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At the backbone of every roguelike style game is its difficulty, its replayability, its freedom and, most importantly, its gameplay loop in an attempt to keep players enticed for many more fun hours. Moonlighter offers everything mentioned above with a lot of attention on each of its mechanics. However, while the dungeon-crawling elements are very well done, as every roguelike should be, rather the simple management mechanics of owning a shop and selling items from fallen enemies is where it shined the brightest.
Gameplay:
Moonlighter brings a unique blend of dungeon-crawling goodness and a store management simulator. The main protagonist must engage with 5 unique dungeons forgotten by time with each having unique enemies and specific requirements to meet. Items fallen from enemies can be gathered and later invested in upgrading your equipment or put for sale. The store is the second main gameplay aspect, which is a very emotion-based market with likes and dislikes depending on set price. With the store many different events can happen through the day, thieves trying to steal hard earned items, wealthy people just coming up and boasting, and even NPCs coming and asking for specific items. Those said NPCs are asking for specific items from your current dungeon or to back-track to a previous one, each player must decide if the reward is worth it. You have a shop assistant which serves several purposes from catching thieves or even taking over the store for a day, but for a cut of the profits. Your clients react differently based on the said price and if they think it is worth that much. These reactions come in the form of happy faces (Ha, this dumb twat is selling it on a loss, we are dining tonight) to sad faces (This guy is trying to rip us off here, I am never setting foot in here again). Striving for the perfect balance between getting as much as possible for set item and keeping customers happy is key.
Story:
Your mission is to take a lone city, which has seen better days, and bring it back to its prime. Basically, make something out of almost nothing, and with some interesting discoveries in addition to a lukewarm twist at the end of the road. While the story is interesting at points, it is not its shining aspect, however gameplay more than covers for it.
Here you can see our big brain merchant selling ill-gotten items to mostly clueless clients. All in a hard day’s work of serious dungeon-crawling and even more series dying over and over.
Graphics and animation:
Everything in the world of Moonlighter weaves and sways in the wind. Graphics vary greatly from person to person and something that is beautiful for one may not be for someone else. Moonlighter animates environments and mobs with a unique cartoony touch, which adds to the cute atmosphere. Some enemies have an over-the-top wind-up animation following either basic attacks or charged-up heavy ones, and that stays true for the main character as well. When in the shop every collected item is displayed in their situated place and can be covered with designated glass panels for protection from thieves.
Music and sound cues:
Indie games have that magical in-between position in the games industry, where you would think they don’t have enough spare budget to hire a whole orchestra or invest in some well-known composer. However, indie games often bring to light ingenuity and creativity accompanied with limited resources and Moonlight lands firmly in that said spot. Soundtrack sounds medieval with a whim of magical prowess sprinkled in spots. On the other hand, sound cues are a definite stand-out here, from a simple slash of a weapon, fall from a platform to the diverse sounds of satisfied or dissatisfied clients.
Customization:
Customization comes from bought armor and furniture for the store. Each armor is beautifully designed and is focused on different aspects. The heaviest one gives the most health, but slows you down, another may do the opposite and so on. Each armor changes how your character looks in a small but meaningful way. On the other hand, buying furniture for the store, as you can guess, does change its visuals and adds certain effects. Those effects range from customers moving faster and staying for longer, open hours become longer and reduces the chance of thieves. These small changes add up to the overall immersion of the game and gives the sense that you are actually building something meaningful.
So, you can kill enemies, get better at dungeon-crawling (learn patterns and types of attack), experience a variety of biomes and stages, and to top all that, then sell you have gathered? Sign me right up!
Weapon variety:
Your main source of damage is divided into a few melee and ranged weapon choices. Sword + shield, two-handed sword, spear, brass knuckles and a bow is what is on offer and again, as with the armors, each is situated for a different style of play. Personally, I went with the two-handed sword and focused on heavy (slow) armor and it worked out perfectly.
End Game state of play:
After finishing the game, beating every dungeon, selling all you need to sell and witnessing the twist what is left to do? Well, challenging yourself by beating any dungeon with only 1 weapon or by not using potions, finding out the perfect selling price for every item (there are a lot items), earning every achievement or getting as much as you can.
DLC:
Moonlighter so far has only one DLC named Between Dimensions which adds new challenges in the form of new enemies and bosses, weapons, armor, new items to sell and much more. I have not played it, but judging by the base game and how polished it was, I would expect the same level of polish for their only DLC. If you so happen to like the base game and are eager to continue the adventure, Between Dimensions seems to scratch that particular itch rather perfectly.
You can find Moonlighter on Windows (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG.com, Humble Bundle, GameFly (For PS4/Switch), Green Man Gaming, Xbox App), macOS, SteamOS + Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android and IOS.
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