To The Moon

To The Moon is not much of a "game" in the traditional sense. There don't exist enemies. You're not leading a ragtag group of heroes to save the world from a big bad. There are no ninjas or pirates or SPEHS MAHREENS in sight. You play as a couple of scientists with the ability to enter and alter memories of the dying to grant their final wish. The doctors will have to experience their client's life in reverse, finding important objects and experiencing events that allow them to trigger access to earlier memories. In certain cases, the changes that have to be made are drastic, and I was questioning whether those sacrifices were worth the wish being granted. That said, there is very little in the way of actual gameplay. Normally, a review like that would be a kiss of death. Here, however, we have a interesting cast and story, and I did not mind the lack of actual game at all. You are experiencing a person's entire life, and all the events and emotions that ultimately molded them. Admittedly, I choked up a few times, especially during the story's climax. You'll probably get about five hours out of this, and there really isn't any replay value. However, don't let that discourage you from giving this game a chance. There is value here, and it's proof that games can be just as valid mediums for storytelling and art as books and films (and in this case, superior).

I am very glad that I bought this "game", which is actually a sad, yet very kind story. It ought to be in my local library.

In recent years, I've tried supporting more indie games, alongside more AAA titles. To The Moon was highly recommended, and it was not disappointing. On an emotional level, this game really hits you. It makes you question your real-life decisionas, and forces you to ask "What if?". Oh, and the soundtrack is really, really gorgeous.

I have seen a lot of praise for the story for To The Moon. This is one time where the praise was due. What I saw of the story was very well done. The problem I had was that most everything else, aside from an awesome soundtrack, was not. Had this been a kinetic visual novel I would have enjoyed it much more. Had it had better thought out puzzles, such as Rakuen, I would have enjoyed it much more. Sadly what I was left with was a quality story that to enjoy I had to wade through input issues; low frame rates; and poor puzzles. The input issues were such that when I clicked on a location for my character to move they sometimes would go there. Other times they would go part way and stop. The same would happen when I clicked on objects to investigate, sometimes they would go right to it and others only a bit and stop. The puzzles mostly consisted of mini games of “preparing” mementos to go further back in Johnny’s memories. To do this you had to clear away white blocks on a picture by pressing buttons that correspond to columns and rows. In doing so you would create white blocks elsewhere. You had to anticipate where they would form (there is a pattern) and you could them clear them all. I found this pretty annoying. Even the basic puzzles of finding keys had issues at times. I was supposed to read this passage of a book to find a key hidden there but it wasn’t until the third time I read the passage that my character found the key. I played To The Moon on Linux. It never crashed on me once. There are no graphics options at all. Alt-Tab doesn’t work. It uses a total of 223MB of disk space. It uses the RPG Maker XP engine. The game allows you to manually save at any time outside of dialogue and has 3 save slots. There is also an auto save feature for those who prefer that. During play my GPU usage was 3-7%; my VRAM usage was 537-594MB; my CPU usage was 0-3%; my RAM usage was 2.6-3GB and my frame rate was a constant 40 FPS. Why it was stuck at 40 I have no idea.

I finished to the moon several months ago, and the experience still feels fresh when I hear music from the game and get reminded of the awesome story it has. It might barely has any gameplay at all, and maybe the graphics are somewhat basic(even though IMO they do the work just fine), but it has awesome music, and above all-an amazing story. The story was so good that it caused me to shed tears, and more than once. and I've NEVER cried from a video game before that, with only few even bringing me to close. just to explain to you how good the game's story is. If you like good stories at all-this game is a must play. It might be short, about 4 hours, but it will be an experience that will not be easily forgotten. think of it like watching a REALLY good movie, or reading an equally good book.