Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider - 100% S-Rank Playthrough (No Deaths)

Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is a new side-scrolling action platformer from JoyMasher, the creators of Blazing Chrome, Oniken, and Odallus. It will be available on January 12th on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Amazon Luna for $16.99.

I enjoyed Blazing Chrome a lot, but there's no doubt, Moonrider is my favorite game from these guys so far. It's great, and it kicks 2023 off with a bang. Thanks to Andy at Streamforge for the key!

This is a complete playthrough of the game, where I collect all of the hidden chips, and finish each stage with an S-rank. The requirements for each rank aren't totally clear, but basically, you just have to finish the stage fairly quick and not die. Damage taken doesn't matter, and score doesn't seem to either. Most of the times are pretty easy to reach, but I did have to hustle a bit on Asura's Fleet and the final stage.

Most of the special weapons you gain from each boss are quite good, but I think the tentacle and dash are a cut above the rest. The tentacle does massive damage, it will let you take out bosses and midbosses very quickly. The dash on the other hand gives you tons of invincibility frames while dishing out a good chunk of damage to any enemy it passes through. So instead of sticking with these two weapons the entire time, I thought it would be more fun to use all of them. Every time you clear a stage, you automatically equip the new weapon you just unlocked, so that's what I used, until the last stage. It makes you think about your stage order a little more.

For the chips, I just kept the double jump and mana regeneration for the entire game. Soul Eater (regain MP after killing an enemy) can be good as well, but the passive mana regeneration chip is especially useful on the vehicle stages. Soul Eater doesn't work in those areas, and you want all the missiles you can get to burn through the tanky enemies as fast as you can.

The game isn't perfect, of course. I'm not a big fan of the vehicle stages. They play fine, but they're too long, and they have too many stretches where nothing happens. The game balance could use some work, too (the special weapons are super strong), and the ranking and scoring system are a bit sloppy, but none of this is a big deal. It's still a great game. It looks great, plays great, and sounds great, and is well worth the $16.99 it's launching at for any fan of classic action-platform games.

Quick note: Technically, this isn't a 100% complete file. In order to get the final chip (which increases your armor), you have to lose all of your lives and get a game over. I kept replaying stages trying to figure out where this missing chip was, until I finally realized that I couldn't get it without dying. Just lol.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:20 Bioweapon Lab
5:52 Lost Ruins
14:36 Asura's Fleet
23:12 Laser Research Base
32:39 Iwondonilo City
40:29 Desalination Facility
48:20 Fallen City
54:34 Duas Space Elevator
1:01:56 Penralese Space Station
1:05:54 Ending
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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight):    • Beat 'em Ups  
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug):    • 2D Action  
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi):    • STG Replays