Moonscars

i just love this masterpiece <333

combat is very clean and satisfying to learn and perform, art is magnificent

Moonscars is one of the many 2D indie metroidvanias with strong Dark Souls influences and a very good and a strong contender in the style, thanks to good execution of the fundamentals in movement and combat. The excellent pixel art and animation sweeten the deal, as derivative and stale the art style (and the setting) may be. Moonscars has pretty good writing and an interesting story for the genre. It explores the concepts of humanity, free will, what defines an individual and so forth. It's a shame that the setting is the generic Souls-esque ruined and decayed kingdom we've seen a thousand times. The art style is trite in its mood, but the execution is sublime. It's kind of an "Impressionist pixel art" and the world feels entirely made up of nervous brush strokes. There is some real artistry there. The animations are jaw-dropping, extremely fluid and full of details, giving the characters that much more personality. The score is... there, it's gloomy and adequate but not a single track stands out. The gameplay is standard fare of exploration and combat, with the combat playing a much more integral role. Areas are generally quite simple, though not entirely linear. Combat is the tried and true dash and parry-intensive dance with enemies who deal a lot of damage, but the fundamentals are strong: animations are clear, everything can be parried or evaded as long as you keep a cool head, attacking and deflecting feel great, etc. Bosses are rare and sadly nothing to memorable. I feel like I've been quite negative towards Moonscars in spite of giving it 4 stars, but I guess that's because it had the potential to be more unique. I can't rate the game less than that because it's really well-made and fun in a style where so many games just aren't. Overall, it's a game I would recommend to fans of the style as an excellent flagbearer, but I expect more from these devs in the future.

Lots of fun, challenging and difficult

Beautiful art, amazing gameplay, very inyrtrying stoty.