Direct criticism without the fluff is something I deliver to smaller developers who I want to see succeed and am a big fan of. I've followed JoyMasher since stumbling upon Odallus The Dark Call, and had hyped Blazing Chrome all over multiple sites and Discord servers with mixed success on selling it to others.
Moonrider is their fourth retro-esque venture, and it seems like it wants to eat every kind of action-sidescroller at the buffet table, but I feel it could've regurgitated at least a few Mega Man X helpings. The presentation once again is splendid, spritework is phenomenal and sound effects are oomphie as shit. My boy Dominic Ninmark is back, and yet again he delivers another rad soundtrack.
Controls are slick and always responsive save for a bit of divekick buffoonery that could've been on my end, I am not exactly a goddess among goddesses. The ultimate takeaway I have for Moonrider is the additional special weapons you gain from defeating the humanoid bosses at the end of the selectable stages during the main portion. They are horrifically unbalanced. Most of them are traditional MMX-style projectile attacks, but one of them is an Epsilon Eagle-style Alien Soldier dash that does massive damage with complete invincibility and next to no cooldown. The sheer utility of this attack along with it's ability to trivialize many boss encounters brings the question of why they couldn't have eschewed the boss weapons and had just designed around the dash as a basic move.
You combine this along with the regenerating MP chip and you can really lame out some encounters. The only time I switched off the dash move was when it was unwieldy to use, aka when pits were present or the boss was super-glued to the wall. You may ask, "well Vee, if it were that busted then why not use something else?" That of which I reply, "Alien Soldier dashing is fun as shit, fuck no I ain't changing to the boring fire boomerang unless I have to." On top of the unbalanced weapons, the game is also constantly giving you spots with additional lives and health/mp, and the only real difficulty increase is self-imposed stuff like equipping an OHKO chip, which is a tad much I feel at least on a first playthrough. It was just a tad unfulfilling at the end of it, even if I did enjoy the final cutscene and credits music. Once again, stellar presentation.
Despite that, I still enjoyed myself for the 20 USD I spent on both it and it's OST. I am very happy that they decided to include Dom's soundtrack for purchase, because last time I had to go almost a year with nothing but in-game audio for Blazing Chrome's OST thanks to the only release being a LRG special edition that got gobbled up by pre-purchase scalper bots in one nanosecond.
A step-down from Blazing Chrome, but we all hit a speed bump once in a while. I look forward to the next one.
Moonrider is their fourth retro-esque venture, and it seems like it wants to eat every kind of action-sidescroller at the buffet table, but I feel it could've regurgitated at least a few Mega Man X helpings. The presentation once again is splendid, spritework is phenomenal and sound effects are oomphie as shit. My boy Dominic Ninmark is back, and yet again he delivers another rad soundtrack.
Controls are slick and always responsive save for a bit of divekick buffoonery that could've been on my end, I am not exactly a goddess among goddesses. The ultimate takeaway I have for Moonrider is the additional special weapons you gain from defeating the humanoid bosses at the end of the selectable stages during the main portion. They are horrifically unbalanced. Most of them are traditional MMX-style projectile attacks, but one of them is an Epsilon Eagle-style Alien Soldier dash that does massive damage with complete invincibility and next to no cooldown. The sheer utility of this attack along with it's ability to trivialize many boss encounters brings the question of why they couldn't have eschewed the boss weapons and had just designed around the dash as a basic move.
You combine this along with the regenerating MP chip and you can really lame out some encounters. The only time I switched off the dash move was when it was unwieldy to use, aka when pits were present or the boss was super-glued to the wall. You may ask, "well Vee, if it were that busted then why not use something else?" That of which I reply, "Alien Soldier dashing is fun as shit, fuck no I ain't changing to the boring fire boomerang unless I have to." On top of the unbalanced weapons, the game is also constantly giving you spots with additional lives and health/mp, and the only real difficulty increase is self-imposed stuff like equipping an OHKO chip, which is a tad much I feel at least on a first playthrough. It was just a tad unfulfilling at the end of it, even if I did enjoy the final cutscene and credits music. Once again, stellar presentation.
Despite that, I still enjoyed myself for the 20 USD I spent on both it and it's OST. I am very happy that they decided to include Dom's soundtrack for purchase, because last time I had to go almost a year with nothing but in-game audio for Blazing Chrome's OST thanks to the only release being a LRG special edition that got gobbled up by pre-purchase scalper bots in one nanosecond.
A step-down from Blazing Chrome, but we all hit a speed bump once in a while. I look forward to the next one.