For a team's first work and a company's second, it isn't as bad as you expect it to be... conceptually speaking, that is. Moon. starts off with exactly what you wouldn't expect from any of Maeda or Key's usual romps: a setting almost completely devoid of reality and school life, filled with mystery, and most of all, gloomy and bleak. It gives you only hints of whats to come, and it grips you with that alone. It's only then that things start to go downhill for the game, sadly.
The gameplay is introduced to you early on after some introductions for the main trio. No bullshit, it's terrible. I seriously don't even know why it's there, the only reason I can think of is for padding time, and a couple moments where you can get a bad end if you don't take certain actions. There's barely any room for exploration, because you aren't rewarded for exploration. You can walk into rooms and examine every tile if you'd like, though you'll find nothing 95% of the time. And so for a system basically intrisincally tied to exploration for there to be none, you expect unclear destinations, to sort of give a point to the system. But, no, not that too. Corridors are narrow, destinations are usually trivial and spoken by the main character right before you're thrown into the gameplay system. This, coupled with its day-by-day routine system, completely breaks the story, and any replayability it may have had. This, on its own, impeded me from even trying to get any other ending except the True End. So, sadly, this isn't going to be a super complete review, although from what I've read those endings aren't worth seeing anyway.
On that note, the story. Most of it is told in these destinations you're supposed to go, through your traditional sprite/CG and textbox system. You go through Ikumi's routine in the facility, which, as mentioned before, gets repetitive to the point of numbness. The pacing of the story is ruined. What I will say, though, is that the story itself, put in the toughest vacuum possible, isn't bad. It is backloaded to all hell, true, but it has a certain charm that can't be said to be present in the team's next work. But even then, it has issues. The Elpod sections, mainly, are absolutely awful. A great concept that could give way to great character development instead used to further push hentai scenes unto the player all of which are gratitious to the point of annoyance, a running theme with the game as a whole. It can be seen in the game's other hentai scenes, the ones that take place in Class B and C. They try to make this a part of the lore, but the intentions behind them are clear. Which, by the way, all have a weird air of scat and piss fetishes. Not my cup of tea.
So let's say you ignore all of that. There's plenty of characterization in the other sections and bits of the game, right? Well, that's correct... to a certain extent. While the characters are given a fair amount of time to interact and flesh themselves out, they end up with no depth anyway. They are far too simple and one-dimensional from start to finish. Ikumi and the Boy are the only ones I'd say that stray from this a tad, and have chemistry to boot, but what they do have feels cut short. For a visual novel of this size, with this many opportunities, most of their day-to-day lives are spent running through similar dialogue that has been run through a thesaurus, with barely any change.
It's only toward the end that this changes, because it has that "this episodic show is ending so here's your two episode plot finale" NG. Lots of things happen in that ending plot-wise that breaks from their routine. But since it's only "two episodes" you're left with wanting more, not in a "I want a sequel" way but in a "that felt rushed" way. And this extends to the plot as a whole, obviously. They introduce and reveal concepts that aren't really addressed in the best manner, and are ultimately rushed through as well. Good concepts, in fact, like most of the visual novel, that are squandered.
Just like the music and art, too. The music is surprisingly good and catchy even if the overall soundtrack is short and... repetitive. The CGs looks genuinely weird, but the sprite work is good, and it works with the 3D background well.
To conclude: it looks good, sounds good, but ultimately tastes okay, and some bites taste awful. A cake that I can't call average as a whole, but slightly below that.
If it had to be a numerical score: 4/10
Originally published at Limbo Channel as a double review with One ~To the Radiant Season~
The gameplay is introduced to you early on after some introductions for the main trio. No bullshit, it's terrible. I seriously don't even know why it's there, the only reason I can think of is for padding time, and a couple moments where you can get a bad end if you don't take certain actions. There's barely any room for exploration, because you aren't rewarded for exploration. You can walk into rooms and examine every tile if you'd like, though you'll find nothing 95% of the time. And so for a system basically intrisincally tied to exploration for there to be none, you expect unclear destinations, to sort of give a point to the system. But, no, not that too. Corridors are narrow, destinations are usually trivial and spoken by the main character right before you're thrown into the gameplay system. This, coupled with its day-by-day routine system, completely breaks the story, and any replayability it may have had. This, on its own, impeded me from even trying to get any other ending except the True End. So, sadly, this isn't going to be a super complete review, although from what I've read those endings aren't worth seeing anyway.
On that note, the story. Most of it is told in these destinations you're supposed to go, through your traditional sprite/CG and textbox system. You go through Ikumi's routine in the facility, which, as mentioned before, gets repetitive to the point of numbness. The pacing of the story is ruined. What I will say, though, is that the story itself, put in the toughest vacuum possible, isn't bad. It is backloaded to all hell, true, but it has a certain charm that can't be said to be present in the team's next work. But even then, it has issues. The Elpod sections, mainly, are absolutely awful. A great concept that could give way to great character development instead used to further push hentai scenes unto the player all of which are gratitious to the point of annoyance, a running theme with the game as a whole. It can be seen in the game's other hentai scenes, the ones that take place in Class B and C. They try to make this a part of the lore, but the intentions behind them are clear. Which, by the way, all have a weird air of scat and piss fetishes. Not my cup of tea.
So let's say you ignore all of that. There's plenty of characterization in the other sections and bits of the game, right? Well, that's correct... to a certain extent. While the characters are given a fair amount of time to interact and flesh themselves out, they end up with no depth anyway. They are far too simple and one-dimensional from start to finish. Ikumi and the Boy are the only ones I'd say that stray from this a tad, and have chemistry to boot, but what they do have feels cut short. For a visual novel of this size, with this many opportunities, most of their day-to-day lives are spent running through similar dialogue that has been run through a thesaurus, with barely any change.
It's only toward the end that this changes, because it has that "this episodic show is ending so here's your two episode plot finale" NG. Lots of things happen in that ending plot-wise that breaks from their routine. But since it's only "two episodes" you're left with wanting more, not in a "I want a sequel" way but in a "that felt rushed" way. And this extends to the plot as a whole, obviously. They introduce and reveal concepts that aren't really addressed in the best manner, and are ultimately rushed through as well. Good concepts, in fact, like most of the visual novel, that are squandered.
Just like the music and art, too. The music is surprisingly good and catchy even if the overall soundtrack is short and... repetitive. The CGs looks genuinely weird, but the sprite work is good, and it works with the 3D background well.
To conclude: it looks good, sounds good, but ultimately tastes okay, and some bites taste awful. A cake that I can't call average as a whole, but slightly below that.
If it had to be a numerical score: 4/10
Originally published at Limbo Channel as a double review with One ~To the Radiant Season~