The most impressive thing about Moonrider is how well it captures the feeling of a 16-bit title. Bosses can go down quickly if you get their patterns down I chunked several boss' health in under 30 seconds. A few hits can take you down, but it goes both ways. It isn't going to feel "Nintendo hard" at any point, but you need to pay attention. There's only one case of insta-death that I can remember, and that was while we were escaping from a fire. Sometimes you'll see enemy configurations that you can't imagine getting past, but a dive-kick or use of a special move usually solves the issue. Stages are large and sometimes contain multiple routes or minor puzzles, but at heart, they are mostly straightforward platformers. It's difficult to justify a slightly longer sword over your blade getting stronger with every foe you defeat. Some chips are absurdly powerful and game-changing, and others are just a nice utility. My only real issue with this is that the two-chip limit hurts customization. Some chips can change your entire approach to the game. You can equip two chips at a time, and the skills include making your sword longer, regenerating health and MP, giving you a double-jump, or pointing out where chips are hidden. Power-up chips can be found throughout stages, with each stage having at least one - in addition to a special cheat chip if you get a game over. Once you have one of those chips, you can toss out skills until the cows come home, but you might need to be more careful in boss battles. More importantly, you get items that change how you refill MP, including a slow regeneration over time and a much better "gain MP back every time you kill an enemy" chip, which completely changes the gameplay. The game is generous about throwing refills at you. Early on, I found the limitations to be restrictive, since you'll only get a handful of uses. These weapons use up the MP bar, which is shared between all weapons but are incredibly powerful. Beat a boss, and you'll get one of their weapons to use. Moonrider can also power himself up in two ways: chips and special attacks. This is a tool I can't wait to see used in speed-running. Once you get the hang of it, you can bounce from foe to foe and move through stages with great ease, including skipping large segments of levels if you kick off the right enemy. It hits like a truck, allows you to bounce off foes' heads to reach greater heights, and is a combination mobility and damage tool that eclipses others in your arsenal. Moonrider can dive-kick in any downward direction, and holy cow, is it a good dive kick. While your sword is important, the star of the show is your dive kick. This is an old-school game, so you have limited lives, but the game is generous, and if you run out of lives, you can restart from a checkpoint, many of which aren't far from actual bosses. Getting up close and attacking rapidly with your sword will deal tons of damage, but the same goes for enemies, and it's a game of kill or be killed. While it doesn't entirely feel like it, the strongest inspiration for the game seems to be the original Strider. You move right (or rarely left), jump, and slash with your laser sword. Moonrider' s a platformer, and you can pick up and play it without much trouble. Sometimes you don't need anything more to justify a game than "rogue cyborg samurai fights evil cyborg samurais." Moonrider adheres to the designs of old-school platformers, and that means you get a handful of text cut scenes and a straightforward story. One such warrior, Moonrider, is brought online and promptly rejects the idea of being a jerk, so he sets out to defeat his fellow super soldier robots and bring peace to the world. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider tells the story of a distant future where an evil government rules over its people with the aid of robotic warriors. Blazing Chrome was a wonderful way to revisit the Contra series without technically being a Contra game, and Joymasher's new game, Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is a delightful take on classic games like Strider. Sometimes I miss those days, no matter how amazing some modern games are. Sometimes, that was to drag as many quarters out of your pockets as they could, and other times, they were just about working within the technology limitations of the time to make the best possible experience. It's easy to write them off as "simplistic," but that wasn't always the case. Old-school platformers were built differently.
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