Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is a quick, roughly 5 hours long Metroidvania where you, as a priestess named Kaho from the far village of Lun, are venturing into the far Eastern kingdom of Karst to seek courtship with the queen to help mend the spread of evil having reached her village, only to discover thew curse itself originates from the queen herself, specifically from her castle in Karst City. This is essentially the premise one can glean from the game as they go through, as not much else is explicitly stated in any dialogue or lost remnants of journals or anything similar. It is a very hands-off approach to this kind of lore setup, and I like that, as it lets you focus largely on the draw of the game; the combat and the exploration.
The main draw for the exploration are 4 Magical items (pieces of a crest to access the final area) that are located in four distinct areas on the map. They can be explored in any order (as a typical Metroidvania goes) and you gain some kind of ability with each crest, like to charge your bow to a new level, or the ability to dodge in the air (akin to Samus doing a shinespark in Super Metroid for example) Besides these 4 crests and a few other specific example, the actual upgrades in this game are kept brief, yet meaningful enough to encourage the exploration of the relatively small map throughout your playtime.
Something I want to discuss in particular is the combat, and how incredible it is for what is actually present in-game. Besides special items and the like, you have 2 ways of attacking something: 1, using your Sacred Leaf from the Lun tree of your village's namesake to preserve good and drive away evil demons and spirits with its holy presence. Gameplay wise, it acts like a dagger of sorts, letting you swipe in a 1-2-3 jab pattern, or using it in the air makes it strike once overhead. The other weapon you have is a bow, which can either be spammed for quick arrows, or charged up to 2 more levels of power, with one spreading the arrows shot to 3 in a cone, to the final unlocked level that rapid-fire spurts them out almost instantaneously. This is what you start with, and this is what you end the game doing to every enemy, and I loved it! The simplicity inherent in this system is put to such great use by just changing the environment around you, and not your abilities directly, creating enough different gameplay to entertain you the entire campaign. Besides from one weapon upgrade, your damage output never really changes on a fundamental level (excluding items), so everything is balanced upon you learning and mastering your base kit over a few hours time, which is a joy given how smoothly your options act and how they flow into one another.
The boss fights are also a key highlight of this game, with every single one being a blast to play against and finally beat, which was a shock to me, as usually I hate or at least trudge through at least one bossfight in most other Metroidvanias (Looking at you, Kraid from Super Metroid >:[ ) And again, because of the largely unchanging combat, these bosses are not gimmick based in their design, but rather designed to challenge you, the player, to utilize your few but mighty tools in inventive ways to win the day. A particular favorite of mine was the one located in the Monastery, I won't spoil the context, but I assure you it is fantastic.
This is perhaps the greatest, most well-designed shorter Metroidvania I have ever played, and I highly encourage anyone who is even slightly a fan of Metroidvanias to give this one a shot. I look forward to trying the sequel, Moonlit Farewell, which appears to only build upon this strong concept and world even further!
(Also, what was the deal with that Witch?? kinda weird imo lol)
