Moonlighter
To begin with, I’m always drawn to games that are visually appealing. This isn’t what keeps me playing them of course, but it’s definitely one aspect that makes me look into a game further. The game Moonlighter stood out to me at first due to its bright and somehow detailed pixel art. At first I thought it was going to be very simple in terms of graphics but it turned out to be quite intricate, with beautiful lighting, movement, effects, environments, and even music. I feel that its music and sound effects also played a large part in why the game stood out to me, as a game with good sound has the ability to fully immerse in the story and what it is you are doing.
In addition to this, the overall feeling of the game’s story was pretty entrancing. Moonlighter is a unique adventurous role playing game with “rogue elements”. On the “outside”, and during the day, you are a storekeeper who sells items he finds/collects. During the night however, you are an explorer who can craft and enchant weapons and armor to help you fight your way through enemies and bosses within the caves (dungeons essentially). To me this interesting twist of a rogue game stood out to me greatly because it had a lot of different elements in addition to the traditional rogue mechanics.
When playing Moonlighter, I initially thought the game was incredibly fun and I liked how the player’s tasks varied from day to night. During the day you can talk to villagers, sell items in your shop, and just walk around the town- sometimes receiving quests from those you talk to. At night, you use weapons, armor, and potions to battle your way through different dungeons where you can collect loot, artifacts, and other things from varying rooms and even worlds. One of my only complaints is that it can feel really monotonous at times, collecting items by night to sell at the store by day. Though that may be the case, writing this, I actually find myself wanting to play Moonlighter again because of the elements of it that make it different from other games I’ve played.
The most meaningful moment of gameplay I’ve had with Moonlighter so far would likely have to be the very beginning because of how interesting it was to learn more about the character’s background and his role in the village. A choice I made early on, which was probably different from the majority that played Moonlighter, was that I would consistently go into dungeons, collect as much as possible, and store them to sell in the morning and to craft something more advanced to help me later on. So, instead of upgrading an item whenever I could, I chose to wait quite a while to stockpile my resources so that I could upgrade to a much better sword or piece of armor right away. I also chose to save items that were more rare, this choice probably isn’t very unique, but I did this so that I could use them later on for larger quests or for more potent potions. I felt that choices like this made me more successful later on in the game so I was rather pleased.
As far as dramatic elements, the main character himself dreams of becoming a hero in his village. He utilizes different shops that he has commissioned to open up so that he can have a number of weapons, pieces of armor, and potions at his side to defeat a variety of monsters from different realms. To me, this was a very compelling backstory and caught my attention quickly. All in all, I would recommend this game to someone who likes rpg’s, rogue games, and the adventure genre. I would also give it a 4 out of 5 because some of the day-to-day can get repetitive at times.
