Lunacid is inspired heavily by From Software's King's Field and Shadow Tower series (with references to other things thrown in). I think it delivers in a few ways and I don't dislike it, but fell far short of bringing enough of interest for me.
Lunacid is visually stunning and has incredible music throughout. The heavily pixelated aesthetic does a ton of work to make this game call back to From's old series and I really enjoy the way this game's environments look. Evocative color choices also help to give the game a unique look, so though it is clearly inspired by KF, you wouldn't mistake the two.
The enemy and NPC designs don't work as well for me. When the enemies aren't straight callbacks to From games (skeletons, slimes, lizard men), they are mostly uninspired or feel strangely out of place. Many of the NPCs have an anime aesthetic that is extremely discordant and just isn't as well done as most of the other art in the game.
The exception is Sheryl the Crow, who looks great and plays a flute. A+.
Gameplay is first person (mostly) melee combat but misses some of the systems that make this style of game work really well. Attacks are somewhat spammable, you are able to move very quickly, and enemies don't have large reactions when hit. Rather than a game of dodging, exploiting opportunities, and interrupting opponents, this feels like Skyrim hack and slash. There are a lot of ranged options that are powerful and, when combined with your speed, means you can also trivialize most enemies anyway.
Enemy design tends to be simple -- most of them simply rush towards you and spam attacks that if you aren't already moving away, will always land. Enemy difficulty seems to be purely tuned by number of hitpoints -- until you outlevel an area, enemies take an extreme amount of damage to kill.
The most egregious example of this is the final boss, who has a truly ridiculous amount of hitpoints, regenerates and has attacks that are mostly not worth trying to dodge. My strategy (which worked flawlessly and was incredibly dumb) was to just stand next to him and spam uncharged attacks, healing when necessary.
It all feels both unsatisfyingly easy and also unsatisfyingly cheap.
The advancement systems at play here have some cool parts, with weapons you can use to gain experience and then change their form. Mostly these are strictly worse than what you find, but it is a cool idea.
Magic works through spell rings (Shadow Tower? Eternal Ring!?) you find in the environment that you equip to cast spells. There are a ton of these and beyond your regular lightning, fire, and ice spells, many of them have quirky effects that feel useless in a way I appreciated. I didn't find a ton of reason to experiment with them but this is probably the place where you can see the personality of the developer the most.
There are also quite a few arbitrary puzzle-ish mechanics or random things you can do to progress or unlock things (advancing weapons is one of these). It feels very thrown together without a ton of consideration for what makes a puzzle or discovery engaging to a player.
Unfortunately most of the content of the game seems to be gesturing at some other game or property. There isn't much that truly feels like Lunacid itself here.
The game has the Moonlight Greatsword because King's Field and you get to it by riding a long boat ride because Shadow Tower. There is a level that is almost a copy of Prison of Hope from Demon's Souls and a level that is Cainhurst from Bloodborne with a bit of Castlevania flavor added into it. All of these things are strictly referential and don't have any real connection to the game or world of Lunacid.
From Software themselves take motifs, mechanics, and environments from previous games and remix them into their newer things, but always do so with a purpose, turning the reference into a part of this new world with something new to say or offer. Lunacid isn't interested in that -- this is a repository of hollow references.
Narratively, Lunacid is sort of a mess. The throughline initially has to do with escaping the pit you have been thrown into, though halfway through the game it is revealed that there isn't really anything to escape to, so you go to the bottom of the hole and kill some monster that hasn't been mentioned in order to wake up the creature in the opening cutscene with help from friends whose camaraderie hasn't been established. Your reward is an erudite-seeming, poetry-ish, reading that doesn't really have much to do with your journey or even any of the identifiable themes in the game.
Like its content, the side narratives of Lunacid are all gesturing at other properties and there is nothing really holding any of it together. There is some attempt to tell small vignettes within some of the levels, but none of it seems to have anything to do with anything else and just comes off as random or pointless.
The games it takes inspiration from go to lengths to explore character stories in line with the major themes of the games, bringing it all together into a cohesive, resonant experience. Lunacid doesn't have it.
This review reads as pretty negative, and though most of the systems, narrative, and core design prevents me from liking this game much, I definitely don't hate it. It plays well enough and exploring the levels can be fun, with the aesthetics and audio design doing most of the heavy lifting to pull you through the experience.
Strangely, I don't think this one is really for the King's Field fans -- if you haven't played the games it is cribbing from, maybe it hits a bit closer to the mark and you would end up having a better time with it.
Lunacid is visually stunning and has incredible music throughout. The heavily pixelated aesthetic does a ton of work to make this game call back to From's old series and I really enjoy the way this game's environments look. Evocative color choices also help to give the game a unique look, so though it is clearly inspired by KF, you wouldn't mistake the two.
The enemy and NPC designs don't work as well for me. When the enemies aren't straight callbacks to From games (skeletons, slimes, lizard men), they are mostly uninspired or feel strangely out of place. Many of the NPCs have an anime aesthetic that is extremely discordant and just isn't as well done as most of the other art in the game.
The exception is Sheryl the Crow, who looks great and plays a flute. A+.
Gameplay is first person (mostly) melee combat but misses some of the systems that make this style of game work really well. Attacks are somewhat spammable, you are able to move very quickly, and enemies don't have large reactions when hit. Rather than a game of dodging, exploiting opportunities, and interrupting opponents, this feels like Skyrim hack and slash. There are a lot of ranged options that are powerful and, when combined with your speed, means you can also trivialize most enemies anyway.
Enemy design tends to be simple -- most of them simply rush towards you and spam attacks that if you aren't already moving away, will always land. Enemy difficulty seems to be purely tuned by number of hitpoints -- until you outlevel an area, enemies take an extreme amount of damage to kill.
The most egregious example of this is the final boss, who has a truly ridiculous amount of hitpoints, regenerates and has attacks that are mostly not worth trying to dodge. My strategy (which worked flawlessly and was incredibly dumb) was to just stand next to him and spam uncharged attacks, healing when necessary.
It all feels both unsatisfyingly easy and also unsatisfyingly cheap.
The advancement systems at play here have some cool parts, with weapons you can use to gain experience and then change their form. Mostly these are strictly worse than what you find, but it is a cool idea.
Magic works through spell rings (Shadow Tower? Eternal Ring!?) you find in the environment that you equip to cast spells. There are a ton of these and beyond your regular lightning, fire, and ice spells, many of them have quirky effects that feel useless in a way I appreciated. I didn't find a ton of reason to experiment with them but this is probably the place where you can see the personality of the developer the most.
There are also quite a few arbitrary puzzle-ish mechanics or random things you can do to progress or unlock things (advancing weapons is one of these). It feels very thrown together without a ton of consideration for what makes a puzzle or discovery engaging to a player.
Unfortunately most of the content of the game seems to be gesturing at some other game or property. There isn't much that truly feels like Lunacid itself here.
The game has the Moonlight Greatsword because King's Field and you get to it by riding a long boat ride because Shadow Tower. There is a level that is almost a copy of Prison of Hope from Demon's Souls and a level that is Cainhurst from Bloodborne with a bit of Castlevania flavor added into it. All of these things are strictly referential and don't have any real connection to the game or world of Lunacid.
From Software themselves take motifs, mechanics, and environments from previous games and remix them into their newer things, but always do so with a purpose, turning the reference into a part of this new world with something new to say or offer. Lunacid isn't interested in that -- this is a repository of hollow references.
Narratively, Lunacid is sort of a mess. The throughline initially has to do with escaping the pit you have been thrown into, though halfway through the game it is revealed that there isn't really anything to escape to, so you go to the bottom of the hole and kill some monster that hasn't been mentioned in order to wake up the creature in the opening cutscene with help from friends whose camaraderie hasn't been established. Your reward is an erudite-seeming, poetry-ish, reading that doesn't really have much to do with your journey or even any of the identifiable themes in the game.
Like its content, the side narratives of Lunacid are all gesturing at other properties and there is nothing really holding any of it together. There is some attempt to tell small vignettes within some of the levels, but none of it seems to have anything to do with anything else and just comes off as random or pointless.
The games it takes inspiration from go to lengths to explore character stories in line with the major themes of the games, bringing it all together into a cohesive, resonant experience. Lunacid doesn't have it.
This review reads as pretty negative, and though most of the systems, narrative, and core design prevents me from liking this game much, I definitely don't hate it. It plays well enough and exploring the levels can be fun, with the aesthetics and audio design doing most of the heavy lifting to pull you through the experience.
Strangely, I don't think this one is really for the King's Field fans -- if you haven't played the games it is cribbing from, maybe it hits a bit closer to the mark and you would end up having a better time with it.