Moonlighter Review

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Anyone who's ever worked in retail knows full well the highs and lows of the industry.

From the sheer joy of a customer quoting 'The customer is always right!' to their stupid jokes about not needing a receipt.

That feeling of pure happiness when a delivery comes in and you're solely responsible for putting all the new stock away and the absolute excitement of changing all the prices around for every single product in the store for a big sale.

If you, like me, ever had dreams of being your own boss and owning your own retail store well now you can with Moonlighter!

Experience all the magic and excitement of busting thieves, keeping the shelves stocked, adjusting prices, managing stock levels, keeping customers happy and doing stock-takes!

Sarcasm aside, Moonlighter is actually quite fun.

The premise of the game is fairly unique, by day you are a merchant running a store and by night you are an adventurer running dungeons and collecting loot to sell in your store.

Moonlighter is a mix of games like Stardew Valley where you are a farmer by day and an adventurer by night and The Binding of Isaac where you make your way through a series of dungeons that get more and more difficult as you progress. But it is a much more simplified version of both.

The merchant side of the game is very basic, you fill your shelves with the loot you have collected, price them, and according to customers reactions to the prices you adjust them until every customer is satisfied. There are occasional thieves that must be caught or you will lose the stock they steal, and some customers come in with special requests that you will have to fulfil within a certain time frame. That's basically it for the daytime parts.

Then at night you venture off into one of five different dungeons to defeat enemies, collect their loot and find treasure chests. All of the loot you find can be sold in your store.

There are three different types of armor available to you once you unlock the blacksmith:

Light, Medium and heavy, each with different bonuses and drawbacks.

There are also five different types of weapons, of which you can use two at a time, these are:

The trusty Sword and Shield, 2Handed sword, Spear, Gloves and a Bow.

Each weapon has two upgrade paths you can follow, one is straight damage and the other has lower damage but additional effects like Stun, or Poison. If you accumulate enough money and resources you can have one of every type of weapon and armor to try them all out if you like.

Additionally there are other merchants you can bring to the town: The aforementioned Blacksmith, an Alchemist who makes potions and enchantments, a Retailer that allows you to purchase materials instead of having to go dungeon running to find them and a Banker which you can invest your hard earned money in and get significant returns.

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I finished Moonlighter in about 19 hours, using only medium armor, a 2handed sword and a bow. There were a few failed runs, but other than learning the boss mechanics and how to make the most of I-Frames it honestly wasn't too difficult, and that was on the 'hard' setting which is actually 'normal'.

The story wasn't very engrossing, there are notes left by dead adventurers in the dungeons that can lead you to secret treasure chests or lore books but none of the text or dialogue in the game is very immersive and the ending of the game left me more than a little confused.

As a merchant, once you have discovered the best price for an item it doesn't change, despite having a demand value on each item, once it's set you do not have to bother adjusting the price for it ever again. The majority of items you sell are just materials and books that have no real importance in the game.

I was really excited about Moonlighter when I first heard about it, it triggered a little part of me that always wanted to be a merchant in an RPG that sells big fancy weapons and items and I honestly expected that this is what Moonlighter would consist of, so I found it quite dissapointing when I realised that being a weapon merchant wasn't viable due to the cost of making weapons and their value when sold in your store.

That was probably my biggest dissapointment in the game, the simplicity of the game play and the low difficulty of completion are things I can overlook because it is actually fun to play but I really wanted to see a focus on the merchant side of RPG's and sadly Moonlighter only barely touched the surface and left me wanting more.

Another thing about Moonlighter that I have found dissapointing is the lack of replay value.

I didn't get all the store upgrades, because I didn't find it necessary to complete the game, I don't feel like I utilised the additional merchants that you can hire either for the same reason, I chose one set of armor and the 2 handed sword and the bow, upgraded them all fully and that was more than enough to get me through the game.

That wouldn't be an issue if there was a reason to play more after finishing it or at least do a NG+, but there is no NG+ and you can't even go back and fight the bosses again. So there really is no reason to replay the game again.

Perhaps I expected too much from this indie game, after all it was only $20USD and I really did enjoy the 19 hours I spent playing it but there just wasn't enough there for me to go back to after completing it.

So overall Moonlighter is a nice little RPG/Retail sim, the art work is really nice and I like the color palette a lot. The music was good but got a little repetitive.

Moonlighter really just lacked content, every aspect of it seemed to have been dumbed down a little too much to keep me engaged.

I reluctantly score Moonlighter a 7/10 The artwork is great and the idea of being a merchant as well as a hero is unique but it just lacked depth.

Hopefully the community stays behind this game and the developers can add some more content to it in future patches.

Released on – 29 May 2018

Developer – Digital Sun

Publisher – 11 bit studios

Available on PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch

Steam Link - https://store.steampowered.com/app/606150/Moonlighter/

YouTube link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81FJurvZuOg