Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

Before buying the game, I read some reviews, especially one mentioning “controller compatibility” and “difficulty.” Honestly, yes, the game does have a certain level of difficulty, but based on my experience, it’s not that bad. I also had no problems with controller compatibility (ps4 controller), even though the store page currently only lists Xbox controllers as supported. What bothers me the most is the save system. Since this is a Metroidvania, save points are somewhat scarce. Combined with the amount of damage you take and the limited number of save points, this can make the experience a bit frustrating. So whenever you get an important item or discover a secret, try to make your way to the nearest save point. Go into the game knowing that you might get frustrated, but honestly, I had an enjoyable experience overall. If you like the Metroidvania genre, I definitely recommend giving it a try.

Momodora RUTM is an incredibly cute and charming metriodvania. I highly recommend it. While Momodora 3 has its own charm, this is definitely the highlight of the series for me, and a great game to play on its own.

The game feels oddly difficult at times due to the overwhelming amount of damage enemies deal to you. One incredibly annoying design choice is how the game rewards you with unique items for defeating bosses without taking damage—and then never bothers to tell you. I killed the first boss, accidentally drowned myself, and then beat her again flawlessly on the reload. Lo and behold, a random item popped up. A quick Google search later, and I felt a wave of irritation at the lack of communication. While the art style is simple but clean, the map layout feels a bit all over the place. Usually, in this genre, there is a sense of cohesion, direction, or some sort of overarching blueprint in place. With this game, everything just feels tossed together, making it entirely too easy to get lost. It is a game small in scope, but despite that, the messy layout was pretty noticeable. The bosses were solid overall, though the character design felt a bit tonally inconsistent. I’m not sure why half of them were essentially half-naked; the game never fully leaned into that aesthetic, nor did it choose to go in the completely opposite direction. It just felt random to have some bosses fighting in their underwear while others looked genuinely epic. That said, the fight with Duchess Lupiar had a absolutely kick-ass boss music. Everything about the game is good, but nothing is particularly is great or standout—outside of a heavy emphasis on ranged combat that I thought was kind of neat. Ultimately, the game is dirt-cheap when it goes on sale and is easily worth it at that price. It makes for a perfect one-day or weekend playthrough. *Game came out in 2016, not going to hold it to same standard of something like hollow knight silk-song when it is clearly even more of a budget indie and a much smaller scope. It was a game made by 4 people and some patreon backings from what i can tell with some pixel art, some heart, and some growing pains. Those slopes look absolutely terrible and i bet they were terrible to program, I saw them, they were jarring and it made me laugh and made me look up how many people worked on this.