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.