Moonlighter: No Treasure Here

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Time to Beat: 17 Hours

An initial glimpse of Moonlighter might give the impression that it's like a 2D Zelda game, only instead of buying improvements from shops, the hero sells treasure found the dungeons at his shop.

First impressions are often wrong. Not because that isn't the game, but because it's impossible to imagine that those activities could be as dull as they end up being.

The first game by developer, Digital Sun, Moonlighter is a dungeon crawler where the protagonist sells the items they find in their shop. The setting is a formerly prosperous medieval- magical town fallen on hard times. Near the village sit five dungeons, which the inhabitants used to explore, but after an adventurer were killed the town blocked them up. The protagonist, the last remaining family member of the illustrious Moonlighter shop, sneaks into the first of the five.
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The mechanics of Moonlighter are differentiated into two parts. First one explores a dungeon. The protagonist chooses from a long sword, sword and shield, spear, clawed gloves, or bow and arrow. Players will find they only require one melee weapon and the bow and arrow. Each weapon includes a basic attack and a stronger, but delayed, attack. Rooms contain monsters, treasure chests, and pits in the ground. There are no puzzles in Moonlighter. Monsters are easy or frustrating, but never difficult. The difference depends on the player's current weapon. The player collects the appropriate components in the dungeon and brings them to the blacksmith who crafts them into weapons and armor. Moonlighter has five versions of each weapon type. The components in the first dungeon, a forest biome, allows the player to construct the forest weapons. The player can't construct the desert weapons until they access the desert dungeon biome. The enemies in a dungeon are frustrating without the proper weapon, but boringly easy once one has collected the components and purchased the correct weapon. Moonlighter is frustrating without the right weapon, not because enemies are difficult, but because they are damage sponges. Against the previous area's weapon enemies have too much health, but against the new weapon they are like paper before a steel sword. The player always enters each dungeon with a weapon unsuitable for the new area, and always constructs a tool which negates the difficulty of the dungeon. This is the first example of Moonlighter's many frustratingly artificial gates.

The second gate is the dungeons themselves. The player can't explore the second dungeon until they've beaten the first, and can't venture into the third until they've defeated the second, and so on. Defeating a dungeon requires beating the boss after exploring three levels. Bosses are the only slightly difficult part of this game, and only if one doesn't have the correct weapon and armor. Like regular enemies, fighting a boss without the best available equipment is pointless, while fighting one with the correct weapon is merely fine. The player fights through thousands of rooms which repeat endlessly with a small variety of simple enemies, and a few holes to dodge around. Enemies and treasure chests contain components. The player has a backpack (which they can't upgrade), and when it is full the protagonist returns home to sell his inventory. If the protagonist loses all his health he drops all the components in his backpack. This is the only penalty for failure.
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The protagonist, whose name I can't even remember, because he has no characterization at all, owns two amulets. One brings him to his shop, while the other does the same, but leaves a gate to return to the same spot in the dungeon. Activating either amulet costs money, but the second option expends more gold. The player can't use either amulet while taking damage, nor can they access their backpack while in a room with enemies. Back in the town, the protagonist is continually warned by his grandfather-like mentor to stop his dangerous venture. But the protagonist ignores him so he can maintain his shop. During the morning the player sets out the components he wants to sell on tables. Every day villagers and tourists enter to purchase items. I can't imagine what purpose they are using these things for. Customers inspect the items on the tables and indicate their feeling about the price with a small graphic. They feel euphoric, happy, upset, or disgusted by the price. The player adjusts the price to sell components, hoping to make his customers happy. The mechanic is very simple, and soon the shop runs itself. The player doesn't have much to do once they've determined the proper price for an item, since it doesn't change. Some customers approach the counter and request certain objects or place a bounty on a specific enemy type. Each request includes a time limit, and if the player succeeds the customer pays cash. If the player fails there seems to be no penalty at all.

I was mildly disappointed because I thought it would be cool if I sold weapons and armor crafted by the blacksmith, but the plan didn't work. There isn't a market for this sort of thing. After paying the gold cost for crafting the weapons, and deducting the cost of the components lost in the crafting, the player receives a loss on each item sold. Customer's pay way more for individual components than completed items.

The player can pay to improve the town. A local posting board allows for the purchase of additional shops, like an Enchantress and a Banker. There were three others, but I never used them. The enchantress is essential as she sells healing potions which can't be found anywhere else. These can be used to explore deeper into the dungeons or ensure victory against a boss. The player's shop can also be upgraded, but this too is locked behind artificial gates. The upgrades available to the shop are dependent on the dungeons the player has beaten. Even the shop upgrades don't do much except allow the player to sell more stuff faster for more money.

Spoilers Ahead
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The ending of Moonlighter comes abruptly when the protagonist ventures into an alien spaceship!?! The final boss is mildly difficult (I lost to him once). After defeating him, Space Marines from a galactic empire arrive and tell the crowd outside the dungeon that somehow these Interdimensional Goo Pirates opened up a space door and the caves are different universes the townspeople have been unknowingly, illegally plundering. The Space Police tell the crowd that they were going to arrest the entire town for stealing, but because I defeated the space pirates they'll let us off this time.

The protagonist's mentor says it best when he says, “I'm still a little confused about what happened.” The ending is out of left galaxy and quite abrupt. It doesn't make much sense and doesn't offer a satisfactory payoff. It's not that there are no hints about the ending, nut that the hints are so vague they are not fulfilling.

In Conclusion, Moonlighter includes two elements of gameplay and they are both dull. One, the protagonist repeatedly fights the same simple monsters to collect components. Two, the protagonist sells the components at his shop so he can purchase better weapons to advance to a second dungeon. Repeat five times. Monsters are fought, goods sold, items and shops are upgraded, but the game-play doesn't improve. The numbers of everything change: damage, health, shop stalls, and money made, but it's like an endless treadmill. To make matters worse, weapons, dungeons, and shop upgrades are all locked behind artificial gates to prevent the player from ever getting ahead or falling behind. The player has zero control over any aspect of the game.

I wouldn't recommend searching for treasure in this dungeon.

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