Moonlighter (Review)

Moonlighter is one part rogue-lite RPG and one part merchant management simulation. developed by Digital Sun Games and published by 11 Bit Studios.

In Moonlighter you play as a boy named Will who lives the life of a merchant and runs a shop named Moonlighter, just as the family tradition goes. But ever since he was a child, he has always dreamed of going down to the dungeons and becoming a legendary hero. Not heeding the words of his grandfather who is worried for Will's well being, Will goes down to explore the dungeons and bring back items and artifacts of great value to sell at his shop and keep his family business going.

As you start your journey as the local towns merchant, you will only have access to the first dungeon, as they have been shut down because of all the dungeoneers that started to go missing. It was decided that the dungeons (while they were the towns main tourist attraction) were too dangerous and needed to be closed off. In the first dungeon you will find many items of low value like sticks, slime balls, vases, and others. The further you explore through the dungeon the more items and artifacts of higher value you'll find, but this comes as a risk as enemies and hazards become much more of a threat the further you go. dying causes you to lose everything in your bag and a portion of your coins, so there's always a huge feeling of risk and reward when contemplating if it's a good idea to venture forth.

There are three levels in each dungeon and a boss at the end. Killing a boss opens up the entrance to the next dungeon, there are four separate dungeons in total. There is a mysterious 5th dungeon and entering it is your main and final goal in the game, I won't spoil anything but lets just say it's a surprising and very unexpected twist. When delving deep into the dungeons collecting loot as you go, your bag will eventually fill and you will be left with a few options. Take what you have and teleport back to town (this costs a portion of your money), drop a few items to make room for more valuable ones, rearrange your inventory using cursed items to your benefit, or defeat the boss and use the portal to return home. Once you have returned to town it's generally a good idea to open shop and sell all the goodies you've found.

At first when selling items at the shop, you wont know how high or low you should sell things for, customers will make different expressions based on how happy they are with the price of their purchase. If you're selling an item for way too much the customers will glance at it, frown, and walk away. If you are selling an item for way too cheap the customers will get very excited, as they have practically just robbed you (sometimes they actually will rob you). The popularity of your shop will vary depending on how often you sell the same things and how often you sell items for just barely overpriced amounts. popularity will effect how many towns folk decide to come to your shop each day and how regularly they are willing to purchase stuff from you, so keeping a high popularity rating is something you should aim for.

Once you have hoarded enough coins, you will have the opportunity to start building various establishments such as, a brewery where you can buy potions, a blacksmith where you can pay to convert items certain groups of items you've found in the dungeons to upgrade your weapons and armor and craft new weapon types, and a couple others. There are also expansions and decorations available for your shop, expansions obviously give you more room to sell things, and decorations give your shop little bonuses such as a slight boost in popularity or items selling for a little extra. Moving back to the subject of weapon and armor upgrades, these are very expensive (So is everything else.) and the items needed to craft them are usually a bit difficult to find, meaning you will have to take multiple trips to get everything you need to make a single item. Your progression depends on these upgrades, as the enemies get much harder and increasingly more dangerous. This causes the game to feel a little grindy at times, but the core gameplay loop is satisfying and addictive enough to look past it.

The combat in Moonlighter is fairly basic and consists of mostly just spamming the basic attack, thankfully the enemies are well designed and shake up the combat enough to make it interesting. The level designs are also very well done, each dungeon has a very distinct look, from desolated ruins to lush forests and desert tombs. Levels are full of stones, thorny vines, lava pools and other obstacles that can be used to your benefit but more often than not will spell out your doom. From a visual standpoint Moonlighter is fantastic, (one of the best displays of pixel art in recent years) The characters, enemies, town, dungeons, and everything else is draw and animated extremely well, giving the game a magical charm. The music while not the best you've ever heard is still very good, which is always a plus.

Some have said that Moonlighter runs out of new things and gets stale after a while, but this isn't the case for most, and for those that do feel that it's lacking in content. You should be happy to know that the developers plan to keep supporting their game with large free updates throughout the next year, with additions like new game+, mini bosses, custom game mode, and much more. Switching between rogue-like dungeon crawling and managing your shop keeps moonlighter going at an addicting pace, its core gameplay loop is very enjoyable and its simple combat is made up for with great enemy, boss, and dungeon designs. Moonlighter is available for $19.99 on Pc/Steam, PS4, and Xbox One.