Robocop becomes a samurai in this retro style platformer | Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider - Review

Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is an authentic recreation of the classic 90s ninja video games like Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, and Shadow of the Ninja. The 16-bit music, art style, and gameplay are all captured perfectly without a miss. Going in blind, you would think it is a remaster or port of a real existing 90s game.

The game follows our eponymous character, The Moonrider. Originally created to defend its oppressive creators: an evil totalitarian state, The Moonrider rejects its purpose and now seeks vengeance on its creators. Making an enemy out of everything, even its fellow soldiers.

Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider features a retro-style platformer gameplay and tricky combat mechanics. Easy to learn, but hard to master. The platform elements include running, hanging, wall-jumping, and jumping (no double jumps) across eight distinct stages with their own small little gimmicks, avoiding hazards and traps along the way.

Despite some initial steep learning curve to the movement scheme, the platforming element is easy enough once you get the hang of it, although the right amount of enemies scattered around makes all the difference in the difficulty. Trying to progress in the platforming sections with enemies trying to shoot and attack you all at the same is the main core challenge of the game.

Fortunately, Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is a bit forgiving with the health and checkpoint system, giving you a health point system on top of a life system, never enforcing a one-hit kill even with bosses.

There is also a way to heal and recover by encountering health and mana drop from breakables. Ultimately, the game overall is old-school-hard enough to make the average gamer repeat a section several times until they’ve had enough practice and information on how to clear it.

The combat also captures that 90s retro ninja feeling, slashing your way around enemies, attacking them a variety of ways. By combining your basic attack button with your movement, You can do a running slash, jumping slash, and like a true ninja; you can also drop kick enemies from any aerial direction.

Hidden modifier chips are waiting to be found throughout the levels, adding new abilities and changing your special attack move to enhance fighting capabilities, in classic Mega-Man fashion. 

The boss fights at the end of each level are your typical as big as the screen, memorize their patterns to avoid them, hit them when they're vulnerable type of setup.

After each level, you are timed and ranked at an end-screen, providing a bit of replayability for those players who likes beating their previous records.

Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is sub four hour game and can be easily speedrun into half the time once you master the movement controls and level layout. Indeed a game that hits all the right notes as a retro ninja game and doesn’t overstay its welcome.