It is hard not to overstate the obvious influences that came from Moon. It’s truly one of the strangest, unique, beautiful, thoughtful, bizarre games I’ve ever played.

It took some time but once you’re in, well, it’s zen. Walking around, helping memorable characters, reviving oddball monsters, exploring, doing somewhat odd activities… it’s truly the anti-game. It’s definitely the anti-console game at that time.

Moon takes the approach of “what if the ‘hero’ of an RPG, murdering all these animals and taking whatever they want, is actually… well, bad.” When you think about a hero in an RPG on a baseline, superficial level, they aren’t exactly a hero. Moon takes this and runs with it. It’s a true satire on the RPG genre. It definitely left a mark on gaming and it’s felt. Many games after it warp RPGs in this specific way. Some maintain combat or have none at all, but after playing this, it’s just so obvious.

The game itself is still a bit janky. Some of the stuff is, well, definitely a PS1 game. The charm, relaxing nature of the game, well, it’s truly something special. Undertale (OBVIOUSLY) was inspired by this and it is truly heavy handed. The MC in Undertale is the MC in Moon whilst Frisk is the “hero” (villain) in Moon. The comparison are just right there.

The game itself is truly beautiful in more ways than one. I definitely recommend reading the manual of the game on its official site since there’s no tutorial (it helped me LOTS). It’s an old game so reading the manual was obviously an extremely common thing to do in the 90s. The first time I tried to play it, I got overwhelmed because I didn’t know what to do. The manual fixed that instantly. Shocker (it wasn’t).

It isn’t for everyone but this game is truly a gem.

Tingle crossed with Wizard of Oz

Point and click adventure with lots of charm, silliness, and… well, it’s strange. Really really odd. If you don’t enjoy point and click adventures like say Monkey Island, early Telltale like Strong Bad, or Broken Age, this might not be something you’d enjoy.

It’s a very low key game selling itself with its pure awkwardness but that’s where the joy of it comes from. It’s a journey to say the least. What a fun little game haha

I got through a lot of the game without help but I’m too stupid and don’t play enough point and clicks because of that.

I still enjoyed my time with it and the end was

Something.

Alpha Dream’s relentlessly charming animations and sprite work is what saves this game from being, well, bad. The gimmicks were getting tiresome by the end game. Speaking of the end game, holy wow, it’s… not great. It ruined all the remaining good will I had at that point.

The boss gimmicks were extremely frustrating, especially by the end. I was tilting during the final boss.

The story itself meandered a lot. For awhile? I forgot about the Colbalt Star as that stopped being a focus for quite some time. Like ????

The game is absolutely gorgeous but I didn’t fix the issues I had. I played this as a teen and dropped it, probably been 15+ years since I played it. I figured, since I have more patience for janky nonsense, I’d enjoy it more. Some stuff was just too much.

I will be going back to do additional endings and other experimentation with the relationship level with each character, but I’d call this the most fascinating Digimon game in years. The VN parts are great. The tactical wasn’t really that complex or great but it didn’t damper it too much for me personally.

I was getting a bit tired of the TRPG stuff by the end honestly. The only complaint I have with the story is it felt like the ending was coming then it just didn’t lmao but at least it o my lasted 30 hours and not at all any longer.

Anyways, the story fascinated me more than anything. I have too many games to play at the moment but when I break through some of my backlog, I’ll be coming back for the rest of the content.