions with the Zodiac terminals. Dr. Mo and later Victor site that.
• Guide Dang It!: The requirements for the Golden Ending (version (2-3-16)) has no hints inside or outside the game on how to obtain it.
  • Opening the path for the good ending itself is a Luck-Based Mission. First is to go to Taurus, freeze the fireball enemies (that don't respawn after killing them) in a certain room to climb to an invisible chute on the top of the room, then fight a huge mech-suit piloted by General Schlefen to obtain the Magnet Grabber. Then, find the secret area (the Snake Pit) that leads to the sick bay (easier said than done), in order to fight an upgraded version of the mech-suit. Defeat it to meet General Schlefen in the sick bay, and he'll give the Wallclimb upgrade.
  • The Golden Ending requires finding the six construction and tech crews (Alpha, Beta, Omega, Delta, Gamma, Epsilon) to evacuate them. They are found in hidden rooms in the Zodiac zones, with no hints or indications to their whereabouts.
  • The kicker? Due to a Game-Breaking Bug in version (2-3-16), the path to bad endings 1 & 2 is blocked, meaning that the above endings are the only paths possible!
• Heroic Mime: The Guardian, being a robot made to serve and obey orders on Earth, cannot talk nor express itself.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Depending on the ending:
  • Dr. Mo stays behind in the Zodiac to destroy it before it reaches Earth in Bad Ending 1 & 2.
  • General Schlefen pulls this instead of Dr. Mo in the Good Ending, after giving her access to his escape shuttle.
• Intangible Man: Obtaining the Dash Jets 2 grants the ability to phase through one-tile thick walls while running.
• In Their Own Image: Downplayed. Victor wants to remove every trace of all living beings on Earth using his own genetic-modifying virus, so he could replace everything with himself and live forever as the only living being that matters. He also plans to expand his reach to all planets, so that all will be replaced with him.
• Let's Play: A complete one for an early build done by MeleeWizard.
• The Mirror Shows Your True Self: The fight against Gemini Prototype takes place on a reflective surface, that shows the Guardian as a red-haired woman in a white dress.
  • Rage Against the Reflection: Gemini Prototype can travel to the mirror surface and attack the Guardian's reflection, dealing continuous damage in the process.
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: The Guardian can only hold into one Zodiac weapon, releasing the one she's holding when interacting with another Zodiac terminal. The Zodiac Changer gives access to all weapons through swapping the weapon currently held.
• Mysterious Informant: A Turncoat working with the Allied Forces guides the Guardian inside the Zodiac with help and instructions needed. Revealed to be the Allied Forces Communication Officer, Victor.
• Nintendo Hard: Oh so much. The manual jokingly gives the game C-Dawg's Official "Seal of Frustration". You'll die a lot, it is a given.
  • The game relies a lot on Spikes of Doom throughout the zones. Said spikes are used to gauge if the player bothered to find the defense upgrades or not. Some areas are filled to the brim with spikes and agile enemies to knock you into them. Libra's placement of spikes forces the player into taking a hit to proceed.
  • Platform Hell is the name to any place the require climbing long shafts. Be it small tiny platforms that you slip out from, erratic flying enemies that knocks you out from the platforms, bullets that slowly tracks your movements, fans that push you off ledges, etc.
  • The enemies eventually become more Demonic Spiders that are more trouble than their worth, and are better off left alone to preserve resources.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: The Allied Forces' Dr. Margret “Eldritch” Mo. A scientist who excel in the study of alien life-forms, alien bacteria, asteroids, climate change, archaeology and built the self-thinking decision-making Hot-Blooded robot, Iron, to name a few.
• Patchwork Map: The Zodiac's interior consists of multiple biomes of different nature and habitats for all manners of alien life-forms. It can range from jungles, deserts, underwater areas and:
  • Green Hill Zone: Aquarius
  • Shifting Sand Land: Scorpio
  • Womb Level: Cancer
  • Temple of Doom: Aries
  • Under the Sea: Pisces
  • Crystal Landscape: Gemini
  • Elaborate Underground Base: Leo
  • Lethal Lava Land: Taurus
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Libra
  • The Hedge of Thorns: Virgo
  • Mad Scientist Laboratory: Capricorn. Also crossed with Lumber Mill Mayhem.
  • Cyberspace: Sagittarius
• Recurring Boss: The Allied's robot, Iron, impedes the Guardian's path throughout the game, coming back stronger with each defeat.
• Robot Girl: The titular Guardian, who can hack terminals and transforms into a Cool Ship.
• Seethe Invisible: The X-ray Scope upgrade.
• Shame If Something Happened: The Turncoat from the Allied Worlds threatens the Guardian with erasing her hard-drive and shutting her down using her access codes they hacked from her, when they begin feeling desperate.
• Shout-Out:
  • Draintroids. An obvious homage to Metroid's titular alien larva. They can be killed with many ways, but freezing then shooting them with Super Missiles works best.
  • The boss guarding the Repair Module in Leo 62 resembles Magnet Man.
  • One very hidden room in Cancer zone has a terminal with a message from Dr. Mo, mentioning something called the "Skynet Law" that Earth enforces against building self-dependent robots.
• The Starscream: Victor turns on General Schlefen and Allied Forces to use the Zodiac for his own agenda.
• Static Stun Gun: The Stun Beam, can stop certain enemies on the track for a while. Also required to traverse Gemini zone, by using it to hatch space fish eggs.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Pandora ship. Filled to the brim with many powerful alien creatures, Alien-Zombie Troopers and electrified Spikes of Doom. All leading to Victor.
• Unnaturally Looping Location: Libra's areas 50 to 52 and 60. Requires figuring which opening lead to the exit, bombing the correct floor in order to reach Libra Prototype's lair. It's also teeming with enemies that shoot wrap holes that send you to the Libra's entrance.