"Whatever happens inside these scrunched, wrinkled fiber-bags of rotten-fruit-colored chopped hollow jumbo spaghetti bits is an accident of liquid physics. Our sentimentality is a coincidence. We are no smooth earnest factories; we are no diagram-perfect assembly lines. We are crowded hard bags of accidents down through which blood and other juices leak; we squeeze and our liquids spurt and rise. We must know the stupidity of this meat and we must permit it to terrify us. We must be afraid of this deadness. We must love each other. It is ridiculous if we do not"
-"just like hamburger;exactly like hamburger" by tim rogers
moon is a game that has been a phenomenon for many, many years, despite a whole lot of people probably having never played it until just this past year. my favorite game of All Time, undertale, owes a lot of its existence to moon's, and toby fox hasn't played it. before you play moon, you are immediately intrigued by moon and need to know more. it is a game that is equal parts obtuse 90s point 'n' click, social simulator and treatise on disarming ourselves and living (and more importantly LOVING) authentically. knowing about moon is a secret badge of honor among the in-the-know, or at least it was until its new translation and rerelease on modern hardware made the barrier of access 20 dollars instead of knowing japanese or using the gamefaqs guide to play a ROM or whatever.
but what about playing moon? a game that describes itself a remix rpg adventure makes it sound a little more complex than it is. it's at its core an adventure game that prides itself on telling you absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. a good portion of the game's puzzles require precise timing, memorizing patterns of both npcs and the environment, and the ability to navigate through surreal dialogue and cutscenes to work things out. but i think the developers also want you to collaborate as you play moon, as many games being developed in the early days of the internet wanted you to. part of my enjoyment of moon was reading along with a walkthrough, one with a writer sharing their own opinions and thoughts and strategies and victories and losses with me. they gave me their love in guiding me through this game, and this review is my best attempt at giving it back. gamefaqs user parrotshake, i love the living shit out of you.
moon's narrative is probably the key reason most people are here, and seeing what there is to see here is like finding a stone tablet with an ancient language's alphabet and grammatical rules inscribed onto it. understanding moon makes me understand a good 30 years of japanese game devleopment much more clearly. a lot has been said about how the developers at love-de-lic disseminated themselves into other studios like square and grasshopper manufacture, and their influence can be felt in games those people never touched. there's obvious titles like deadly premontion and undertale, but i also think games like persona 3 and final fantasy x took some of this game's philosophy to heart. and what a philosophy! in moon, a boy is trapped in his television or dreaming or something and has to pick up the pieces in the wake of destruction left by a traditonal jrpg hero. the most impactful of this for me was bringing the various killed animals back to life, and how much of this game's world is tied deeply to animals. they're deities, they're lifegivers and they're friends. saving perogon or exorcising gramby's summonbeast left me feeling so completely content, to see these characters whose lives were torn asunder by forces beyond their comprehension doing things they aren't supposed to be doing, and then lifting them out of their misery or saving them from it is a joyous act that moon revels in.
the whole game is joyous, it begs you to explore at your own pace and figure out the main story when you feel up for it, if you feel up for it. there's rarely any major pressure and for the most part its equally beneficial to watch filby fly his kite as it is to assemble pieces of a rocket ship. it's less elaborate puzzle box and more a series of events that seem almost unconcerned with the player's intervention or not, even though the player always brings about positive changes and helps the people in the game. it's nice to help people, it's nice to love people, even creepy cultists in the woods who make you memorize their stupid faces or wannabe idols or your grandma who's losing it and isn't fun to be around anymore.
the machines we inhabit are only going to fail us, eventually we will all be out in the woods desperate for someone to sing and dance and recite poems with us or play rock paper scissors with us or walk out dog when we're sick to. moon taught me to love the machine, even when the machine fails me and the machine doesn't want to work and when the machine ends up snapping us in two over and over again. open the door.
-"just like hamburger;exactly like hamburger" by tim rogers
moon is a game that has been a phenomenon for many, many years, despite a whole lot of people probably having never played it until just this past year. my favorite game of All Time, undertale, owes a lot of its existence to moon's, and toby fox hasn't played it. before you play moon, you are immediately intrigued by moon and need to know more. it is a game that is equal parts obtuse 90s point 'n' click, social simulator and treatise on disarming ourselves and living (and more importantly LOVING) authentically. knowing about moon is a secret badge of honor among the in-the-know, or at least it was until its new translation and rerelease on modern hardware made the barrier of access 20 dollars instead of knowing japanese or using the gamefaqs guide to play a ROM or whatever.
but what about playing moon? a game that describes itself a remix rpg adventure makes it sound a little more complex than it is. it's at its core an adventure game that prides itself on telling you absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. a good portion of the game's puzzles require precise timing, memorizing patterns of both npcs and the environment, and the ability to navigate through surreal dialogue and cutscenes to work things out. but i think the developers also want you to collaborate as you play moon, as many games being developed in the early days of the internet wanted you to. part of my enjoyment of moon was reading along with a walkthrough, one with a writer sharing their own opinions and thoughts and strategies and victories and losses with me. they gave me their love in guiding me through this game, and this review is my best attempt at giving it back. gamefaqs user parrotshake, i love the living shit out of you.
moon's narrative is probably the key reason most people are here, and seeing what there is to see here is like finding a stone tablet with an ancient language's alphabet and grammatical rules inscribed onto it. understanding moon makes me understand a good 30 years of japanese game devleopment much more clearly. a lot has been said about how the developers at love-de-lic disseminated themselves into other studios like square and grasshopper manufacture, and their influence can be felt in games those people never touched. there's obvious titles like deadly premontion and undertale, but i also think games like persona 3 and final fantasy x took some of this game's philosophy to heart. and what a philosophy! in moon, a boy is trapped in his television or dreaming or something and has to pick up the pieces in the wake of destruction left by a traditonal jrpg hero. the most impactful of this for me was bringing the various killed animals back to life, and how much of this game's world is tied deeply to animals. they're deities, they're lifegivers and they're friends. saving perogon or exorcising gramby's summonbeast left me feeling so completely content, to see these characters whose lives were torn asunder by forces beyond their comprehension doing things they aren't supposed to be doing, and then lifting them out of their misery or saving them from it is a joyous act that moon revels in.
the whole game is joyous, it begs you to explore at your own pace and figure out the main story when you feel up for it, if you feel up for it. there's rarely any major pressure and for the most part its equally beneficial to watch filby fly his kite as it is to assemble pieces of a rocket ship. it's less elaborate puzzle box and more a series of events that seem almost unconcerned with the player's intervention or not, even though the player always brings about positive changes and helps the people in the game. it's nice to help people, it's nice to love people, even creepy cultists in the woods who make you memorize their stupid faces or wannabe idols or your grandma who's losing it and isn't fun to be around anymore.
the machines we inhabit are only going to fail us, eventually we will all be out in the woods desperate for someone to sing and dance and recite poems with us or play rock paper scissors with us or walk out dog when we're sick to. moon taught me to love the machine, even when the machine fails me and the machine doesn't want to work and when the machine ends up snapping us in two over and over again. open the door.