This game is freaking awesome. It doesn't get a fraction of the recognition it deserves.
Wow, Chronomaster. Let me tell you about about this game, because you probably haven’t heard of it. This is one of the final works of famed novelist Roger Zelazny, winner of many literary prizes and famous for “The Chronicles of Amber” series. The story revolves around agents that deal with time-related problems in the universe, and the dialogue is really good. The world is conceptualized really well and feels rather fresh. In terms of gameplay, it’s not very good, attempting to mix classic point-and-click with some action elements, but it’s playable enough. If you like to discover hidden gems of gaming, make sure to have a look at this one!
You start by assembling a crew, and that in itself is quite an unique experience. At first you have 4 captains, but as you play with other characters, they are also unlocked for that role. Each character brings an unique benefit from being captain, ranging from very useful to fairly situational. There are three very viable paths to build you crew around, with them being Friendly, Devious and Aggressive. It might seem strange to be able to fight the same battles with a friendly alignment as you would with an aggressive one, but this is exactly the charm of the game. The textual outcome of encounters describes how the enemy reacted to your attitude, giving a sense of cohesion to the plot. There are many systems and subsystems happening in parallel, but they all pretty much feed into each other. So for example, the diverse skill pool of your characters gets supplemented by treasures found on the map, training they may receive in towns, and research that can be done inbetween missions, and vice-versa. The game is quite replayable, as each crew will face the same challenges in a different way. It is perfectly possible to come back to a scene you've been to before and find a completely different outcome due to having another set of skills and personalities at hand. The game also offers two very distinct modes, Discovery and Adventure. I spent almost all of my time on Discovery, which allows you to save at any time and peruse options at your own pace, also being able to negate a very unlucky skill roll, because those will happen... you have a 97% chance to accomplish a task and it fails. You just reload. That is not an option in Adventure mode, which is the original mode and the hardcore option, I guess. Back when I had infinite time for games that might have been an option, but I'm perfectly happy with Discovery. It is charming, it is unique, and it is a good investment of your money. Recommended!
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.
