Review for moonlighter. Game for Linux, PC, Mac, Android, iOS, PlayStation Network, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 29/05/2018 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 05/11/2018
Those who pay particular attention to the trend of the videogame market will have already noticed this, but lately the indie scene is impregnated with action-rpg titles in isometric view with Roguelike elements. Among the most recent we can find The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2, The Swords of Ditto and Wizard of Legend which, through ups and downs, have shown how much the average user appreciates this type of video game.
Unfortunately, however, although lovers of the genre may disagree, it is very clear how far we have now reached the saturation point for roguelikes. You need something innovative, fun, colorful and different. We need Moonlighter.
Moonlighter is the new title developed by Digital Sun and published by 11 bit studios that tries to propose a fresh formula, combining the classic randomly generated dungeons with a management component. We will be merchants by day and great warriors by night. An interesting combination, but what is the final result?
A pearl in the ocean ...
As always in these cases, Moonlighter's narrative pretext is rather simple and banal: Will is a young man who has been left to manage the Moonlighter, the family shop born generations and generations before. Our protagonist lives and does business in Rynoka, a small village located near an archaeological site where, long before the beginning of the story, strange passages leading to parallel dimensions and… Generated randomly were brought to light.
Our aim will therefore be to venture into the five different dungeons on ever-changing levels, collecting materials and items that are useful both to enhance Will and to be resold in the Moonlighter. The management part of the title is simple and intuitive but also very, very fun. Everything is based on the concept of supply-demand: the more a material is sought after by the inhabitants of Rynoka at that time, the more we will be able to raise its cost. It will therefore be our task to evaluate from time to time what customers need and how much we can push ourselves up with the earnings, in a mechanism that rewards not always offering the same items at the same prices.
With the money earned we will be able to buy new weapons and armor for Will, potions and spells to power us up, improve the Moonlighter, but also bring new activities to the city of Rynoka: a blacksmith, a sorceress, a material dealer, a banker and many other NPCs are waiting for nothing but our money to be able to open a shop in the small village.
The action part of the title also works quite well. We will be able to equip Will with two different types of weapons, depending on our preferences, and choose our fighting style: from broadswords, to small swords coupled to the shield, bows, spears and so on. The title satisfies every type of gamer by guaranteeing a wide range of choice in equipment, both offensive and defensive.
The dungeons are all different from each other, each with its own biome and always different enemies, albeit recognizable in the attack patterns. The bosses are unique and particular, but above all quite complex. Although, however, it will happen several times to die and invoke some unknown deity, each single attempt will teach you something and will allow you to face the next battle with more confidence and skill. In short, Moonlighter pad in hand is one thing: fun.
… or maybe not.
We come to the painful part. The title was developed for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. An outing with great fanfare for an indie, one might say. Moonlighter's main problem is related to stability in its console version. The writer played the title on PlayStation 4, on which we encountered frequent software crashes. In the several dozen hours we spent on the title, we found ourselves in the XMB several times without warning. Even more serious problem especially if we consider that saving in Moonlighter is exclusively automatic, so it has happened several times to lose even two hours of progress for a crash.
The crashes were also accompanied by several bugs that are not totally invalidating. Sometimes Will, returning to a dungeon via a portal, gets stuck in one of the empty areas and is unable to return to the surface, constantly losing life to death. Other times, a Moonlighter customer freezes completely during a purchase and does not allow us to leave the store until after a soft reset of the console. And much, much more.
All these problems were not encountered in the least in the PC version, which in fact is fluid and stable from start to finish. It is therefore a problem related to porting on consoles, which we ardently hope will be fixed with some patch after day one, but which, reluctantly, we cannot overlook in the review.
Moonlighter is a breath of fresh air in the modern roguelike landscape. Colorful, fun and complex, it manages to perfectly combine the management elements with the action part, in a combination that will amply satisfy both lovers of the genre and novices. All this is largely ruined by the frequent bugs and crashes that we have unfortunately encountered in the console version and which we hope will be fixed as soon as possible.
► Moonlighter is an Action-Roguelike-RPG type game developed by Digital Sun and published by 11 bit studios for Linux, PC, Mac, Android, iOS, PlayStation Network, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 29/05/2018 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 05/11/2018
