[Review] Moon Raider (PS4)
I’ve been playing sci-fi platform shooters, this was on sale, so here we are.
The small studio Cascadia has been plugging away at small games for a while, before taking this to Kickstarter to polish it off. It actually builds on the world and bright, detailed pixel aesthetics and designs of their earlier Cavorite puzzle platformer games, which are based in turn on H.G. Wells’ story The First Men in the Moon.
That cheesy retro sci-fi premise feeds into this game’s loftily described coming of age story, with the half-alien princess in exile returning to the moon. In reality, like the rest of the game, it’s a bit basic and perfunctory, its Metroidvania influences overstated. You’ll be jumping and blasting through a series of semi-linear rooms, ho hum, and it wouldn’t be very notable if not for one neat mechanic.
The omni-directional air dash is fun and zippy, and informs the sprawling multi-way level design and the persistent health/energy balancing act: destroying enemies with your blaster gets you energy crystals, and with the dash refills health. Annoyingly it’s weighted strongly against you, as the dash runs through energy lickety-split and so you’re forced to use it conservatively or else scrape or even grind for crystals. Upgrades and bonus rooms are too scarce to alleviate this broadly, so you’re limited in your capacity to freely use your most fun ability.
Moon Raider doesn’t overstay its welcome, with ten short levels done in a few hours. Of course if the instant death traps get you at the end of the longer rooms and force you to repeat them, it may take a bit longer. The slightly jerky camera and occasionally spotty hit detection also don’t leave the best impression but it’s a cheap game with some charm and nice pixel work, not to mention cool Rockman ZX-style character artwork. It just… could be better.
