Welcome to our review of Moonlighter, a game trying to mix 2 strange genres together. We played it on PS4!
During an archeological excavation, a set of Gates were discovered. People quickly realized that these ancient passages led to different realms and dimensions. Rynoka, a small commercial village, was found near the excavation site – providing brave and reckless adventurers with treasures beyond measure.
Moonlighter is an Action RPG with rogue-like elements that demonstrates two sides of the coin – revealing everyday routines of Will, an adventurous shopkeeper that secretly dreams of becoming a hero.The game does its very best to mix 2 strange bedfellows together as we have Zelda inspired dungeons on the one hand and we got Economics based gameplay on the other hand. During the day, spend your time in the shop, selling the items you pick up during your dungeon raids. During the nights, dungeons drop more loot and so it makes sense to do these during that part of the day.
First up, being a shopkeeper. items you pick up during your raids need to be sold. Sold for money, just like real life. This is a system of hit and miss, you can abuse a real economics style barter system to increase prices on some items when they are rare, but also getting forced to drop prices for the items everybody has. Earn money to in turn buy new items for your own use or to help finance other parts of the game.
Like recruiting assistants and upgrading the shops. This game is very lifelike in this part. But do be careful, not everyone is honest and some shady individuals may want to steal your precious wares…
Getting to know Rynoka’s residents and understanding needs of customers is crucial. Some folks may have special quests for you, requesting rare items and offering handsome rewards in return. Luckily the game makes it easy to see if someone wants to buy an item or if you have overpriced it massively. It does take some hit and miss approaches on this side of the game, which sometimes felt more like a nuisance. Dropping a price 10 times to still get annoying faces… I can do better things with my time.
The other part of the game is basically Zelda inspired dungeons. Procedurally generated ones and filled with weird and nasty enemies. The spoils are best at night, but that is usually the case in similar games. The best monsters come out at night, a saying that holds true in this game from start to as far as I have gotten into it so far.
Break pots, fall down gaps in the floors, beat enemies and avoid projectiles are your everyday share of what Moonlighter will bring to the table. This part of the game is what will really make you come back for more. The lack of a real tutorial might irksome, but it did not bother me too much. Only when I suddenly removed my trusty broom in my first dungeon and was without a weapon…. That was more a funny experience than something else but still would have preferred knowing what to do.
In conclusion, while tiresome at times but fun at other times, Moonlighter brings a very varied game to the table. I did feel like I was doing chores at times while being a shopkeeper, but had a blast while raiding the dungeons as a real hero. I have a little bit of a mixed feeling because of this. Based solely on my double like/dislike feeling, Moonlighter is getting a 75% score.
Tested on Playstation 4
