To The Moon

What a story, very emotional, keeps you gripped so you don't want to leave until you finish the game

johnny - a man who's on his deathbed - hires a service to go into his mind to help him fulfill his dearest wish: to go to the moon. once inside his mind, you traverse his memories from latest to oldest [ie: you view the story in reverse - from old age to when he was young] collecting little pieces of a great mystery: why he never got to the moon in the first place. on the surface, this doesn't sound interesting, but what makes to the moon spectacular are it's set pieces and the people you meet along the way - from their conversations to the mementos you find that link johnny's memories together - each of these add layers of meaning and depth to the story. for example: as you start the game, two kids start playing a melody on the piano. as you travel back in time, you learn more about that melody. as you learn more about the melody, so your connection to the characters will grow. and herein lies the crux of the matter: because of the way the story is structured and presented, it is /far/ less game than story. if you like both in equal measure, be warned that the balance is tipped toward story here. there is a little game in there, but mostly "game" means "find the mementos and trigger them." triggering a memento means solving a "folding" puzzle. which is about as gamey as to the moon gets. if you're ok with that, then you're in for an unforgettable ride that will make you take a step back and consider your own life when you're done playing. this whole thing ties together so well: from the quaint graphics [which was the right way to go, in my humble opinion] to the stirring music to the dialogue and mementos - everything just comes together to tell a beautiful, heartfelt story. you /will/ want tissues with you as the game unfolds. four stars for me, because: it's not always obvious what you need to do in a scene - that and i encountered a couple of bugs. /always/ save when you enter a new scene. plus, that "action" scene did not belong at all.

I have played computer games for more than 20 years, and one of the things I really enjoy is when I stumble upon something with a good story, or something that genuinely feel fresh. This strikes both chords. While the longest journey may be epic, Kingdom Hearts may be nostalgic and heart warming and monkey island is funny this game go for a completely different aproach. This game makes rather classical movie titles like "butterfly effect", "big fish" and even "Forest Gump" come to mind. These stories are thought provoking, providing perspective, and is more about the "feel" than a logical plot. I can't think of any game that I have played with similarily high ambitions that has succeded telling such a story to the same extent. Myst can be argued, but are much more slow-paced with less content; I have not completed bioshock but my impression is that gameplay quickly "steal" much of the focus there compared to here. This game tries to balance and aply the effects of exploration slowing down phase to allow time to saviour the different story-elements, and providing immersion enhancing interactivity (also called gameplay-elements). It can be argued that to find the perfect balance here for everyone is impossible, but no matter I think they have managed to come much closer to a "perfect blend" than any other game I have experienced with similar ambitions story-wise. In short I am extremely happy to have gotten the chance to experience this wonderfull game, and it is highly recomended to anyone that enjoy a deep story playing on an emotional level. It might not have the most creative plot nor the best gameplay, but it doesn't try to either. So I really think this is best played with a non-critical and patient mindset. As a sidenote. Was so lucky as to play this with my girlfriend, and she had the following exelent idea: I voiced the male characters and she voiced the female characters. For us this further added to the value of the game.

This is a game worth playing. Is it good? ehh. but it's really divisive and I think you should come to your own conclusions. I'm not a person who'll deride a game for lack of gameplay, as someone who love VNs and gameplay-lite RPG Maker works. The gameplay is fine, if a bit obtuse at times - I find it tries to overcomplicate what should be a simple interactive story. There are some things about the way they used the engine I did like, the use of lighting effects to convey mood is spectacular, and the tiles are also good in that regard. The story, though - honestly, I love the concept and much of the early plot, but there's a point whereupon it starts to go downhill HARD. The game can be really emotional but also really manipulative, as others have said, and I'm not always adverse to that if the rest of it feels earned, but there's so much! At the end I felt used; I couldn't tell which of my emotions were genuinely sparked from sympathy for the characters and which had been prompted by the writers going down a the melodrama checklist. SPOILERS: So I'm autistic, but I'm not the kind of autistic person who cries ableism & I wish I could applaud this game for having an autistic character. They just about say she's autistic, which I like! BUT at the point where the story goes downhill, the narrative makes it known that she's just too ~hard to understand~ and ~getting in the way~ of Johnny's dreams, and he'd be better off if he hadn't gotten involved with her, & there's an implication that what he does for is out of pity. It's gross. The ending tries to fix this but it can't make up for the past couple hours that the game basically told me "you ruin lives, bro" Katawa Shoujo was a kinder representation of dating someone on the spectrum, and that char isn't even explicitly autistic! Even with the emotional manipulation I would have thought this game was ok, but that killed it. Subjective, I know, but this kind of art is, so play it for yourself and see how you feel.

and I do not usually cry...