A game that takes two completely unpopular genres right now (souls-like and Metroidvanias) that manages, through a completely bizarre and mostly incoherent story mixed with one of the best parrying mechanics ever, to set itself apart from some of the standard and unremarkable games that have been churned out from these genres.

Moonscars.......is about things. You are the clay clone of someone......and some really dark and unsettling things have taken place within this kingdom. That's as much as I really got from the story for this near 30 hour playthrough. Maybe there is a deep and interesting story buried underneath but the game does not make following along with it that easy, using a lot of lingo that just does not make much sense on the surface.

The gameplay mechanics (especially the parry mechanic) does enough to make up for that though (plus, the game as a neat style to it that I kinda dug).

Like many Souls-like games, Moonscars relies on dodging and parrying mechanics. Bad guys of all shapes and sizes will be coming at you from time to time and the easiest way to start mowing them down is to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge. Dodging won't do much but get you out of harms way and a way to avoid attack damage but parrying is where its at.

Parrying will counter the attack of course and with it, a parrying attack that just feels really, really good to use. It's a simple one button timing thing, nothing that fancy, but it just feels incredible to counter attack enemies with it.

That being said, as you progress through the game, the parry will start to become a bit less important. One of the more annoying aspects of the game while moving forward is how the game "powers" up enemies as you progress and enter new and harder areas of the game.

Basically the game starts to introduce more and more creatures that are immune to physical attacks. Luckily you have a slew of magic spells to help but with magic/mana/whatever you want to call it (this game calls it ichor, because it's weird) being limited, spells won't always kill your enemies with one fell swoop. If you don't have enough, you'll have to get the gauges back up by using physical attacks, that won't actually do damage but will help you get back your ichor so that you can do damage. It stretches a lot of late game stuff out further in a really unnecessary way. If you miss your ichor attack, too bad, if you get hit while performing a spell, also too bad, it's just kind of annoying and tedious when you're in the end game.

The game has some difficulty to it, though your skills with dodging/parrying will probably vary that to some degree, but it never felt completely unbeatable which was nice. Finally figuring out the behavior of a boss and having some luck on your side to get through someone you've died at a handful of times is quite satisfying but never frustrating.

Despite my fondness for Moonscars, it does feel like a game that could be very hit or miss for people, especially in two genres that have really great games already made. It won't be for everyone but it is currently a Game Pass game as of this writing and well worth giving a shot to at the very least.

I had a mostly fun time with this game. The creativity is flowing at a really impressive level in this game. In turn, it does a lot to kinda hide some of the flaws in Cult of the Lamb.

It's a game where you play as a lamb that's been charged with the task of running and growing a cult. If you're not intrigued by this idea off the bat, you don't like fun. All of this is done pretty damn well. The art and the music are both the biggest standouts. I could go on about both of these for a while but I digress to keep this shorter.

Once you start playing the game though, some of the flaws start to seep out. First, I had a good amount of technical issues playing the game, even this late after release. Random frame rate drops were a pretty big problem that popped up a few times. Also had a fun bug where my cult members just, stopped moving and doing anything. These issues were usually solved by restarting the game, so it wasn't game breaking but it did happen a few times and were a pretty annoying thing to deal with. This issue did hurt my experience with it but of course not everyone will run into this so it's hard to knock the game completely.

The core gameplay itself isn't too bad but as far as game progression and the game play loop evolving, the game doesn't really do much to add to the core mechanics. The gameplay loop was definitely something I was starting to tire of by the end of it, with many of the chores feeling a bit too much like a chore. This issue was felt on both sides of the gameplay for me as well, with both the city building and general fighting not doing too much to evolve in ways that felt new and interesting.

There were also a few other nit picks, like placing buildings/items in your city was not the easiest experience, I would constantly be trying to place things and not being able to move appropriately to get there. If I needed to move diagonally, the game would move it up and down or back and forth but I would have to fight it to do it exactly.

The positives though far outweigh the few minor hiccups this game possesses. This game is well worth a recommendation for the bizarre creativity alone.