I wrote about the Moonscars before on my socials, like here on Mastodon, yet I wanted it to be here in my collection as well. And I wanted to give it the H.E.A.R.T. rate. This game begs for your love!

Today, I want to talk to you about the Moonscars - a 2D platformer metroidvania with a pinch of souls-like created by an indie game developer crew of the Black Mermaid and published by HumbleGames in September 2022.

This game didn't have much of a marketing and public success, and one of the reasons I heard about it is that it is one of few games with Ukrainian subtitles. As I found out later, the game designer is Ukrainian, so I might be biased a bit, but I believe this game is an indie gem, no less! Made by three people, though I enjoyed it more than Blasphemous 2, which is a high-budget game in the same niche. And I am being honest here. Moonscars is shorter and smaller, and it gave me 11 hours of gameplay to finish it, with 70% of achievements unlocked. But let's get down to business!

Graphics

The game has rather simple pixel art graphics, mostly black and white with pinches of red. The graphics lack detail—it's like an oil painting turned into pixels.

I didn't really like it from the beginning—the game looked blurry and a bit "dirty." But the more I played, the more I felt how the graphics contributed to the game's immersion. The style absolutely fits the story, emphasizing the world through the character's eyes. And the more I played, the more I appreciated the fine craftsmanship of the artist—the visuals are simplistic but still impressive.

Gameplay

In terms of gameplay, it is a metroidvania—the story and the world are split into a few different zones that you unlock with certain skills or keys you need to find along the way. The map feels mazy, but the size is digestible, and you will most probably progress in more or less the same order.

Fightings are enjoyable, especially after you master parry. The setup is more or less standard—the character wields a nice big broadsword and can jump, parry, and dash. There is also witchery, which comes with a tree of skills you learn for XP. You can also wear up to 3 amulets that will give you different tweaks to gameplay.

The witchery, in my opinion, is the weak spot of the design—there are a lot of skills, but I found the most effective the first basic splash and a projectile for flying enemies. Other skills either make it more complicated with insufficient payoff or don't fit into the game battle scenarios very well. For example, I tried the necromancer skills to raise the dead, and then there were enemies that required witchery damage to be killed, which couldn't be provided with necromancy. There are probably setups that will give you a satisfactory experience, but I didn't find enough motivation to dig deeper.

So, the design has flaws, but it was a really enjoyable experience. Many people complain about the complexity, but outside the Ravenous Moon curse, which can be easily lifted, I found it more or less average for these types of games. It might require some deaths, in the beginning, to adjust your play style to the game, but in the second part of the game, I was cutting through the enemies with ease.

Atmosphere

I think this game nailed the atmosphere. The way it all comes together really works well to create the right mood. The storyline, the style of the game visuals, the story visualization with neat matching graphics, and the visual effects in the game are all done very well and provide the necessary synergy for the atmosphere.

It is dark and gloomy. I would even call it a bit of a noir atmosphere. A grim world you appear in with blurry pictures for you, playing as not exactly human. The buildings are Gothic style. Clear signs of ruin in details around the locations. The appearance and mood of the characters you find in the game. Black, white, and pinches of red. As the story goes on, you will understand the design choices for the visuals better. Loved it.

Story

The story is deep and interesting. It is not entirely novel and mindblowing, but with the atmosphere done well, it creates a self-reflective mood and makes you think about things. The core idea is free will. I am not going into spoilers, but you are raised to serve, to do someone's bidding. While the world is shattered, you fight your way to your goal, pondering the meaning of life and your own particular life. And as the original purpose of your existence is fulfilled, your goal is to meet your maker and get some answers.

I really enjoyed how the story revealed itself, slowly coming to a resolution at the end of the game, leaving you with some questions to think about on your own.

Story-telling is done really well in the game.

Innovation

Overall, the game is another tweak of the classical genre. It's a nice implementation of the genre standards, with some successes (like combat) and failures (like witchery).

A mechanic I didn't see before is Ravenous Moon—the game becomes hardcore. Hardcore means you die from fewer attacks, and you need many more attacks to kill enemies. Also, the world has additional features during the curse, and some quests can only be completed during the active curse. When it happens, you can lift the curse to get things back to normal.

Ah, and also, mind, there is an amulet that removes the possibility of removing the curse for some benefits. I used it early on and didn't understand the concept, so I couldn't understand why the game was so hard and why I couldn't click the button to lift the curse. It added a few grey hairs to my head.

Conclusion

The game scored 25 points and get's H.E.A.R.T. rate of 7.1!

In conclusion, this is a really good true indie game that I highly recommend you try yourself. I will probably buy it on PlayStation to play again, as I played it on PC the first time.

With its quite distinguishable art style and well-designed world, Moonscars follows the recognizable genre rules with a small pinch of specific design decisions. I finished it in about 10 hours, so it does not feel infinite like Hollow Knights, but it still has a good digestible length to enjoy and can probably take a few more hours if you are a more relaxed player.

Actually, I think this might be a solid introduction for new players to the genre—it's not ultimately hard, and it's not infinitely long. This is an interesting and very rare balance in Metroidvanias.