Moonlit farewell is a pretty underwhelming send off. I don't know if rdein, the main developer, had just lost his passion for the franchise after minoria or what but this is not the dark souls 3 to the momodora series. The game starts off relatively fine with the first area having some of the best music in the game. The start also includes you getting lore dumped about moon gods and the history of the village and a bunch of other stuff I did not care for. This is not how you start off your game, its why a lot of jrpgs lore dump you at the end when you're already invested. The best way would to be to learn about throughout the course of the entire game but we don't live in a world where this happens too often.
To cut into the main problems of the game, is that this is a mostly safe re-tread of past games. It feels like the soul has been drained and the formula has been followed to try to mechanically produce the most optimal game like a robot. Theres enough here that I did enjoy it and the final area brought this game up half a star but its sad that this is what we get after minoria and reverie. You can even see the lack of soul in the start up screen. Here, its just a bunch of weird sigils on a black background, minoria is a little more stylized, but reverie starts out with a wonderfully made view of the city you explore. It feels like a creative slump or just a slow decline from reverie.
To compare this to reverie in term of gameplay, its mostly worse. I praised reverie for being simple and executed amazingly. Even if its simple, if its done well, any game can be great. Reverie is a smaller-scale game, but it benefits from that. Movement is tight and precise. In Moonlit Farewell, movement is loose and its harder to make precise jumps. Luckily, the game does not really ever challenge you in terms of platforming which is an issue itself. The game also does a DMC a lot where they lock you in a area and force you to fight enemies which minoria did but this game does it way too often. Most items you pick up mid to late game will force you into one of these encounters. Theres also more enemies, which sounds better until you realize most of them do the same thing. The games combat is fundamentally broken. It appears the same but the sigils you acquire trivialize the game. My sigils that I had equipped made it so once I hit the mid game, I never moved during a boss fight. Most bosses are giant stagnant guys that shoot things at you and have 2 moves. You have so much healing resources that taking damage does not matter. I equipped a sigil that gave me invulnerability after healing and one that gave me a shield after healing and then I never moved during a boss ever again. You get so much healing on top of that and with the companion system that is never explained, gives you even more healing. The bosses are worse, the enemies act the same, sigils are insanely busted, and movement being more loose combines to make a worse experience. Theres also a issue where there is too much effects that sometimes its hard to tell what is happening, which I guess isnt an issue because I could beat all the bosses with one foot on a wii remote. Easy games are not bad, but games that are so easy that I don't have to move during combat is a problem. Not having to engage with the game or its mechanics is a problem that cannot be overlooked, at least in a game where engaging in its mechanics is supposed to be the best part of its gameplay.
The game looks nice, but the sprite work feels off. Maybe its just bias, but I enjoyed reveries sprite work more, it was just so animated and detailed. Thats not to say this games art style isnt detailed but it looks more... stale? If I had to choose a word it would be that. Unlike minoria, the music here is pretty nice and balanced. The starting zone and the final zone have the best music in the game and everything else in between is just fine. Unfortunately though, the story here is just kind of a detriment. I would understand if rdein wanted to get away from momodora and just create something different. Being tied down to a overarcing narrative is pretty restricting and I feel like having to explain all this story is detrimental, especially when its not that important or interesting to the experience.
Game is still good though, but I hope rdein moves on from this franchise in hopes of creating something filled with more passion. Maybe even experience with other game genres, I dont know, but whatever it is, I hope he enjoys making what he does because passion is ultimately what makes games enjoyable to play.
To cut into the main problems of the game, is that this is a mostly safe re-tread of past games. It feels like the soul has been drained and the formula has been followed to try to mechanically produce the most optimal game like a robot. Theres enough here that I did enjoy it and the final area brought this game up half a star but its sad that this is what we get after minoria and reverie. You can even see the lack of soul in the start up screen. Here, its just a bunch of weird sigils on a black background, minoria is a little more stylized, but reverie starts out with a wonderfully made view of the city you explore. It feels like a creative slump or just a slow decline from reverie.
To compare this to reverie in term of gameplay, its mostly worse. I praised reverie for being simple and executed amazingly. Even if its simple, if its done well, any game can be great. Reverie is a smaller-scale game, but it benefits from that. Movement is tight and precise. In Moonlit Farewell, movement is loose and its harder to make precise jumps. Luckily, the game does not really ever challenge you in terms of platforming which is an issue itself. The game also does a DMC a lot where they lock you in a area and force you to fight enemies which minoria did but this game does it way too often. Most items you pick up mid to late game will force you into one of these encounters. Theres also more enemies, which sounds better until you realize most of them do the same thing. The games combat is fundamentally broken. It appears the same but the sigils you acquire trivialize the game. My sigils that I had equipped made it so once I hit the mid game, I never moved during a boss fight. Most bosses are giant stagnant guys that shoot things at you and have 2 moves. You have so much healing resources that taking damage does not matter. I equipped a sigil that gave me invulnerability after healing and one that gave me a shield after healing and then I never moved during a boss ever again. You get so much healing on top of that and with the companion system that is never explained, gives you even more healing. The bosses are worse, the enemies act the same, sigils are insanely busted, and movement being more loose combines to make a worse experience. Theres also a issue where there is too much effects that sometimes its hard to tell what is happening, which I guess isnt an issue because I could beat all the bosses with one foot on a wii remote. Easy games are not bad, but games that are so easy that I don't have to move during combat is a problem. Not having to engage with the game or its mechanics is a problem that cannot be overlooked, at least in a game where engaging in its mechanics is supposed to be the best part of its gameplay.
The game looks nice, but the sprite work feels off. Maybe its just bias, but I enjoyed reveries sprite work more, it was just so animated and detailed. Thats not to say this games art style isnt detailed but it looks more... stale? If I had to choose a word it would be that. Unlike minoria, the music here is pretty nice and balanced. The starting zone and the final zone have the best music in the game and everything else in between is just fine. Unfortunately though, the story here is just kind of a detriment. I would understand if rdein wanted to get away from momodora and just create something different. Being tied down to a overarcing narrative is pretty restricting and I feel like having to explain all this story is detrimental, especially when its not that important or interesting to the experience.
Game is still good though, but I hope rdein moves on from this franchise in hopes of creating something filled with more passion. Maybe even experience with other game genres, I dont know, but whatever it is, I hope he enjoys making what he does because passion is ultimately what makes games enjoyable to play.