On your initial play through of Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, you’ll likely score pretty low. There are collectibles to find, several instant death situations, not to mention there being some rather tricky bosses/mechanics. While there is no denying Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider has some bite, getting S rank is pretty easy if you have the right tactic.
How to Get S Rank on Every Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider Stage
How to Score an S Rank
In preparation for our review, I tested the requirements needed to score S rank. Based off my tests, there are three elements that make up your score.
- Number of deaths
- Enemies defeated
- Time
First and foremost, I found any death immediately reduced your score. Even when I beat stages with a higher point total, and better times, I would still score an A if I died at any point. While no deaths is important, enemies defeated is somewhat relaxed. It helps to defeat every possible enemy, though you’re not required to do so. On average I missed about three enemies a run, and still achieved S rank.
Finally, time will often be the deciding factor on whether you can, or can’t S rank a stage. Unfortunately, in my testing I wasn’t able to get a good idea of tolerances, though I can say when I purposefully added a 30 seconds to my time on Fallen City I still achieved S rank, and lost it when I added an additional minute.
Build
I personally completed every stage with Acrobat, HP Regen, with the Darkportal skill.
Acrobat allows you to skip some mechanics, makes it easier to avoid taking damage, and increases your margin of error for a number of things. As for HP Regen, the passive health regeneration allows you to play recklessly without needing to collect every health item. The reason for the Darkportal power is the massive reach, hits a bunch, and can damage shielded/blocking enemies. It’s one of the cheapest skills to exploit quick, and easy damage.
If my reckless style of play does not work for you personally, another suggestion is changing HP Regen for Soul Eater, and using Photondash. Soul Eater, when combined with occasional pick ups, should give enough MP to never run out. It should also kill shielded enemies like Darkportal, with the added benefit of moving faster. I still suggest using Darkportal for bosses, but outside of that it’s a great way to maximize time/kills, but only if you have the MP reserves from something like Soul Eater to maximize usage.
General Tips
While most of this comes down to recklessly rushing forward, there are three additional things that are useful to know.
The first is most mini-boss fights end with full HP/MP recovery. For this reason I almost always pushed for maximum speed, over defensive tactics. That said, a few last long enough to potentially kill you, so if you fail a run due to a death, approach that boss with a bit more caution on a later attempt.
Several enemies, especially during motorcycle stages, can only be damaged if you don’t attack them for a bit. So if you see a shielded, or spinning enemy, wait until they start attacking before trying to kill them.
I believe boss dialogue counts against your time. I know you can regenerate HP/MP while they’re talking, and it’s technically part of the stage, so it should impact it. You might want to test it if you’re having a lot of issues, though I would just skip it as fast as possible just in case.
Video Guide
Instead of doing an extensive stage by stage guide, I uploaded a video of my runs. None of these are particularly impressive runs, though they give an idea of what to expect, good tactics, and kill/time constraints.
00:00 – Bioweapon Lab
03:52 – Fallen City
09:04 – Asura’s Fleet
16:52 – Iwondonilo City
25:25 – Desalination Facility
32:53 – Lost Ruins
39:42 – Laser Research Base
48:10 – Duas Space Elevator
56:47 – Penralese Space Station
01:00:00 – Ending
