Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider has every part you’d need from an indie tribute to 16-bit motion platformers: there’s detailed industrial pixel artwork, crunchy dying animations, and loads of spike pits. It’s temporary however explosive, and could be proper at residence in any ‘90s arcade cabinet hidden in the back corner of the pizza parlor or bowling alley.
Out January 12 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC, Vengeful Guardian is the latest retro homage from JoyMasher, a Brazilian studio founded by Danilo Dias and Thais Weiller. The indie duo’s final recreation, Blazing Chrome, was a powerful love letter to run-and-gun side-scrollers like Contra and Metal Slug. Vengeful Guardian is a equally painstaking however celebratory nod to the previous, this time borrowing closely from video games like Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden with a touch of Mega Man X thrown in. It’s not a lot a revelatory reimagining of these classics as a reverent reproduction that sits comfortably alongside them.
You play as one of many merchandise of a despotic regime that makes use of robots to maintain an iron grip on a futuristic metropolis. For no matter cause, you’re wired to have a conscience, and as a substitute of defending these in energy you resolve to assassinate your fellow guardians one after the other till the folks can stand up and overthrow the federal government. The world constructing, minimal as it’s, combines the exhilarating brutality of Robo Cop with the unsettling dread and grimey presentation of a David Cronenberg physique horror flick. The revolution, in the meantime, is fueled by an lively techno soundtrack from composer Dominic Ninmark that provides urgency to the horror.
The result’s near a dozen sci-fi side-scrolling ranges with gentle backtracking the place you dodge hazards, slash by opposing enemy forces, and tackle a slew of huge and small bosses with the assistance of a laser sword, double-tap sprint, and wall leaping. While there are a handful of branching paths and difficult platforming set items, Vengeful Guardian is extra centered on showcasing its dystopian designs and lavish pixel artwork than hitting you over the pinnacle with quarter-eating problem.
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On one stage a large robotic stalks you thru a forest within the background, flattening bushes and throwing fists from afar till you confront it in a mini-boss battle afterward. On one other stage, parasites unleashed in a mining effort take over your cyborg foes and make their heads explode as they rework into gnarly lots of antagonistic flesh. The cherry on prime is how rewarding it feels to slash by every one, with visible results and distinctive dying animations that make the in any other case simple ranges really feel vibrant and dynamic. Vehicle ranges, together with ones that have you ever racing by town with mode 7-style 3D results, additionally spice issues up a bit and are beautiful in addition.
And in contrast to lots of the video games Vengeful Guardian borrows from, it’s beneficiant with checkpoints and well being containers. You’re additionally handled to a assorted arsenal of particular talents and upgrades. Similar to Mega Man, defeating every boss grants you certainly one of their powers. My private favorites had been a hyper-dash assault and a darkish portal that unleashes a Cthulhu-like tentacle, although on the entire none of them really feel like huge recreation changers. More transformative are the upgrades which vary from issues like getting well being again from every enemy you kill to a scanner that alerts you to hidden places of different power-ups. There’s a few dozen whole, together with a double bounce and further armor that slashes the injury you absorb half.
That final one primarily enables you to bruteforce your approach by most bosses, letting you aggressively physique them with out worrying about studying their assault patterns or fine-tuning your twitch reflexes. The solely consequence is that it limits the rating you will get on every stage to a B, incentivizing you to return and ultimately excellent every stage to probably unlock one thing further, which I haven’t but completed in my roughly two hours with the sport.
That runtime left me wanting extra from Vengeful Guardian than simply perfecting the degrees I’d already accomplished, however I’ll take it over video games overstaying their welcome or working out of concepts however occurring for an additional 5 hours anyway. Like Shinobi III or the opposite ‘90s hack-and-slash platformers its channeling, Vengeful Guardian lets you get in, have fun, and put the controller back down before you start getting tempted to chuck it across the room. There aren’t any new concepts right here, however it delivers on the previous ones with polish and flare.
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