I found out about this game when a friend said he got it for free on the Epic Games store. I took a glance over it and saw dungeons, and since I liked Zelda I thought I'd like this one too. Keep in mind that this is the first roguelike I played and I knew nothing about the genre. Well... the word that describes this game for me is underwhelming.

In Moonlighter you have 5 mysterious dungeons which we know nothing about. Since the main character owns a store, your job will be to explore the dungeons, discover the secret behind them and make some money selling the stuff you find along the way. Each dungeon is made of 3 levels, each one with increased difficulty and thus better loot. Levels 2 and 3 of every dungeon are behind a mini boss and, to unlock another dungeon, level 3 has a final boss. You start the game with nothing besides a simple sword and a store to sell the items and the progression is made through the money you make selling the items on your store.

Unfortunately this game felt unbalanced to me. It takes a while to beat the first dungeon and, after beating it, I felt like the game would step up and only get better. That didn't happen. The first boss is difficult and requires you to carefully analyze its patterns to avoid taking damage and dying. But that's all the challenge the game provided for me. To progress in the dungeons you need to upgrade your equipment, obviously. But the mini bosses are so tanky that if you want to beat the dungeon you need to get the full equipment, and after you do that the final bosses present no challenge at all.

The second problem then arises. To get the full equipment you need: (i) items for the smith, (ii) gold to pay the smith. So you'll be going back and forth repeating the same cycle of: going to the dungeon, getting as much stuff as you can, selling them, repeat. It gets tiring pretty quickly, for the game doesn't incentivize exploration and the enemies are very similar throughout the whole playthrough. The good thing is that the higher the dungeon the more money you get with less trips. So it gets progressively faster to repeat this cycle but you have no incentive to beat previous dungeons, only if you really want a specific piece of equipment.

The final problem for me is the dungeons. They are boring, to put simply. They all have the same layouts only varying the theme of the dungeon, they are small, the enemies are very similar and there's an annoying inventory gimmick: you need to think about the placement of the items on your bag before leaving the dungeon. It is by far the most unnecessary thing in this game as it servers no purpose at all. At one point there is a way to completely neglect this whole gimmick so it's just a waste of time.

I think I have to talk about the store management portion of the game. The only thing the items do for you in this game is to improve you equipment. If the item doesn't do that it serves no purpose other than to be turned into gold. I wish I knew that when I started playing because I kept saving the rare items thinking they could be used to something. The store management then is basically a guess the price minigame. You have an item, how much do you think it's worth? If you put the right price people buy it, if you don't, they don't buy it. That's it. To try to mix things up a little, some clients can ask you to slay some monsters or bring them certain items in exchange for a bunch of money, but again there's no incentive for doing that. The dungeons are random and the last thing you want in this game is to go around searching for some specific mobs or items. It also doesn't matter if you do these side quests or not so it is another pointless gimmick.

Where the game shines in my opinion is on the style. The edgeless and round pixel art is fun and pleasing to look at. The music is charming and peaceful. As for the gameplay it is fluid due to the (overpowered) dash, it only gets repetitive quickly. There's also a pet gimmick worth mentioning, where some mobs can drop eggs and after hatching them you get a mini version of that monster that helps you.

I really wanted to like this game but unfortunately I can't. Despite being visible the amount of care and passion that went into this project, the design philosophies are questionable. It had a lot of potential but the execution is underwhelming.

I still have to finish the new game plus. I'll be back here after I finish it.

After putting a good few hours in and getting a better feel for the game's progression loop, I have come to the conclusion that I am indifferent to this game. If the combat felt smoother (being able to cancel out of attacks and being able to attack in more than 4 directions would be nice) and you could upgrade your backpack to give it more storage, I probably would stick with it. While there are solutions for the second point, they rely too much on luck for them to feel worth hunting for. I always feel torn between trying to get further into the dungeon and getting out early to sell more things at the shop. I could probably get far, but I don't want to deal with the frustration of making careless mistakes that cost me a run and tons of valuable materials. I guess the game makes me anxious? I'm never in a position where I'm excited to go back into a dungeon after selling stuff, and I'm never excited to sell off the expensive items I found. I wish this game made me feel more positive emotions, but it really gets nothing out of me.

I wish I could like you, Moonlighter, but it's not you, it's me. Actually it is mostly you the combat feel is really rough if it felt better I would probably want to beat this.

The game is pretty addictive, but at a certain point, I really felt a growing urge to finish the game and move on after a few too many cycles of managing the shop and raiding the dungeons.

The ending of the game itself is very strange and felt kind of out of left field even as I read several of the lore descriptions. Everything around it happens so fast it's hard to process or get too mad at it. Honestly for all the build up of the final door, it wasn't the final confrontation or sequence I was hoping to see, but at least it didn't add too many more hours I guess.

This is likely a game that's less annoying on the switch when you just play in bursts, but I did get this on game pass so it was nice to finally experience this game.

Interesting blend of roguelike dungeon exploration and shop management game. Get stuff in the dungeon, sell it in your shop and use the money to upgrade your shop and weapons. The shop part is really cool because you have to manage offer and demand for every item. The dungeon part is the other side of the coin, reaaaaaaally boring, you pick 2 weapons from the shop and that's it, you don't pick any upgrades during the runs and the bosses are always the same. Check it out if you have a Game Pass sub, otherwise get it on sale if you want to try it.

Moonlighter é uma surpresa no fim do túnel. E o motivo disso vem de algo pessoal, no qual me encontrava enjoado de jogos indies do tipo. Porém, Moonlighter é estupidamente divertido, e além disso, é muito bem feito. Um jogo que tem muitos pontos positivos e uma quantidade muito pequena de negativos, portanto, vamos para a review:

Jogabilidade[5/5]: Tudo funciona como deve funcionar perfeitamente! Esse jogo é muito bem feito, apesar de pelas reviews antigas dele reclamarem de muitos bugs, o jogo atualmente não sofre de nenhum bug, pelo menos pela minha percepção. Jogabilidade super bem ajustada, a sensação de controle do personagem foi muito bem feita, desde o dash até ataque, tudo é muito bem feito e bem funcional. Esse jogo deixa tudo mais fácil para o jogador, até mesmo quando o jogador quer craftar um item. Tudo é muito bem ajustado e toda a jogabilidade como um todo funciona.

Dificuldade[3/5]: Fácil. Eu cheguei a morrer em alguns poucos momentos, porém depois de um tempo eu não morri mais. Nas duas últimas áreas eu nem cheguei, nem mesmo no último boss. Os últimos boss também são muito fáceis, o último boss de todos por exemplo, muito fácil. Acredito que a ideia não era ser dificíl de fato, isso não é um problema, porém o jogo não te desafia na verdade. É basicamente pegar melhor arma e melhores armaduras disponíveis e partir para o boss final.

3 - Direção de arte[5/5]: QUE JOGO LINDO MEUDEUS!!!! Esse jogo é muito lindo e fluído, que trabalho sensacional os devs tiveram nesse jogo, digno de aplausos por uns 10 minutos. Jogo é muito lindo mesmo, tudo nesse jogo é muito fluído, e além disso, a comunicação da arte de cenário junto com a ideia de ambiente que o jogo quer passar, além dos minímos detalhes, que são imperciptiveis para certas pessoas, ou até em certos momentos de tensão. Muito bem feito, o design dos personagens, dos bosses ou de todos os objetos do cenário. As animações com diversos quadros de animação... Se eu continuar falando não vou parar!

História[4.5/5]: Ela é contada bem lentamente, tem poucos detalhes, e normalmente vem com notas espalhadas pelas dungeons(dizendo em certos momentos coisas obvias, ou notas explicando os motivos da dungeon e tudo). Acho muito interessante a relação do Will com as dungeons e todos os acontecimentos. Alias, o clima de descoberta do final é muito bom e eu sempre gosto quando se torna algo espacil que envolve ficção cientifíca, ou pelo menos, algo perto disso...

Trilha sonora[5/5]: A trilha sonora desse jogo é muito boa e tem sua personalidade própria, algo que não encontro muito em jogos indies. Eu consigo até sentir a trilha sonora tocando na minha cabeça até depois de terminar o jogo. Muito bonita! Além de claro, os efeitos sonoros serem muito bem feitos! Talvez outra supresa que não esperava desse jogo.

Gameplay[4.5/5]: Todo o conjunto de moonlighter funciona muito bem, a trilha sonora conversa bem com o cenário e a direção de arte, as animações conversa perfeitamente com a jogabilidade, ambos fluídos, ambos encaixados. Esse jogo tem características muito bem planejadas, desde a ideia de vender os itens e tudo, que aliás, não pensei que iria gostar, porém esse diferencial no jogo adiciona uma gama de possibilidades muito bem aproveitada dentro do jogo. Gostei muito desse ponto do jogo, porém, uns apecto que me deixou a desejar nesse jogo é o fato dos artefatos serem bem limitados e não fazerem tanta diferença, normalmente dano algum tipo de resistencia, ou dando um buff pequeno nada incrível. Não posso dizer isso de todos os artefatos, muito pelo fato de não ter jogado o new+(que adiciona artefatos exclusivos do new+). Bom outro ponto negativo que encontro bastante nesses jogos indies de aventura, é a variedade de gameplay, que não muda em nada durante todo o jogo, seila, desbloquear algum tipo de magia ou algo que muda a gameplay, normalmente o ciclo do jogo é simplesmente escolher uma arma que você se sente confortável e ir upando ela mais as armaduras de acordo com a exploração das dungeons, e meio que o jogo termina antes de se torna repetitivo de fato, apesar desses dois pontos, o jogo ainda consegue ser muito divertido.

Conclusão[4,5/5]: Sabe aquele jogo que você não quer parar de jogar, mas tem que parar ou porque é tarde, ou porque precisa fazer alguma obrigação? Ou aquele jogo que está sempre divertido não importa se está no final ou algo do tipo? Bom Moonlighter é uma grande surpresa nesse requisito, até porque, eu estava me sentindo saturado em relação a indies desse tipo, porém essa liberdade de Moonlighter mesclado com sua ideia que me parecia não ser tão diferenciada inicialmente, se tornou minha diversão nas minhas 17 horas neste jogo. Recomendo de coração esse jogo, bem divertido e consegue executar muito bem sua ideia, recomendo bastente!

I had decently high hopes for this game from the concept alone, but unfortunately it fell flat with nearly every aspect. The shop-keeping and combat are both extremely bare-bones and uninventive. They're palatable and definitely doable, but actual "fun" seems to always be slightly out of reach. On top of that, I encountered plenty of aggravating glitches - worst of which was my health meter forgetting how much health I was supposed to have and screwing me over in challenging locations. There were also typos in the dialogue, which is more of a pet-peeve of mine, but it really makes me question the quality control that went into this game. I didn't hate my time with Moonlighter, and I absolutely take no pleasure in trash-talking indie games, but I was disappointed overall. To end with a compliment though, the boss fights are pretty damn good!

Jogado pelo Android (Netflix), o jogo é perfeito pra jogar com toque, acredito que com o controle seria muito mais fácil, até sem graça.

Moonlighter é um bom joguinho pra passar tempo, fazer atividades repetitivas enquanto avança lentamente pela história (que não é o ponto forte do jogo).

Gosto que o jogo não complica nenhum dos sistemas dele, é tudo muito fácil de entender e evoluir, e isso com certeza deixa o jogo menos chato.

Moonlighter was not very good. It's a game that only has to be good at two things, and it was not good at either of them. The combat is terrible, but that would have been okay if the storefront aspect was good. It's a game about being a shopkeeper, after all. But running the store might be worse than the combat! There's absolutely nothing to it. I'm also not a fan of the art style. Still, this is not one of the worst games I've ever played. It was just one of the more personally disappointing ones.

Played from – to: (2023-09-06 – 2023-09-08) – PC controller.
‣ 3/10 – I saw no moons get lit.
‣ Thoughts: The idea of Moonlighter is slick and combines two pretty fun gameplay mechanics. On one side you manage a store, selling goods and managing what you sell and how much of it you keep for yourself and so on. Secondly, you fight to the death to restock that store and upgrade your character. These ideas sound fun but are poorly executed in the game itself. The dungeons play a lot like Binding of Isaac just without the good enemy variations and items to use. All you have is a weapon or two and fight the same 5 enemies. Granted I didn’t even get past the first dungeon but from what I saw it is very repetitive and dull. The two first chapters of the dungeon have the same exact golem bosses and barely vary. The fact that items have debuffs that effect in which slot you can have them, and in which stack you can hold the same item is bizarre and just makes the gameplay loop an even bigger grind. Figuring out how much an item should cost before you put it up for sale is also a hassle and forces you to sit in menus for days. Moonlighter failed to interest me in the two hours I gave it and that might be just me being impatient. But why should I bother giving this game more time if it sucked from the moment, I loaded it up? Overall, this game has decent ideas but fails to execute every single one of them. The combat is stiff and slow, the enemies barely have any variety or interesting attacks and the blend between Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon just fails to work.