I always find it particularly interesting when I find a piece of media that doesn't do anything novel, but is wholly unique all the same. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is that. It has made a clean, inviting home in its niche, and it is inviting you to come visit for a nice chat.
Momodora as a series does not bring any wild ideas to the metroidvania genre, but you do play as a priestess with a maple leaf for a weapon, and I'm fairly confident in saying it's the only metroidvania like that. These are games whose strengths are in how they tailored a set of existing gameplay ideas to the developers particular tastes. The appeal is less in discovering some new place to explore, but in exploring a familiar place in a different way. It's something fresh, but not something that requires you to learn a whole new way of living.
Moonlit Farewell is a what you'd expect from the genre, but it's not everything you'd expect from the genre. It's a carefully chosen subset of elements that are a result of the developer's limits and experience—having already released several games of this style and learning what they do and don't like to do.
This is a long-winded way of saying the game is a lightweight, streamlined, and polished metroidvania, and I quite like it for those qualities. Compared to Reverie Under the Moonlight, the previous in the series, it feels better to play, is more satisfying to play, sits at a perfect length, and maintained a pleasant experience for almost the entire runtime—though I'm sure my familiarities with the quirks of Reverie may have biased me a bit in that aspect.
Oh, and above all of that, this game is gorgeous and I adore the art style. I played it on a Steam Deck OLED and made sure to show it off to all my friends and family and they all quite agreed. The scenery, the effects, Momo's animations. It is all very pretty. The artist(s) should be proud.
From a gameplay side, I will say that I did find some of the boss fight balancing a bit uneven. Mostly dipping into a bit too easy on several of them. But one counter to that is that I seem to have become a bit of a power gamer over the last three years, and I found a particularly lethal combination of the traits available which the average player may not. The other counter is that easy is fine if it means it's staying smooth and relaxing.
Maybe it's the FromSoft brainrot that causes me to even feel the need to justify that, but there it is.
Whereas I would have only really suggested Reverie Under the Moonlight to people plumbing the depths of this genre niche, Moonlit Farewell has reached a point of polish and artistic appeal where I will happily recommend it to anyone. It is the type of game that—to me—justifies delving into a niche and which can introduce the curious to that kind of spelunking. It is a very nice little game and I would love to see more people appreciate it.
Momodora as a series does not bring any wild ideas to the metroidvania genre, but you do play as a priestess with a maple leaf for a weapon, and I'm fairly confident in saying it's the only metroidvania like that. These are games whose strengths are in how they tailored a set of existing gameplay ideas to the developers particular tastes. The appeal is less in discovering some new place to explore, but in exploring a familiar place in a different way. It's something fresh, but not something that requires you to learn a whole new way of living.
Moonlit Farewell is a what you'd expect from the genre, but it's not everything you'd expect from the genre. It's a carefully chosen subset of elements that are a result of the developer's limits and experience—having already released several games of this style and learning what they do and don't like to do.
This is a long-winded way of saying the game is a lightweight, streamlined, and polished metroidvania, and I quite like it for those qualities. Compared to Reverie Under the Moonlight, the previous in the series, it feels better to play, is more satisfying to play, sits at a perfect length, and maintained a pleasant experience for almost the entire runtime—though I'm sure my familiarities with the quirks of Reverie may have biased me a bit in that aspect.
Oh, and above all of that, this game is gorgeous and I adore the art style. I played it on a Steam Deck OLED and made sure to show it off to all my friends and family and they all quite agreed. The scenery, the effects, Momo's animations. It is all very pretty. The artist(s) should be proud.
From a gameplay side, I will say that I did find some of the boss fight balancing a bit uneven. Mostly dipping into a bit too easy on several of them. But one counter to that is that I seem to have become a bit of a power gamer over the last three years, and I found a particularly lethal combination of the traits available which the average player may not. The other counter is that easy is fine if it means it's staying smooth and relaxing.
Maybe it's the FromSoft brainrot that causes me to even feel the need to justify that, but there it is.
Whereas I would have only really suggested Reverie Under the Moonlight to people plumbing the depths of this genre niche, Moonlit Farewell has reached a point of polish and artistic appeal where I will happily recommend it to anyone. It is the type of game that—to me—justifies delving into a niche and which can introduce the curious to that kind of spelunking. It is a very nice little game and I would love to see more people appreciate it.