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.
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.
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!
got this on sale around when TOTK dropped and my brother walked in on me playing it and said "is that the new zelda" it was humiliating
Not "The" dungeon crawler i wanted
Fun but lots tedious
Fun but lots tedious
This game rules. I'm a dungeon dude who also gets to run a shop and hit thieves in the head with a broom. My dream life.
The idea of a rouge-lite with a store management on the side is neat, but the novelty wears off quickly with how repetitive everything becomes.
The concept of mixing a roguelike dungeon crawler with a shop management game is interesting, unfortunately both sides come across as undercooked. Combat is very simplistic and repetitive, and there is no real skill expression or personality to the shop management either
Not a lot of depth, clunky combat
This game was really fun. I loved the dual dungeon crawling and shop keep bit. Really enjoyed my time with this game
Very satisfying to sell things for a really high price so you get allllllllllll the money
amazing game, great artstyle
5/10 - PC
This game was initially intriguing as I enjoyed Recettear but it really failed to deliver despite giving it about 6 hours, this is a game I would recommend anyone to try on Game Pass before purchase if it wasn't for the fact that Game Pass->Steam is a pipeline most devs shoot down aggressively. Getting to the 2nd area the combat didn't get much better and after you beat the 1-1 and 1-2 boss once or twice you can burst them down in under 2s with a great sword. The store side of things is fairly mild, if it wasn't for the fact that it was so involved this is a game that at least has a cozy atmosphere so might be nice to play if you want to get into that feeling.
This game was initially intriguing as I enjoyed Recettear but it really failed to deliver despite giving it about 6 hours, this is a game I would recommend anyone to try on Game Pass before purchase if it wasn't for the fact that Game Pass->Steam is a pipeline most devs shoot down aggressively. Getting to the 2nd area the combat didn't get much better and after you beat the 1-1 and 1-2 boss once or twice you can burst them down in under 2s with a great sword. The store side of things is fairly mild, if it wasn't for the fact that it was so involved this is a game that at least has a cozy atmosphere so might be nice to play if you want to get into that feeling.
Comecei jogar pq queria um jogo bem simples e com um loop gostosinho para jogar em paralelo com Baldurs Gate III (que é muito denso). Ele cumpre esse propósito, mas achei que enjooa rápido e depois de um tempo o desafio fica muito mais em você fazer upgrade de arma pq aumentou a defesa dos inimigos do que um desafio de combate/mecânico por si só. O que vira um jogo de farmar recursos praticamente e isso faz perder bastante do seu brilho na reta final... O bom que não é tão longo, me divertiu bastante, cumpriu o propósito e bola pra frente.
infelizmente não conseguiu me conquistar pra valer na primeira jogada, ai fiquei com preguiça e dropei, mas pretendo jogar no futuro pq ele é sensacional da mesma maneira
The game is nice, if you like old Zelda games you should play it, the selling mechanic of the game is easy and fun but if you don't make constant progress it could become boring to replay the same dungeons all the time
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.
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 premise of the game combining two of my favorite things - management sims with roguelites, is what got me through the front door. I enjoyed my time with the game a lot for the first 2/3 or so, but eventually the novelty wore off and the game got pretty repetitive. Not a lot to separate one dungeon from the next, and all the items you're selling sort of just start to blend together. Still a fun game but it overstayed its welcome a bit.
Eu gosto de joguinho com sistema de comércio e vila, e essa parte do jogo é legal.
Mas a parte "rogue-like" e combate é bem morna, pra dizer o mínimo. O combate não responde bem, as hitbox fazem menos sentido que Dark Souls 2, e o loop de combate fica repetitivo bem rápido.
Poderia ser bem melhor, porém. Talvez uma sequência no futuro se houver, consiga consertar isso
Mas a parte "rogue-like" e combate é bem morna, pra dizer o mínimo. O combate não responde bem, as hitbox fazem menos sentido que Dark Souls 2, e o loop de combate fica repetitivo bem rápido.
Poderia ser bem melhor, porém. Talvez uma sequência no futuro se houver, consiga consertar isso
I bought this game after I played the demo (which I really liked). I thought the game played loop seemed fun and interesting. Fast forward ~7 hours and I realize it's just more and more of the same... This usually doesn't happen, but I got bored. I had absolutely zero motivation to continue. I feel like the game could use some extra pizzazz--story, mechanics, etc. It's a shame too since it has potential.
i wish I could get head this sloppy
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.
‣ 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.
Dungeon crawler x shopkeep sim. one of my fav indie titles and its nice and short. always a blast to come back to
The mixed reception to this game confuses me, I don't understand what's not to like here. The dungeon-crawling is pretty simple, nothing special in its clear Zelda/Rogue inspirations, but it works great in tandem with the shop management, which is super fun. I thought initially that it was lame to have to guess the prices on my own, but then it quickly became the most satisfying part of the gameplay loop. Also the game is gorgeous, the lack of outlines gives a striking look. If anything, I could've asked for a better soundtrack; it's pleasantly catchy, but I don't think a single track will stick with me.
Como diria Chico Moedas: "O capitalismo é uma merda", mas no jogo ele está ao meu favor e durante o curto período em que eu vendia um livro por quase 100.000 moedas eu achei do caralho
This review contains spoilers
After having this game in my backlog for a long time after briefly playing it, I decided to come back to it and finish it. A sucker for pixel art, the graphics are pretty and I have little to talk about in that regard. TL;DR: Great concept, poor execution. Only play if you know exactly what you're getting.
One of my biggest gripes with this game while playing was its controls and mechanics that obviously favored controller use, so the play experience while strictly using keyboard and mouse takes some serious getting used to, but I 100% blame myself for being too stubborn to invest in a controller to use on PC.
The idea of managing your shop and selling items obtained during your dungeon runs is a great pull, but in this particular practice, it got boring quick. Most items felt like random junk with little cue on how valuable it would be, which was an important factor in making money. After finding myself selling high priced junk for low prices and vice versa, the entire concept of managing the prices of your stock got boiled down to setting the price for an item absurdly high and slowly lowering it until your customers were happy enough to buy it. The most interesting part about actually managing your shop was an uncommon event when a customer came in willing to buy actual weapons/armor, but between how inconsistently they would appear, how rare it is to find weapons/armor in the dungeon, and how much resources it costs to forge them yourself, it felt too much like a waste of time. Instead, I found myself itching to get the shop management portion of the game over with so I could go back into the dungeon.
That being said, the dungeon crawling experience left much to be desired as well. Combat felt wonky and unintuitive, but it may be important to note that I strictly used the Big Swords throughout the entirety of my playthrough. The enemies and bosses you come across can be difficult and it can be fun overcoming that difficulty through learning and upgrading your weapons/armor, but every run felt the same after a while. You go in, kill things to collect a bunch of junk that fills your inventory quickly, leave, sell that junk, maybe upgrade given you can afford it, and repeat until the big boss is defeated. There are very few interesting rooms that aren't purely enemy filled, one being a secret room with a chest that you can fill with your junk to send back to your shop without having to leave, which was an all too rare occurrence. Another secret room involves entering a portal to a special floor that rewards you with a random run-bound unique weapon that... I never used. After realizing how pointless they were to get, I stopped entering the secret floors completely. Between the little variety between runs and boring itemization, I was reluctantly clawing my way through completing this game just so I could scratch it off my backlog.
After beating the final boss which proved easier than expected, I was able to experience the Between Dimensions DLC, which, unfortunately, was the most fun part of playing this game for me. Despite being a lot of the same ol' same ol', the dungeon that was an amalgamation of the four previous dungeons you spent time in proved to spice up the game just a little more. Having a single, longer dungeon that you're able to unlock checkpoints in as you inch closer to the final boss gave me a better sense of progression, but before I knew it, and before I bothered with much of the new content other than upgrading my weapons/armor even further because that's what I was trained to do up to that point, I had reached the final boss and finished the game entirely. Finally, after a grueling 38 hours, I was able to uninstall the game and never look back (until now, I guess). I had initially planned on obtaining all the achievements for the game too, but after seeing the few that involved beating the bosses without getting hit or beating them using only the broom, I decided I'd rather eat chalk. Any other game... not this game.
All in all, it's an okay game and there's reason it has Very Positive reviews on Steam, so I reckon I'm an outlier, but its unfulfilled potential was too great for me to enjoy it as others have. Due to my eagerness to beat the game, I skipped what little dialogue there was regarding the story, so I won't comment on that. As long as you know exactly what you're getting into first, you'll enjoy Moonlighter.
One of my biggest gripes with this game while playing was its controls and mechanics that obviously favored controller use, so the play experience while strictly using keyboard and mouse takes some serious getting used to, but I 100% blame myself for being too stubborn to invest in a controller to use on PC.
The idea of managing your shop and selling items obtained during your dungeon runs is a great pull, but in this particular practice, it got boring quick. Most items felt like random junk with little cue on how valuable it would be, which was an important factor in making money. After finding myself selling high priced junk for low prices and vice versa, the entire concept of managing the prices of your stock got boiled down to setting the price for an item absurdly high and slowly lowering it until your customers were happy enough to buy it. The most interesting part about actually managing your shop was an uncommon event when a customer came in willing to buy actual weapons/armor, but between how inconsistently they would appear, how rare it is to find weapons/armor in the dungeon, and how much resources it costs to forge them yourself, it felt too much like a waste of time. Instead, I found myself itching to get the shop management portion of the game over with so I could go back into the dungeon.
That being said, the dungeon crawling experience left much to be desired as well. Combat felt wonky and unintuitive, but it may be important to note that I strictly used the Big Swords throughout the entirety of my playthrough. The enemies and bosses you come across can be difficult and it can be fun overcoming that difficulty through learning and upgrading your weapons/armor, but every run felt the same after a while. You go in, kill things to collect a bunch of junk that fills your inventory quickly, leave, sell that junk, maybe upgrade given you can afford it, and repeat until the big boss is defeated. There are very few interesting rooms that aren't purely enemy filled, one being a secret room with a chest that you can fill with your junk to send back to your shop without having to leave, which was an all too rare occurrence. Another secret room involves entering a portal to a special floor that rewards you with a random run-bound unique weapon that... I never used. After realizing how pointless they were to get, I stopped entering the secret floors completely. Between the little variety between runs and boring itemization, I was reluctantly clawing my way through completing this game just so I could scratch it off my backlog.
After beating the final boss which proved easier than expected, I was able to experience the Between Dimensions DLC, which, unfortunately, was the most fun part of playing this game for me. Despite being a lot of the same ol' same ol', the dungeon that was an amalgamation of the four previous dungeons you spent time in proved to spice up the game just a little more. Having a single, longer dungeon that you're able to unlock checkpoints in as you inch closer to the final boss gave me a better sense of progression, but before I knew it, and before I bothered with much of the new content other than upgrading my weapons/armor even further because that's what I was trained to do up to that point, I had reached the final boss and finished the game entirely. Finally, after a grueling 38 hours, I was able to uninstall the game and never look back (until now, I guess). I had initially planned on obtaining all the achievements for the game too, but after seeing the few that involved beating the bosses without getting hit or beating them using only the broom, I decided I'd rather eat chalk. Any other game... not this game.
All in all, it's an okay game and there's reason it has Very Positive reviews on Steam, so I reckon I'm an outlier, but its unfulfilled potential was too great for me to enjoy it as others have. Due to my eagerness to beat the game, I skipped what little dialogue there was regarding the story, so I won't comment on that. As long as you know exactly what you're getting into first, you'll enjoy Moonlighter.
Functions perfectly fine. Could not be less interesting if it tried.
Moonlighter... y'know, I feel bad rating this as low as I do, because its not like I didn't enjoy it. Honestly this game is very cozy, and its just a nice world to exist in for a while. The music is superb, the visuals are bright and vibrant, the location and enemy designs are fun and varied, and you can really feel the love that's been poured into that side of things. But I just think that, fundamentally, this game doesn't really work.
So it's going for a 2-seperate-games-bolted-together premise, with the idea being that progress in one can be turned into progress in the other and vice versa. The only other thing I've played like that would be Cult of the Lamb, but neither game has exactly sold me on the concept. The two subgames seem a fair bit less disconnected in Moonlighter than they did in Cult of the Lamb, but I still found the structure led to a rather oddly paced experience.
The main compounding problem in Moonlighter is that, frankly, neither of the subgames are very good. The combat in the dungeons is clunky and awkward and felt weirdly unresponsive at times. Add to this the small and unupgradeable inventory size, which means each dungeon run ends up with you spending about 60+% of your time managing your inventory... seriously, the whole game is about looting, why can I only carry 20 things at a time? There are so many games that do this combat style so much better, and Moonlighter's combat comes off as a bit phoned in, as something just made to fill a 'combat goes here' space on a concept board.
The shopkeeping side of Moonlighter is less generic but still really quite undeveloped. The main thing you do is... guess what prices to charge for things. That's it. The core of this part of the game is essentially "Guess what number I'm thinking of". Sure you occasionally have to tackle a thief or assist a confused customer, but the shopkeeping in this game is honestly very disengaging, especially after you've worked out the prices for most things and you're literally just stood there at the till waiting for customers to come give you money.
Remarkably, the aesthetics and tone of the game did actually make these two paper-thin minigames feel quite charming. But that's the thing with Moonlighter; in the moment I was quite enjoying it, but I never felt that enthused to go back to it after each session. I dunno, I think I did enjoy this overall, and I definitely don't regret playing it, but I really don't think I'd be comfortable saying this was a good game.
So it's going for a 2-seperate-games-bolted-together premise, with the idea being that progress in one can be turned into progress in the other and vice versa. The only other thing I've played like that would be Cult of the Lamb, but neither game has exactly sold me on the concept. The two subgames seem a fair bit less disconnected in Moonlighter than they did in Cult of the Lamb, but I still found the structure led to a rather oddly paced experience.
The main compounding problem in Moonlighter is that, frankly, neither of the subgames are very good. The combat in the dungeons is clunky and awkward and felt weirdly unresponsive at times. Add to this the small and unupgradeable inventory size, which means each dungeon run ends up with you spending about 60+% of your time managing your inventory... seriously, the whole game is about looting, why can I only carry 20 things at a time? There are so many games that do this combat style so much better, and Moonlighter's combat comes off as a bit phoned in, as something just made to fill a 'combat goes here' space on a concept board.
The shopkeeping side of Moonlighter is less generic but still really quite undeveloped. The main thing you do is... guess what prices to charge for things. That's it. The core of this part of the game is essentially "Guess what number I'm thinking of". Sure you occasionally have to tackle a thief or assist a confused customer, but the shopkeeping in this game is honestly very disengaging, especially after you've worked out the prices for most things and you're literally just stood there at the till waiting for customers to come give you money.
Remarkably, the aesthetics and tone of the game did actually make these two paper-thin minigames feel quite charming. But that's the thing with Moonlighter; in the moment I was quite enjoying it, but I never felt that enthused to go back to it after each session. I dunno, I think I did enjoy this overall, and I definitely don't regret playing it, but I really don't think I'd be comfortable saying this was a good game.
Okay, I think I will eventually come back to this and try to progress a lot further than I did but I just... felt so underwhelmed a disappointed in this game especially as someone who LOVES shopkeeping-style tycoons and dungeon-crawlers. The idea of tackling complex dungeons with multiple floors to ransack for items to sell in town had me HOOKED. Unfortunately, while the premise is great, the concept ultimately just falls flat.
First of all, a minor(?) nitpick but who the HELL releases a game on steam with no actual keyboard controls? I literally could not navigate the menu because it was so unintuitive that I had to google controls on steam discussions to start. The devs even acknowledge this and explicitly have said they do NOT want to accommodate for keyboard & mouse players, and that the game was designed for controllers. I feel like I wouldn't usually care, except like? You're on steam, appealing to pc gamers, and don't explicitly tell me on the steam page that I won't have fun without a controller. Straight up wtf LOL
But whatever, you know. Its really not that big of a deal and I mean I had a controller anyways so oh well. Except... the dungeon elements were incredibly, incredibly easy after just 2 or 3 runs. I died to the boss maybe once before I was able to beat the first floor every single time & went on to clear the subsequent levels just as easily. Its not like I expected Hollow Knight levels of difficulty or anything, but this definitely feels like you will only find challenge/fun in the dungeoneering if you are new to the genre. I also want to say that I DO consider myself decently good at games that test pattern-recognition and reflexes like bullet hells, so take my experience with a grain of salt.
Despite this, I still felt okay with the game at first. I honestly didn't explore too far after a couple attempts since on top of feeling too easy for me, the combat was kind of clunky, but it was passable enough. Weapons aside from the sword/spear felt not great to me, but I also generally dislike bows in video games especially in a top down where I can't really aim comfortably. But while in dungeons, you're main goal is typically fighting and exploring for loot to sell in your shop. To me, this could have EASILY redeemed the game for me. Instead, in my little time with the game the store aspect felt really... boring? Easy. Also a little confusing? I just kinda want to sigh when I think back on it.
When I think of an amazing capitalism simulator, I think of Recettear. It also has a very mid dungeon system, but MAN the actual store aspect is so fun. I cant help but compare them to a degree. One thing that came to mind in my playthrough is the idea that different customers of different wealth brackets can shop, & you can sell things to each person with different prices because of what they are willing to accept. Similarly, there is a sort of supply and demand system that comes into effect that shows you if things are being sold for higher or lower than normal retail, and I would like it but I felt like. A little lost? In deciphering when it changes, by how much, etc. You have to FIND what the range of prices is for an item through trial and error which is totally okay, but when the specific item is being sold at market none of your recordings are saved in the log book and you arent given any type of ballpark estimate for the resources worth that you find. For example, in Recettear, if you sell a short sword, putting it in your display and selling to a customer will bring up a default price of say 500 gold, and you can adjust to 120% markup or 80% discounted rate or adjust to whatever arbitrary number or percentage you like & work within that system to find the sweet spot in different customer demographics, sales, price drops, etc. It is a really indepth system that takes something simple but elevates it. Moonlighter attempts to do the same and honestly does, but worse. When you find an item, you have no clue if you are pricing something at 100 gold when it should really be 8. This sounds like not a big deal, except the price ranges between items on the first floor alone goes from 3 coins to over 1k. How am I supposed to guess anywhere near accurately? Especially when pricing things poorly also reflects on your relationships with different classes or affects the popularity of items. Its really frustrating.
To speak more on the sales aspect, I really, really dislike the actual ui for it. I like the little idea of setting up items in the boxes you want and customising your store. Its really cute!! Recettear did similar and I truly loved it. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to compare the 2 once again to accurately demonstrate my issue with the games approaches to fulfilling the actual sales. In Moonlighter, an NPC will approach the box with an item, inspect it, then make a face that shows how happy or upset with a price they are. They will then leave the store angry, or leave money at your register and dip. In Recettear, the npc approaches the item, and then prompts a screen where you see the person who wants to buy, the base price of the item/what they are offering, & then are given the option to adjust and haggle. They give dialogue to indicate their feelings and leave either successfully paying or in anger. These function very similarly, but Moonlighter takes the individual sale out of the equation which circles back to the idea of different classes having different budgets and hurts that part of the system. It is impossible to tell who is going to buy what. NPCs approach multiple items and pick what they are going to buy, and you cant adjust the prices in preparation for each customer. It is just so hard to do that. Not to mention that in my experience, distinguishing who is wealthy or poor or what was so HARD for me. In Receattear, you are told what the person wants to buy, they clearly are wearing tattered clothing if they are poor, fancy clothes and dresses if rich, etc and you can engage accordingly and react. In Moonlighter, I could not do this effectively. I struggle to find the proper words, but the system just felt unsatisfying. This piece of interesting depth felt like something I couldn't actually play around, and I wish that wasnt the case.
This game very clearly has so much love in it and so much attention to detail that I want to like it. The art is very pretty, and the various character designs are very cute. I like the aesthetics and the feeling of the town and I love that your business helps the town flourish too. I like that the dungeoneering and the store front feel equally important, and I like the thought put into it. Unfortunately, the balancing and minor flaws add up for me in this game and ultimately made my experience feel like a boring slog, where I never actually had a piece of the game I could appreciate. If 1/2 of the systems were very good, I could rate this well. But for me, I just couldnt enjoy it. It was incredibly underwhelming. I hope you can find more fun with this than I, but unless you are very new to these systems in games, I think your experience will be sullied by its minor but additive flaws.
First of all, a minor(?) nitpick but who the HELL releases a game on steam with no actual keyboard controls? I literally could not navigate the menu because it was so unintuitive that I had to google controls on steam discussions to start. The devs even acknowledge this and explicitly have said they do NOT want to accommodate for keyboard & mouse players, and that the game was designed for controllers. I feel like I wouldn't usually care, except like? You're on steam, appealing to pc gamers, and don't explicitly tell me on the steam page that I won't have fun without a controller. Straight up wtf LOL
But whatever, you know. Its really not that big of a deal and I mean I had a controller anyways so oh well. Except... the dungeon elements were incredibly, incredibly easy after just 2 or 3 runs. I died to the boss maybe once before I was able to beat the first floor every single time & went on to clear the subsequent levels just as easily. Its not like I expected Hollow Knight levels of difficulty or anything, but this definitely feels like you will only find challenge/fun in the dungeoneering if you are new to the genre. I also want to say that I DO consider myself decently good at games that test pattern-recognition and reflexes like bullet hells, so take my experience with a grain of salt.
Despite this, I still felt okay with the game at first. I honestly didn't explore too far after a couple attempts since on top of feeling too easy for me, the combat was kind of clunky, but it was passable enough. Weapons aside from the sword/spear felt not great to me, but I also generally dislike bows in video games especially in a top down where I can't really aim comfortably. But while in dungeons, you're main goal is typically fighting and exploring for loot to sell in your shop. To me, this could have EASILY redeemed the game for me. Instead, in my little time with the game the store aspect felt really... boring? Easy. Also a little confusing? I just kinda want to sigh when I think back on it.
When I think of an amazing capitalism simulator, I think of Recettear. It also has a very mid dungeon system, but MAN the actual store aspect is so fun. I cant help but compare them to a degree. One thing that came to mind in my playthrough is the idea that different customers of different wealth brackets can shop, & you can sell things to each person with different prices because of what they are willing to accept. Similarly, there is a sort of supply and demand system that comes into effect that shows you if things are being sold for higher or lower than normal retail, and I would like it but I felt like. A little lost? In deciphering when it changes, by how much, etc. You have to FIND what the range of prices is for an item through trial and error which is totally okay, but when the specific item is being sold at market none of your recordings are saved in the log book and you arent given any type of ballpark estimate for the resources worth that you find. For example, in Recettear, if you sell a short sword, putting it in your display and selling to a customer will bring up a default price of say 500 gold, and you can adjust to 120% markup or 80% discounted rate or adjust to whatever arbitrary number or percentage you like & work within that system to find the sweet spot in different customer demographics, sales, price drops, etc. It is a really indepth system that takes something simple but elevates it. Moonlighter attempts to do the same and honestly does, but worse. When you find an item, you have no clue if you are pricing something at 100 gold when it should really be 8. This sounds like not a big deal, except the price ranges between items on the first floor alone goes from 3 coins to over 1k. How am I supposed to guess anywhere near accurately? Especially when pricing things poorly also reflects on your relationships with different classes or affects the popularity of items. Its really frustrating.
To speak more on the sales aspect, I really, really dislike the actual ui for it. I like the little idea of setting up items in the boxes you want and customising your store. Its really cute!! Recettear did similar and I truly loved it. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to compare the 2 once again to accurately demonstrate my issue with the games approaches to fulfilling the actual sales. In Moonlighter, an NPC will approach the box with an item, inspect it, then make a face that shows how happy or upset with a price they are. They will then leave the store angry, or leave money at your register and dip. In Recettear, the npc approaches the item, and then prompts a screen where you see the person who wants to buy, the base price of the item/what they are offering, & then are given the option to adjust and haggle. They give dialogue to indicate their feelings and leave either successfully paying or in anger. These function very similarly, but Moonlighter takes the individual sale out of the equation which circles back to the idea of different classes having different budgets and hurts that part of the system. It is impossible to tell who is going to buy what. NPCs approach multiple items and pick what they are going to buy, and you cant adjust the prices in preparation for each customer. It is just so hard to do that. Not to mention that in my experience, distinguishing who is wealthy or poor or what was so HARD for me. In Receattear, you are told what the person wants to buy, they clearly are wearing tattered clothing if they are poor, fancy clothes and dresses if rich, etc and you can engage accordingly and react. In Moonlighter, I could not do this effectively. I struggle to find the proper words, but the system just felt unsatisfying. This piece of interesting depth felt like something I couldn't actually play around, and I wish that wasnt the case.
This game very clearly has so much love in it and so much attention to detail that I want to like it. The art is very pretty, and the various character designs are very cute. I like the aesthetics and the feeling of the town and I love that your business helps the town flourish too. I like that the dungeoneering and the store front feel equally important, and I like the thought put into it. Unfortunately, the balancing and minor flaws add up for me in this game and ultimately made my experience feel like a boring slog, where I never actually had a piece of the game I could appreciate. If 1/2 of the systems were very good, I could rate this well. But for me, I just couldnt enjoy it. It was incredibly underwhelming. I hope you can find more fun with this than I, but unless you are very new to these systems in games, I think your experience will be sullied by its minor but additive flaws.
So i don't mind that the game basically requires you to stay on the early floors to get loot right it makes sense with the concept of the game, i dont mind a grind either, i do mind that this game is SO difficult. like sometimes i swear moves are just not dodgeable or they are dodged and it doesn't work. idk, enjoyable but im gonna shelf it and maybe come back to it when im in the mood for a long long grind?
Starts out promising with a nice addictive loop but doesn't develop in any meaningful way or offer much incentive to keep working through the dungeons. I'm guessing I stopped around 2/3rds of the way through, and still doing exactly the same thing I was at the start. An increasingly simple and shallow game. It can be nice to stick a podcast on and just turn your brain almost entirely off but there are far better games for that.