Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is one of the most "By the numbers" retro-style games you can possibly find. This game was made by the same people that did Blazing Chrome, an already "By the numbers" game, but in comparison Chrome wins by a landslide.
I don't want to call "Moonrider" bad because it's not, but it's so damn safe in it's design and execution that while playing it you will be thinking how much more fun you would be having if you were playing the games that inspired it, specially Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi III (AKA Ninja Ryukenden and Super Shinobi II) which are masterpieces.
Aside from it's obvious ninja game inspirates, there's a fair deal of Megaman and "whatever was popular in the late 80's/early 90's". What I think hurts this game a lot is that does not just pays homage to those games, it outrights tries to copy them with flaws included.
It's endearing when you play an old game that had a barebones story and limited gameplay, but doing it today feels just like a regular shortcoming, there's not tongue-in cheek commentary done about it, it's just played straight.
The story is some barebones political revolution thing with no real explanation as to why things are happening, similar to Alien Soldier (this game wishes it was as tight). But Alien Soldier backstory is an excuse to throw boss fights at the player. In this game you keep getting information you could not give two shits about.
For some retro-style ninja fix I would much rather play "The Messenger", which is a game that pay homages to retro games while building upon them instead of limiting itself just for nostalgia's sake. (Cyber Shadow might be another good alternative but I have not played it).
I don't want to call "Moonrider" bad because it's not, but it's so damn safe in it's design and execution that while playing it you will be thinking how much more fun you would be having if you were playing the games that inspired it, specially Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi III (AKA Ninja Ryukenden and Super Shinobi II) which are masterpieces.
Aside from it's obvious ninja game inspirates, there's a fair deal of Megaman and "whatever was popular in the late 80's/early 90's". What I think hurts this game a lot is that does not just pays homage to those games, it outrights tries to copy them with flaws included.
It's endearing when you play an old game that had a barebones story and limited gameplay, but doing it today feels just like a regular shortcoming, there's not tongue-in cheek commentary done about it, it's just played straight.
The story is some barebones political revolution thing with no real explanation as to why things are happening, similar to Alien Soldier (this game wishes it was as tight). But Alien Soldier backstory is an excuse to throw boss fights at the player. In this game you keep getting information you could not give two shits about.
For some retro-style ninja fix I would much rather play "The Messenger", which is a game that pay homages to retro games while building upon them instead of limiting itself just for nostalgia's sake. (Cyber Shadow might be another good alternative but I have not played it).