Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (2016)

I loathe the Backtrackvania genre, i think losing all progress since a savepoint is awful design and don't even get me started on respawning enemies. And the game doesn't have proper menu controls either. Menu is... Shift?

Despite all that, i somewhat enjoyed this for about 20 minutes. The art style is beautiful. The enemies are weird. It has an easy difficulty option. The controls are tight. I have definitely played better Backtrackvanias, but this is decent enough. Not for me obviously, but for fans of the genre.

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)

Update 6/27/23

On replay, I still feel about the same. It’s ok, I don’t hate it, but I don’t think it does any one thing particularly well. The art is sometime nice and moody, but also has annoying anime fan service. The music is actually great, my favorite part. The gameplay is just utterly forgettable, as well as the level design. I can’t say I understand why it’s so beloved by many, but it’s fine.

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Pretty forgettable mini-Metroidvania. Definitely nothing unique, couldn’t be bothered to 100% it or get the good ending - as a diehard completionist, that’s saying something.

Honestly don’t have many thoughts because I’ve already forgotten it. I guess I’ve played worse, I did end up finishing it. But I kinda regret it.

A nice light Metroidvania for those who can't get enough of the genre. It's not super long, but it is paced just right for an indie game. The game definitely feels a bit "sped up" compared to typical Metroidvania games, as it throws you straight into the action and has you explore around to defeat bosses.

The game doesn't really have much in the way of a story except for ambiguous dialogue hinting at one. The map is semi-linear and forks off a few times, but unlike games like Bloodstained, doesn't have any secrets that warrant you having to use a guide to find everything. The spike traps are a bit goofy and do frustrate you a little when you're trying to rush through areas. The bosses themselves aren't super difficult, and a few of them can be easily defeated by just kiting with your bow. The cat mechanic was actually done properly unlike the wolf mechanic in Symphony of the Night.

Overall, the atmosphere and feel of the game is just right. The game definitely does Metroidvania justice, and I would recommend everyone to play it if they like the genre.

God I love this cute lil' boop.

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is apparently the fourth in the Momodora series, but since it's also apparently a prequel, I'm not going to fret about having never played nor heard of any of the others. At a glance, the story's nothing special - you play a priestess from a small village which has become affected by a spreading wickedbadness, and apparently its source is the massive capital city a couple blocks over. Being the fine upstanding do-gooder you are, you grab your ritual whackin' leaf and head off to see the queen and find out what's wrong with her plumbing. Upon arrival, you find that everything is deeply horrible, and must slay a bunch of bosses in various corners of the kingdom to unlock the path to the final boss and kick it in the jibblies. All very fine and nice and straightforward.

Fortunately for us, the team behind M:RUtM decided to go with the Soulsborne writing style of Showing a world rather than Telling one. As you explore, you meet survivors of the queen's curse who ramble and prattle on and share some deep life goals, but they do a marvelous job of keeping exposition to a minimum. Instead, you have gorgeously polished 2D environments that explain the state of decay far more clearly than words ever could, and each item you pick up offers a couple sentences of vague plot-snacks that make the world at large just a teensy bit clearer. Couple all that with delightful enemy and boss design that straddles chibi and horror splendidly and you've won me over before we even get to the gameplay.

...And then the gameplay's great! Goodness gracious, you little weasels went and accomplished a whole lot with very little there, didn't you? Your character starts the game with a melee attack combo and a few arrow tricks, and you essentially go the whole game relying on those and some consumables. Rather than throwing a massive arsenal at you which you'll never quite get the hang of, Mr. UM makes each boss encounter creative and complex enough that you need to work out how to go about dodging everything they throw at you while still inflicting damage of your own. And because Bombservice knows it's my favorite gimmick in the world and loves me very much, they even threw in a mechanic where beating a boss flawlessly rewards you with special, unique pieces of equipment, complete with tasty, tasty plot snippets.

It's not a terribly long game, but that's perfectly fine. What we have here is polished 'til it shines, and even if some pieces of the game seem baffling, I'm willing to accept that that's just the devs having fun. If you enjoy a good Metroidvania, Momodora's one of the best on the market, offering an immediately lovable world and solid gameplay for filthy casuals and elite pro-gamers alike.

A little bit of metroidvania with souls like elements plays a lot like hollow knight - a very solid title.

You play as a young priestess trying to find and fight of a course that fell on the land. You'll get to explore quite pretty medieval setting including castle, some manor, gardens etc.

Visually it's not bad. A pixel art graphics with a consistent art direction that does look pretty for the most part. It does however play only in 4:3 aspect ratio which introduced some ugly black borders, but apart from that it was quite good.

The whole game is a classic metroidvania with some souls elements. The latter being the combat which does remind the hollow knight. You have your basic attack, a long range bow shot and a dash you need to utilise to fight enemies. All of them except bosses respawn after you leave and reenter area. You'll also get save points which restore your health and usable items.

Along the way you'll have to find some keys and obtain some abilities to proceed further. Interestingly enough while you do level up your health your attack power remains pretty much the same throughout the whole game but even with that the difficulty seems to be very well balanced and enjoyable.

The only complaint lies with boss fights. Some bosses feel weird to say the least. But what's worse is that some of their attacks lack any tells. Though not super hard those were annoying. Also later game bosses seem quite easy when you decide to resort to the bow. But I was never the one for the boss fights so I'm glad they didn't put too much of a fight.

Overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. Felt like hollow knight but easier and smaller in scope and I couldn't ask for more. Good stuff.

I picked up Momodora: RUtM the other day on a whim because a couple of the reviews compared it to Dark Souls, and the graphics and setting appealed to me. Momodora RUtM is the fourth instalment in a series of platformers which I know nothing about, but it seems like this one is set apart from the others with significant upgrades to graphics, gameplay, sound, etc.

To describe the game, I would say it's a Metroidvania at heart with some Souls-like elements, so it's probably closer to Salt & Sanctuary than any other game I've played. In the usual Metroidvania style, you explore the 2D world and slowly fill out the map screen. Throughout the game you find powerups with give you various abilities in terms of movement and combat, which allows you to progress to previously-blocked areas of the world. Like a Souls game, there are regular checkpoints where you can save your game, and if you die you'll respawn at the last "bonfire" (in this game they are bells, like in Super Win The Game). The coolest ability allows you to change into a cat, which works similar to Metroid's morph ball, allowing you to crawl through smaller spaces. The cat also has different combat/movement abilities, but cannot use the bow (the protagonist's ranged weapon).

The game is set in a beautiful pixelated world of medieval castles, sewers, forests, haunted mansions and crumbling ruins and at times the environments were reminiscent of Bloodborne. The characters and enemies are mostly cute little things, cat witches, little blobs, skeletons and imp girls. As you progress you are blocked by many boss fights, all of which are very challenging and will really test your mastery of the controls and movement.

The story is minimal but still I quite enjoyed it. You play as a priestess from a forest village who is sent into toward the city, to the castle, to find the source of the darkness/evil that has swept across the land. Throughout the game you'll meet many sweet characters, most of whom will share a couple lines of morose dialogue, sharing their own tales of darkness and despair.

Overall the combat is challenging, well-balanced and satisfying with very tight controls. The world is filled with many secrets or "illusory walls" which may grant the player special items, in addition to the weapons, rings and powerups scattered throughout the world. I really enjoyed this game; it has a great overall feeling of high quality and attention to detail. My only complaint is the length: I beat it in 10 hours, but I wanted more! I will definitely go back to try and find more secrets, tackle NG+ and possibly try and beat it on the hardest difficulty setting. If you liked Shovel Knight or Salt & Sanctuary then you should definitely play this.