Moonlighter

Review of version 1.11.22, wanted to like this concept but the execution is poor. An Enter The Gungeon-inspired market management and crafting (??!) game where I guess you also do some ARPG-style dungeon crawling. First off, the art seems nice, but even when using a 'pixel perfect' resolution, the game applies uneven scaling (and sometimes also filtering) to the assets. Sloppy, maybe dishonest at worst. Let's talk about them items, since dealing with them is 90% of the game. There's too many of them, the rarity and drop rate is wildly unbalanced and most items can't be used in action. Most of your time will be spent figuring out if all this crap is useful for crafting a boring upgrade or just pricing it for sale. There's also an abundance of inventories; there's stuff you're carrying on your person, on your belt, in your backpack, your main shop floor inventory, your shop's "on sale" shelf inventory, and TWO chests in your bedroom (WHY).. Heading into the 'NES Zelda'/Issac-style dungeons, three minutes in your backpack will be overflowing; gameplay is interrupted so you can start making decisions about your items. Once you hit this limit, you will basically need to stop and re-evaluate after each drop. Items may stack together into a slot, but the amount varies by type (10 vines, or 5 enchanted crystals, for example). Worse, items in chests are often cursed and need manual intervention, adding yet another dumb layer of complexity before you can get back to gameplay. Items frequently eject out of the enemies and bounce off the floor into pits where they can't be retrieved. Rather than, I dunno, just not allowing that to happen, the developers chose to let you save the items as they fall if you're close enough, but there's a catch; my character stubbornly watched as a rare sword drop spilled off the dungeon floor to disapper forever because... my backpack was full. I ALT+F4'd to the desktop, uninstalled the game and went to reconsider my life choices.

While the artstyle is stunning, the gameplay is severely lacking in depth. Play the game for 30 minutes and you have seen it all.

On the good side: it looks gorgeous and the game might be fun to play... but... it appears it's only playable when you own a controller to attach to your PC/Mac. It's not really fun playing when you are used to mouse + keyboard since it is either controller or keyboard only. This ruined my experience really bad, I should have bought it for Switch or PS4, or whatever... appears as if this is just a console title ported to PC...

This game is a mix of different systems and mechanics that work together perfectly. You go into a dungeon looking for loot to sell, but with a weak gear it's going to be hard to survive. To improve your gear you need money and materials, but you can only acquire money by selling materials in your shop. Money is also needed to improve the shop and build other shops for other villagers, who will also require money for their services. The tension of deciding which items I want to sell and which to keep and thinking of the prices is a very fun experience on its own. Not much changes throughout the game, but the initial game loop is so enjoyable, it's okay as it is. I really like that game. It makes me feel good even in these gloomy winter days.

While this is a good game -- it kept me busy for a while, with the complex but fun merchant system -- it definitely became monotonous. When I finally figured out how the breakout each item in a specific dungeon worked, it was easy to game the system. The upgrades were a nice touch, but the retailer was next to useless, and it would have been nice to know that any money you invest with the banker is lost if you don't collect at the end of the week. All of it. It's a fun game, and has merit and pretty good amounts of playablility, it's just that after a while, it's just a rhythm with a static melody.