Quick Links
Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider's Lost Ruins stage can be a pretty overwhelming. Especially when it comes to the maze-like second part of the level. It also features some of the game's most tricky enemies.
But worry not, we will give you everything you need to know about working through these stages, and all the tips you need to beat the hardest enemies it has to throw at you. We will show you where to go, what switches you need to hit, and which order to hit them in.
Lost Ruins - Stage 1
The beginning of this stage is filled with turrets of every kind. If you are looking to finish the stage quickly, the best thing you can do is avoid as many of them as humanly possible. The best attack you have for taking these guys out is a dive kick, but using that attack will bounce you into the nearby rails, or onto the platforms sitting above you. It makes working through them cumbersome and slow. The answer is to still use the Dive Kick, but use it to sail over them or past them.
After you clear the first section where you cross spikes by jumping from vanishing block to vanishing block, you will be confronted by a robotic Spider Doll enemy. Take it out with a Dash Attack. Now, to the right will be two more vanishing blocks, hop across them to the stone column on the right. Perform a wall jump off the column and onto a vanishing block on the left, then jump back on top of the column on the right. There is a canister with a health recovery item inside waiting here for you. From here, you can head right to reach the next section of the stage, but if you want the Upgrade Chip, you will need to take a small diversion.
If you travel to the left of the column, you will find be able to get an extra life. That being said, this is going to hurt your run time.
To get to this stage's Upgrade Chip, follow the line of vanishing blocks up and to the left. The blocks will lead you directly to the Acrobat Chip, AKA your double jump! From the Upgrade Chip, head directly to your right. As long as you keep traveling to the right along the highest available vanishing block, you will eventually land in a pretty straightforward section.
While you may feel relieved at first to escape the vanishing blocks, the Soldiers you encounter next may undermine said relief. These enemies do the whole Las Plagas thing; their heads burst, revealing a brain-like parasite that can extend itself outward like a worm. These Parasite-Headed Soldiers have an extremely long reach, and can bat you out of the air. They can also fire multiple blobby projectiles at once. Thankfully, they also die in a single Dashing Attack. And that is exactly how you are going to take care of these guys. You can take every last one of them with a Dash Attack.
Once you clear out all the Worm-Headed Soldiers, you will head to the right and face another wide-open room with vanishing blocks. What complicates matters are the huge mosquitoes. These things are bad news. They take multiple hits to kill, are and are astonishingly fast. While we typically recommend that you just run past tough enemies, that would be a mistake here. These mosquitoes are faster than you, so you need to take them out. Your best bet is to not move on until you have killed all three of them. Just do your best to jump up and smack them.
When the Giant Mosquitoes reveal their stinger, they are about to dive bomb you. Use this information to try to get your hits in.
You will end this stage hopping up a shaft. You will get HP and MP regenerating power-ups and then enter into a flooded room. Here you will face off against this stage's big baddie.
Lost Ruins - Stage 1 - Submarine Boss
This boss' first form is not particularly tough. Start by hopping onto its back. Then, attack the glowing spot that is sitting up there. Once you have destroyed it, hop and attack the glowing spot on its front. If you don't destroy it quickly enough, it will blast you with a laser, but it can only take a handful of shots, so you should be fine.
Now, there will be one more spot on its underbelly. You will need to jump way up and attack this spot while avoiding getting under it. It will fire projectiles that will travel along the ground once they collide with it. With the right positioning, you will be fine.
Once you have taken out the three weak spots, it will fuse with the wall on the left, and sit in the corner of the room. You will need to attack its brain every time it reveals it. In this form, the boss will have a few attacks, including a classic spread shot and another where it sends a wave-like projectile along the ground. However, the attack that is difficult to deal with is a slow, arcing projectile. The best strategy to avoid taking damage is to run away from it and to jump when it sends a projectile along the ground.
Lost Ruins - Stage 2
This stage will start with you being attacked by a new type of enemy. These guys are resilient, they hop around, and they have excellent reach. The trick here is that you want to crouch right in front of them and hit them with your low attack. They will extend their arm straight over you. Chasing them down is a nightmare.
Once you kill this long-armed creep, hop down the shaft on the right, and you will see a switch on your left, and a blue door on your right. Welcome to the primary mechanic of this stage. You will need to hit switches in a specific order in order to open up the door lining this stage. Here is the optimal route...
You will see the Upgrade Chip locked away in a room to your left. You aren't going to be able to grab this until the very end of the game.
Hit the first switch on your left, then continue to the left through the red door. Then hit the next switch to the left of that door. Now, drop down the shaft beside that switch. Now, head to the right. Drop down another shaft, hit the switch below, and head to the left. Now, head down to the next floor, and you will end up in an H.R. Giger-esque organic-looking section of the stage. Hit the switch to your right. Now, go through the door on your left. Head to the right and enter into the red water. Continue to the right, through the open door, and once you enter into a giant room, drop down to the left.
Travel down this long hallway, and hit the switch. Then, as you head to the right, you will have to fight through some worm-like creatures that will fire projectiles in every direction. Use a Dash Attack to take them out. Keep heading to the right, and then jump down the shaft in the center of the room. Now head to the right, and hit another switch. Now, go back to the main room, and head to the right (right through the newly opened door).
You will leave that red water, and you will have two shafts you can travel up. Go up the shaft on the left, hit that switch, drop back down, and head up the shaft on the right.
Here you will hit another fork in the road, if you travel to the right, you will head toward the boss, but if you go up the elevator, you can travel all the way to the beginning of the stage and grab that Upgrade Chip that had previously been blocked off. After you grab the chip, you can head back the way you came: right to the end of the stage.
Now, at the fork in the road, at the end of the stage, head to the right and kill two of those horrifying long-armed enemies. You will end up in a room with this stage's boss.
Lost Ruins - Stage 2 - Darkchaser Boss Battle
Darkchaser has a number of attacks that call objects from offscreen to come in and attack you. She has one that sees a three tendril attack from the side of the screen. They extend one at a time, from top to bottom, so when she summons these just get to the other side of the screen. She has another tendril attack that sees them surround the entire screen and shoot out from every angle. However, they all extend in order, traveling clockwise, so they are pretty easy to avoid.
She can also call a giant leg to come stomping down vertically, and a giant arm to punch across the room horizontally. The trick here is that when she is summoning something, you can just be angled away from her, and no matter what limb comes out it will miss you.
Darkchaser also has a flying kick, but it is so laughably slow that she will never hit you with it. Ever. Just hit her with a dive kick when she tries to use this sad, ineffectual attack.
Darkchaser's big trick is that she starts the battle off being completely invincible. You will need to hit her a bunch of times to break the crystal hovering around her and transition her into the next phase of the battle. In her second phase, she will take damage, however, her moves will also be quite a bit quicker. She will still have two life bars too. So, in effect, Darkchaser essentially gets three life bars.
She is also the boss that is most vulnerable to the Moonspear. Everyone will have this weapon, no matter when you face her. And it does a considerable amount of damage. Just make sure you save it for the second phase.