Vengeful Guardian: Moonrideris an homage to classic action platformers of the 16-bit era. The titular Moonrider is a cybernetic ninja that wakes up in a lab, confused about where he is. The world is being attacked by terrorists and Moonrider decides to stop them.
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Vengeful Guardian: Moonriderhas the typical plot of a game from the nineties, but it’s not important to enjoy the game. As simple as the plot is, along with the gameplay, there are still some things players should know before jumping in. This will make the beginning sections of the game much easier, as too will practicing and never giving up.
6A Quick Mega Man X-like
The game is set up like aMega Mantitle or more precisely aMega Man Xtitle.Vengeful Guardian: Moonriderisan action platformerthat begins on a demo stage before the world map opens up, giving players a choice of which stage to choose next. Bosses don’t bestow the player with cool power-ups unlike Mega Man X in his series, but there are upgrades for Moonrider.
These upgrades come in the form of chips which are hidden in capsules throughout levels. Two can be equipped at a time from the level start-up screen. For example, there’s a chip that can heal the special meter gradually. The game is only about two to three hours long, which is about the length of theMega Man Xentries on the SNES.
5There Are No Difficulties, BUT…
A lot of action platformers from this era did not have difficulty levels. The same is true inVengeful Guardian: Moonrider, but there are ways to make the game easier or more challenging. For example, the first time players run out of extra lives they will be given the Armor Chip on theGame Over screen.
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The Armor Chip reduces damage significantly at the cost of limiting players to a B rating for stage completion rewards. Alternatively, there’s a stage in the game with the Glass Cannon chip hidden in it. This will kill Moonrider in one hit, which is the ultimate hardcore upgrade that perfectly emulates the difficulty of some of thebest 90s games.
4Go To Asura’s Fleet First
Once the world map unlocks, players should head to Asura’s Fleet first. This stage has Moonrider fly in before he is forced to hop from battleship to battleship to make it to the flagship wherein the boss lies. In this beginning stretch of mini-ships, before the first scalable wall, players can jump down to find a small ship with a chip capsule on it.
This capsule contains the Reborn Chip, which revives Moonrider at half health. This is another chip that will make the game easier if combined with the Armor Chip. This Reborn Chip only works once per level though, so it’s not a godlike chip that will assist players to complete victory.
3Learning Boss Patterns
As difficult asVengeful Guardian: Moonrideris, it’s not an impossible game. Enemies rarely pop out of thin air or respawn at wild intervals. They go down with only a few smacks of the sword as well which is the feeling one wants ina ninja-like game. This is true for bosses as well.
They may pop out of the screen in terms of their scale, but their attack patterns can be easily studied. There is usually a special trick to get through them. For example, the first boss-like encounter is a large gun. Instead of attacking it directly, players should trick this gun into firing at the sealed door which will end the encounter once it explodes. The only thing that is a detriment to studying bosses is when players run out of extra lives.
2Backing Out Of Stages And Death
Death is never a good feeling in a video game, especially if enough deaths lead to players having to restart a stage. It’s the one thing aboutVengeful Guardian: Moonriderthat feels too old-school for its own good. It would have been nice to seesome assist optionsdo away with that, but maybe a patch can fix that.
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The good news is that plenty of extra lives can be found in stages via boxes or capsules. Also, chips are not lost if all extra lives are gone, and players can back out of a stage at any time and chips will still be saved to the system. Players shouldn’t expect to go back to the last checkpoint once they restart the stage though.
1Replying Stages
One of the best things aboutVengeful Guardian: Moonrideris the replay value. It may be short, but levels can be replayed an infinite amount of times. Players should try and go back to a stage to look for chips and to get a better completion score. There are multiple routes in some stages too. Even though the game is not like this genre, it hassome Metroidvania-like elementsin it.
For example, it might still be wise to make some mapping notes. If players go one way on their first run, they should go the opposite way on the next one. This could unearth chips or some other secrets in the game. Also, when trying to reach new heights, the larger red crates can be used as ladders. If they are in the way, players shouldn’t completely destroy a stack. Instead, they can strategically leave some untouched for platforming purposes.
Vengeful Guardian: Moonriderwas released on June 30, 2025, and is available on PC, PS4, PS5, and Switch.
