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.
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.
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
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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