To The Moon

To The Moon is a special game that tells a very sweet and sentimental story that will tug at your heart strings, especially if you're a fan of the story telling of old school RPGs. Though the game itself is more correctly categorized as something between a visual novel and a point and click adventure game, the graphics and sound are straight out of the 16-bit console RPG era. The basic premise of the story is about a business that will fulfill any dying person's last wish by using a high-tech device to go into their memories and alter them so that they get to relive their life (in memory) one last time before they die. Only now they can alter one event based on their wish. To do this, the player is transported inside the most cherished memories of the wish maker to find out how to best fulfill his dying wish. You can only go back further in their history by finding important mementos at each stage of life. You play the role of a team of people that are helping one man named John to go back through his lifetime of memories to help him achieve his final wish of going to the moon. As you can probably imagine from this basic premise, this is a game that wears its heart on its sleeve. I don't want to say anything more about the storyline beyond that because it would be impossible not to spoil the story. Part of the mystery and charm of the game is going backwards through John's life and learning about why he made all the choices he did that led to where he is now in his old age. The story is absolutely touching and heartwrenching, but with plenty of quirky humor. There is not much of anything in terms of gameplay. The game is largely just about having the story unfold, so there is very little "game" to it. Often this sort of thing bothers me because I think that the primary strength of the videogame medium is interactivity, so games that don't utilize that would have been just as well made as a book, movie, or cartoon. Nevertheless, it doesn't bother me that this is the case with To The Moon, and it's not just simply because the story is so endearing, but because it plays to gamer nostalgia. If you grew up on games like Final Fantasy IV and VI, Chrono Trigger, and Earthbound, then you will recognize that there is something special to the presentation of To The Moon. It looks like a 16-bit RPG and it has a beautiful soundtrack that is largely piano driven and provides themes for different characters. This kind of soundtrack isn't used as much in modern games because voice acting clashes with strong melodies, so modern games tend to use more ambient music or orchestral arrangements that don't draw attention to themselves, but still set a mood. To The Moon is made a better story by its melody driven soundtrack. Also, the game's nostalgic graphical style is well-suited to the story about going back in time through one man's memories, especially if you grew up on these old school RPGs like I did. I hope some of you will try this game out if you care about story in games, because this one is really touching.

The problem is i could literally say watch a lets play and get the same experience which is what i did half way through this game. The story is emotional but also a bit over the top in the drama and the portray of one of the main characters which didn't make sense to me as a excuse for their actions. It is well written but hugely emotionally manipulative and overly so in my opinion. This must be the only game where i can't really find anything to say about the game play , i guess if you found the walking dead puzzles too hard for you then this is the game for you.

It might be easy to fall for the hype that surrounds this game, but it just so happens that it hit the the right combination between timing and luck, and that's all. There is not as much to it as people want you to think. To the Moon is a visual novel with a good plot, marred by horrible writing. Events are told in lackluster ways by weak character, and fail to engage you in continuity. The building of the lead Doctor is quite literally centered on toilet humor and other such jokes, that don't flesh him out at all, as later on his actions reflect none of that in a poor empathy pull. It's ridiculous. The narrative is all over the place, and is nothing but a self-serving buildup to the finale that gets so much praise, but which is bare in comparison to the many visual novels available out there, by studios and indies. It just so happens that this game reached players not used to this manner of game. Avoid this. It's neither a game nor a decent visual novel. There are many other options out there.

I've decided to ramble on a bit, so allow me to sum up in advance. A score of 3 is considered average (not bad) in my scale. This is a divisive game that some people will love and some loathe depending on which elements are important to them. Puzzles: 0/5 Story: 3/5 Characters: 4/5 Dialogue: 1/5 Art/Style/Music: 4/5 Controls: 3/5 The only "game" in the traditional sense you will find here is a series of sliding block puzzles. They require exactly no thought to complete. If you don't look at the screen at all and click randomly, the solution will eventually happen. (I did this at one point...it broke the game a little, as my move tally was thereafter listed as "infinity.") The puzzles are not integrated at all with the story and feel out of place. The story is the main point of playing. You are a technician at a dying-wish-fulfillment charity (or company?). Your job is to alter the distant memories of a dying man so that, in his more recent memories, he would have chosen a different course for his life. You can probably guess where the dying man wants to go from the title, but the game concerns itself most with why. Most of the game is spent watching scenes from the man's life. The story is well-arranged with time moving back to allow us to wonder about mysteries that are cleared up in earlier memories. However, the story is too neat for the "wandering through memories" theme. The only events in previous memories are those that relate to later memories. It gives the impression that this is a very shallow man to whom nothing at all of importance happened for decades at a time. Since the game is about realizing his character traits, it is too bad he has so few. At one point early on, you get to pick which of the two technicians you will control for one scene, but the game switches your control to the other character sometimes. Unfortunately, this is the only choice you can make during the game. You can choose between things like, "Yes, I want to continue," or "No, I want to wait." If you choose wait, you can stare awkwardly at the screen until you decide it's time to choose again. This is not really a choice. There are no dialogue options while you watch the man's life. You can usually not even move your character around. You will just click, click, click, click, click, for a few hours until the game is over. You have to click exactly on the speech balloons to progress the dialogue, which is annoying because clicking is required very frequently, and the dialogue balloons move around a lot. You will not look at and enjoy the scenery or watch the little pixellated characters emoting while viewing the man's life. You will be watching your mouse cursor instead, to make sure it is in the right place for the clicking. The story of the game is very emotional. I felt while playing that I had suddenly stumbled upon the gamer's version of the Lifetime movie. You will end up liking the old man and remembering him fondly, even though he, and the rest of the characters, use the word choices and cadence of college-age boys, despite being scientists, doctors, astronauts, cleaning women, old ladies, little girls... The two main characters are "funny." Allow me to demonstrate: ha. You will also like the man's wife, who is a nicely mysterious figure. She has a not-too-rare disorder which you may have heard of. The characters in the game refer to only in indirect terms as if its name must not be uttered. Okay? On the whole, I'm afraid this was not a great game, even though it seems to have won some awards. The uninspired puzzles were uncomfortably mingled with the story, which, although an interesting concept, was hampered by insufficient scope and flat, unconvincing dialogue. The playable characters were juvenile and annoying, a strange contrast with their characterization as professional humanitarian workers. On the other hand, the game does a lot with its music and within the limitations of its art style. The color choice is evocative and suitable for the changing moods of the game. For me, these things are not important enough in a game to improve the score. For many people, they are the most important elements. If that is you, you could end up loving it. Me, I think it was worth the $2 I paid for it in the 5 for $10 sale, but I do not intend to recommend it to friends.

If you're the type of person who likes good story, or art in the games that they play, this is definitely worth checking out. The story is good, albeit predictable at some points, but still very touching. Gameplay-wise, To The Moon is nothing special, but the story is (or at least for me it was) good enough to the point where the player can look past, and forgive the game for that. This game is story driven; as opposed to something like Torchlight or Call of Duty (or other games that somebody plays because they enjoy the gameplay) a person would play this game simply to see how the story unfolds. It's really meant to be played like an interactive movie, in my opinion. The music of the game is excellent, and really enhances the experience. As the game unfolds, the player (or viewer, depending on how you want to look at it) falls more and more for the game's charm (or at least that's what happened with me). The game is pretty witty and humorous at times as well. One thing about this game, however, is that it is fairly short (I think i completed it in about 4 hours, give or take) and there isn't very much replay value to it (although in my opinion the story is worth hearing again). There are a few choices to be made in this game, and upon writing this review I have only played through this game once so I cannot really comment on the effect that these choices impact the outcome of the game, but my guess is that they have little effect on how the game unfolds. The controls can also be a bit annoying at times, especially if you're using the mouse to control the characters (I did not realize until I was about halfway through the game that I could use the arrow keys to control the characters, but even then things weren't as smooth as I would like) but as the focus of the game is the story, this is forgivable. All in all, in you're a supporter of the whole "video games as art" movement, this is definitely something you will want to check out. Also, the mini game that this comes with (The Mirror Lied) is pretty trippy, sort of blew my mind after playing through it. If you purchase this game, definitely give that a play through (and it won't take much of your time either, I finished it in less than an hour).