So Moonlighter is a special one for me - double-premiere entry, being the first game started in 2024 AND on the Steam Deck OLED!
So far, i am really enjoying it! First of all, it suits the couch-bending, sleep-depraving gaming behaviour you can develop easily with Valve's handheld just perfectly. Perspective and graphics are super-fitting, colour-popping on the OLED-glarescreen (512GB-model) while battery consumption stays low even on super-smooth 90fps locked. Gameplay and -loops glue you further to the canvas - there's this addictive "Ok, just ONE more dungeon!"-feeling to it, at least for me.
I like both main-parts of the gameplay (as far as i can identify, i did not got myself a briefing online before playing):
1. the dungeon-action-rpg-crawling, which plays like a smoothed and speeded up mixture of classic "Zelda"-Games and "Hyperlight Drifter." You choose between some basic weapons and armor-sets, two sorts of attacks, one second ability, evasion-jump, 8-directional direct controlls - that's basically it. Very enjoyable! Monsters vary in many different ways, from appearance to size, immunities and attack patterns.
2. As mentioned before i like as well as the economy-part - selling stuff and building up the city/character/Moonlighter-store.
The latter is the name-giving business-property the game centers around: in top-down-graphics, that somehow remind me of "RPGMaker"-Games (especially regarding the textboxes and some environment assets) you go from the small city of Ryoka(?) in one of the five dungeons outside the city. There, you grind for loot, kill monsters and bosses and adventure further down the several levels of each dungeon. You can choose between day-runs and night-runs - the daytime-feature also effects the city, or at least your Shop. There, you can sleep, stash your gear/items - and also sell them. When you open the store - apparently only possible during daytime - other adventurers, who function as customers, enter the Moonlighter. You place items, set prices (and adjust them on the fly), get the cash and upgrade the your gear, the town and the shop itself. Just to hit the next dungeon (every time procedural generated). So here we have our two gameplay- and reward-loops - as i've already mentioned, i dig both of 'em.
So far i am still beginning to build up everything, only 3 hours in the game, still in the first dungeon - but i am getting there.
Up to this point some of the information mechanics could be done better. For example you have to look up the properties of every item by tab-changing in your inventory instead of direct tooltips. The backback is really small too, so that you quite early in the game have to spend too much time with inventory management in my opinion - not that well-down, especially in regards of you not knowing which item could/will be sellable/usable for certain craftings and so on... I guess "Moolighter" therefore should really work well in terms of several playthroughs. So far, i am relishing my first one, bringing back the old-day GameBoy-Zelda-feelings. Guess that already brought home for me the "makes-me-happy"-feeling.
EDIT, towards finishing the Game:
Approaching the final dungeon of the game after unlocking most of the game's mechanics, i can happily confirm my former self - Moonlighter is just fun! Overall it will always mark an entry for me personally, as i mentioned - getting back that old GameBoy-Feeling of just grapping your console, hit the couch and game away. From this perspective it's one super-suited mobile experience, as far as i can tell in regards of the Steam Deck. I was thrown back to those happy days, where you look forward to play in the evening and think about optimizing the dungeons runs even hours before - althought there are no adventure or puzzle elemtens, with which Zelda and the like used to entertain my younger-self-brain sitting in school or elsewhere. But the experience came near it - for which i credit Moonlighter its smooth flow.
From flow to flaws - but there are little, i think:
For one, again, not all information is transported properly or can be customized. I found it annoying for example, that i am not able to mark loot which i need for timed-business-contracts (as far as i know though), so that you have to keep track of those materials manually in order to not accidently sell them. Further on the game gets - obviously - a little bit grindy. In its essence that's what it's all about, right? But for the first half it conseals this fact better than in the second, when you're getting used to the mechanics. If you tend to grind a lot, it also gets a little imba here and there. So did i have problems with the second boss because i wasn't geared up enought - but realizing upon that, i upgraded every possible equip and then easily layed the boss an hour later. From there on i prepared as good as that accordingly for the other two dungeons, which resulted in easy bossfights for dungeon 3 and 4. Even did not need the potions any more (did go for a heavy armour with lance playthrough).
Also the implementation of the Between Dimensons AddIn was nice, but did not really kick in. The Adventurer's Dungeon, which you can enter in every standard-dungeon and functions like a sort of shortcut, was a quality of life feature, but not more lootwise for me - the special weapons dropped by every minor boss i did not use at all. Same goes for the Bankier-expansion, which i bought only towards the end of the game where i had already enough money for everything. Which really came in handy was the assistant though, who takes care of your business selling the items - but in turn changes the game loop to much more using the action-part than the economy-part of the game, if one likes to (i did). So depending on how early in the game you purchase that expansion, you can alter the gameplay-experience fundamentally by, from there on, just giving the selling a hardpass. Which i did also in terms of regulating the prices. Yes, one can find joy in finding the exact best prices - but it's not necessary, at least on a first playthrough on the recommended difficulty.
But all that said i really want to end on a high note - a super-comfy Indy-experience worthy of kicking of my 2nd-Renaissance handheld-phase and also a worthy successor to 11 studios other games i played (This War of Mine) and liked very much so far or which i am going to play for sure in the future. Looking at you, Children of Morta!
So far, i am really enjoying it! First of all, it suits the couch-bending, sleep-depraving gaming behaviour you can develop easily with Valve's handheld just perfectly. Perspective and graphics are super-fitting, colour-popping on the OLED-glarescreen (512GB-model) while battery consumption stays low even on super-smooth 90fps locked. Gameplay and -loops glue you further to the canvas - there's this addictive "Ok, just ONE more dungeon!"-feeling to it, at least for me.
I like both main-parts of the gameplay (as far as i can identify, i did not got myself a briefing online before playing):
1. the dungeon-action-rpg-crawling, which plays like a smoothed and speeded up mixture of classic "Zelda"-Games and "Hyperlight Drifter." You choose between some basic weapons and armor-sets, two sorts of attacks, one second ability, evasion-jump, 8-directional direct controlls - that's basically it. Very enjoyable! Monsters vary in many different ways, from appearance to size, immunities and attack patterns.
2. As mentioned before i like as well as the economy-part - selling stuff and building up the city/character/Moonlighter-store.
The latter is the name-giving business-property the game centers around: in top-down-graphics, that somehow remind me of "RPGMaker"-Games (especially regarding the textboxes and some environment assets) you go from the small city of Ryoka(?) in one of the five dungeons outside the city. There, you grind for loot, kill monsters and bosses and adventure further down the several levels of each dungeon. You can choose between day-runs and night-runs - the daytime-feature also effects the city, or at least your Shop. There, you can sleep, stash your gear/items - and also sell them. When you open the store - apparently only possible during daytime - other adventurers, who function as customers, enter the Moonlighter. You place items, set prices (and adjust them on the fly), get the cash and upgrade the your gear, the town and the shop itself. Just to hit the next dungeon (every time procedural generated). So here we have our two gameplay- and reward-loops - as i've already mentioned, i dig both of 'em.
So far i am still beginning to build up everything, only 3 hours in the game, still in the first dungeon - but i am getting there.
Up to this point some of the information mechanics could be done better. For example you have to look up the properties of every item by tab-changing in your inventory instead of direct tooltips. The backback is really small too, so that you quite early in the game have to spend too much time with inventory management in my opinion - not that well-down, especially in regards of you not knowing which item could/will be sellable/usable for certain craftings and so on... I guess "Moolighter" therefore should really work well in terms of several playthroughs. So far, i am relishing my first one, bringing back the old-day GameBoy-Zelda-feelings. Guess that already brought home for me the "makes-me-happy"-feeling.
EDIT, towards finishing the Game:
Approaching the final dungeon of the game after unlocking most of the game's mechanics, i can happily confirm my former self - Moonlighter is just fun! Overall it will always mark an entry for me personally, as i mentioned - getting back that old GameBoy-Feeling of just grapping your console, hit the couch and game away. From this perspective it's one super-suited mobile experience, as far as i can tell in regards of the Steam Deck. I was thrown back to those happy days, where you look forward to play in the evening and think about optimizing the dungeons runs even hours before - althought there are no adventure or puzzle elemtens, with which Zelda and the like used to entertain my younger-self-brain sitting in school or elsewhere. But the experience came near it - for which i credit Moonlighter its smooth flow.
From flow to flaws - but there are little, i think:
For one, again, not all information is transported properly or can be customized. I found it annoying for example, that i am not able to mark loot which i need for timed-business-contracts (as far as i know though), so that you have to keep track of those materials manually in order to not accidently sell them. Further on the game gets - obviously - a little bit grindy. In its essence that's what it's all about, right? But for the first half it conseals this fact better than in the second, when you're getting used to the mechanics. If you tend to grind a lot, it also gets a little imba here and there. So did i have problems with the second boss because i wasn't geared up enought - but realizing upon that, i upgraded every possible equip and then easily layed the boss an hour later. From there on i prepared as good as that accordingly for the other two dungeons, which resulted in easy bossfights for dungeon 3 and 4. Even did not need the potions any more (did go for a heavy armour with lance playthrough).
Also the implementation of the Between Dimensons AddIn was nice, but did not really kick in. The Adventurer's Dungeon, which you can enter in every standard-dungeon and functions like a sort of shortcut, was a quality of life feature, but not more lootwise for me - the special weapons dropped by every minor boss i did not use at all. Same goes for the Bankier-expansion, which i bought only towards the end of the game where i had already enough money for everything. Which really came in handy was the assistant though, who takes care of your business selling the items - but in turn changes the game loop to much more using the action-part than the economy-part of the game, if one likes to (i did). So depending on how early in the game you purchase that expansion, you can alter the gameplay-experience fundamentally by, from there on, just giving the selling a hardpass. Which i did also in terms of regulating the prices. Yes, one can find joy in finding the exact best prices - but it's not necessary, at least on a first playthrough on the recommended difficulty.
But all that said i really want to end on a high note - a super-comfy Indy-experience worthy of kicking of my 2nd-Renaissance handheld-phase and also a worthy successor to 11 studios other games i played (This War of Mine) and liked very much so far or which i am going to play for sure in the future. Looking at you, Children of Morta!