It is hard not to overstate the obvious influences that came from Moon. It’s truly one of the strangest, unique, beautiful, thoughtful, bizarre games I’ve ever played.
It took some time but once you’re in, well, it’s zen. Walking around, helping memorable characters, reviving oddball monsters, exploring, doing somewhat odd activities… it’s truly the anti-game. It’s definitely the anti-console game at that time.
Moon takes the approach of “what if the ‘hero’ of an RPG, murdering all these animals and taking whatever they want, is actually… well, bad.” When you think about a hero in an RPG on a baseline, superficial level, they aren’t exactly a hero. Moon takes this and runs with it. It’s a true satire on the RPG genre. It definitely left a mark on gaming and it’s felt. Many games after it warp RPGs in this specific way. Some maintain combat or have none at all, but after playing this, it’s just so obvious.
The game itself is still a bit janky. Some of the stuff is, well, definitely a PS1 game. The charm, relaxing nature of the game, well, it’s truly something special. Undertale (OBVIOUSLY) was inspired by this and it is truly heavy handed. The MC in Undertale is the MC in Moon whilst Frisk is the “hero” (villain) in Moon. The comparison are just right there.
The game itself is truly beautiful in more ways than one. I definitely recommend reading the manual of the game on its official site since there’s no tutorial (it helped me LOTS). It’s an old game so reading the manual was obviously an extremely common thing to do in the 90s. The first time I tried to play it, I got overwhelmed because I didn’t know what to do. The manual fixed that instantly. Shocker (it wasn’t).
It isn’t for everyone but this game is truly a gem.
It took some time but once you’re in, well, it’s zen. Walking around, helping memorable characters, reviving oddball monsters, exploring, doing somewhat odd activities… it’s truly the anti-game. It’s definitely the anti-console game at that time.
Moon takes the approach of “what if the ‘hero’ of an RPG, murdering all these animals and taking whatever they want, is actually… well, bad.” When you think about a hero in an RPG on a baseline, superficial level, they aren’t exactly a hero. Moon takes this and runs with it. It’s a true satire on the RPG genre. It definitely left a mark on gaming and it’s felt. Many games after it warp RPGs in this specific way. Some maintain combat or have none at all, but after playing this, it’s just so obvious.
The game itself is still a bit janky. Some of the stuff is, well, definitely a PS1 game. The charm, relaxing nature of the game, well, it’s truly something special. Undertale (OBVIOUSLY) was inspired by this and it is truly heavy handed. The MC in Undertale is the MC in Moon whilst Frisk is the “hero” (villain) in Moon. The comparison are just right there.
The game itself is truly beautiful in more ways than one. I definitely recommend reading the manual of the game on its official site since there’s no tutorial (it helped me LOTS). It’s an old game so reading the manual was obviously an extremely common thing to do in the 90s. The first time I tried to play it, I got overwhelmed because I didn’t know what to do. The manual fixed that instantly. Shocker (it wasn’t).
It isn’t for everyone but this game is truly a gem.