Just beat this in one sitting. Moon Raider is a decent little side scrolling shooter. It has a lot of flaws, but they don't destroy theJust beat this in one sitting. Moon Raider is a decent little side scrolling shooter. It has a lot of flaws, but they don't destroy the gameplay experience. For one, the pixel graphics are great. The music is quite good for an indie game. Really enjoyed turning my speakers up to listen to it. The core gameplay is much like Mega Man minus abilities. You shoot and you dash, that's it. Your dash uses up your crystal meter. Your dash also destroys anything in it's path, lets you defy physics, and restores health when you kill an enemy. This is balanced against needing crystals to dash, as dash consumes them rapidly. It would be nice if there were more weapons and abilities in the game, but the game ends before you get bored.
I actually really enjoyed the level design. Each level is a medium sized room you traverse to get to the next room. You flip switches, shoot enemies, do a little platforming, collect gems, find secrets, farm health.
The story is quite half-hearted, but who plays these games for the story?
Not a little bit about all the flaws this game has. First, the walls aren't smooth, they have depressions in them, and you land in them needlessly. It never helps you get higher, and I don't understand why they did this.
The underwater level design is off. I absolutely hate video games where you can drown. It makes sense in games like the elder scrolls, but we don't need realism in our 16-bit shooters. Now drowning can usually be avoided in these games, but in moon raider it's impossible in certain sections. You only have so much air and can only go so fast. In certain passages, you can't get to the air before you take drowning damage. It's extremely frustrating.
I swear some of the secret power ups give you nothing. Your laser gets stronger, and you get more health, but the gem upgrades don't allow you to carry more gems which is extremely frustrating because dashing through a mob of enemies is the most satisfying part of the game.
Post boss fight areas have some problems. After a boss fight, there's usually a small area where you can collect gems or find a secret passage. The problem is, you can die in these areas. If you die, you have to do the boss fight over! They put a gem way out over lava and you need a full gem meter to dash and get it, but if you mess up, you fall in the lava and have to beat the boss again. And the story leads you to believe you need these gems to save your mom.
If you jump then dash, you can fly all over the screen in any direction which is a ton of fun. If you double jump then dash, you crash into the ground immediately. It's super unintuitive and led to many accidental deaths.
As far as I can tell, the square gems don't matter. Throughout the entire game, you're supposed to collect these square gems to save your mom. I died so many times trying to collect every single square gem i saw. Then I get to the final boss with like 140 gems (you need 200 to save your mom0 and when I beat him, the game just gave me the rest. What was the point of collecting them if you were just going to fill me up anyway?
This might seem like a lot of flaws, but this game is genuinely fun, looks, sounds, and plays great. I feel like the developers ran out of time or money, which would explain the ending a lot. This game could have been great, but for now it's just good.… Expand
