What parents need to know
Vengeful Guardian Moonrider is a 2-dimensional action-platformer. You play as a ninja warrior called Moonrider, designed as a weapon to defend the totalitarian state. Moonrider reneges on his original purpose and embarks on a battle to take revenge on his creators and their super-soldiers.
The Moonrider can move left and right, jump, sword strike, hang on hanging rods, bounce off walls, run, kick plunging when in the air.
He can also use a more powerful move called the Moon Spear, this move uses part of a special gauge, separate from the life gauge.
As the adventure progresses, the Moonrider will obtain other weapons and special moves, which can replace the Moon Lance. Like the games in the Mega Man series, each level allows you to collect a new weapon. Enemies are more or less vulnerable to each weapon. The player can change weapons at any time.
After a particularly difficult introductory level, the player has the choice between 6 other levels, each with its own environment and assigned boss.
The game is inspired by the games Shinobi 3: Return of the Ninja Master, and Mega Man for the gameplay of the game. In terms of artistic direction, it is Contra, Shinobi and Devil’s Crush that can be found. The music sounds a lot like the compositions created during the Genesis/Mega Drive console era in the 1990s.
Details
Release date: 12 January 2023
Developed by: JoyMasher
Published by: The Arcade Crew
Available on: PC (Steam) (tested version), Amazon Luna, Playstation 4 and Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch
Game Type: Action/2D Platforms
Themes: Future, post-apocalyptic, soldiers, robots, aliens, totalitarian state.
Average duration of a game: 15 minutes
Total life of the game: about 3 hours to complete the levels. 5 hours to complete everything.
Business model: Need to buy the game once.
Languages available: French and English in particular
Number of players:
1 online
Available in digital format (download on console or computer)
Game provided by the publisher for review. It does not influence our opinion.
| Age | Neophytes | Intermediate | Experienced |
| 3+ |  | | |
| 7+ | | | |
| 12+ | |  | |
| 16+ | | | |
| 18+ | | | |
Violence, fear, nudity?
The game has many scenes of violence with fights, pistol fire, machine guns, rocket launchers, knives. Blood, violence.
Minimum reading level required
Little reading, but it is useful to understand the story and instructions.
Language level used
Presence of insults, provocations, threats. Coarse language
Positive message
Nothing, we kill, murder, and we jump on platforms.
Difficulty
Very difficult and not very well balanced. All enemies attack us from the first time we meet them. Obstacles must be apprehended in seconds.
Minimum level of execution on the controller required
Requires a lot of execution to defeat some fights. A little difficult to handle for those who have never played. A good margin of progress to improve.
Additional costs ?
none.
Our opinion
We were able to test the game’s demo at Gamescom 2022 and talk to the creators. In the meantime the game has evolved well. It is still a very beautiful game, very well animated, with a very nice soundtrack inspired by 16-bit consoles of the 1990s.
The Moonrider is very well controlled and the game is intended for the most assiduous, experienced and persevering players. The difficulty is totally thought for them. There is no choice of difficulty level, no accessibility option. The first time you lose, the game will offer you an armor chip to equip on your Moonrider. The armor chip allows you to reduce the physical damage your character receives in exchange for a maximum B rank obtained as a score at the end of a level.
The game has many qualities, unfortunately some flaws also seen at Gamescom and reported directly to the developers have not been corrected.
The most fragrant is the fact that the camera does not always show what is needed. On many occasions, the game invites us to continue in a level, jumping to a lower floor. Except that we do not see the contents of this floor. So sometimes we jump into traps, enemies or into the void, because we do not see them. It’s not up to us to memorize the game, if the developers want us to progress in the game, it must show us the obstacles and give us a way to overcome them. Progressing by taking damage for free is very frustrating.
Each level consists of 2 parts. The opportunity to put a sub-boss at the end of the first part, and a boss at the end of the second.
Some mini-bosses are repeated in the same levels with variants in platforms as in Mega Man.
Enemies, and obstacles are constantly attacking the player. He does not have time to apprehend this, in empty rooms as other games do. You have to constantly react in a few seconds in certain passages, or lose and try to learn the level as you go.
Apart from that, and some spelling mistakes in the texts, the game is very neat. Persevering people and those who practice learning and finishing games as quickly as possible will be over the moon. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is totally dedicated to them with its scoring system and level design.
More info about the game: Official website of the game
