Lunarium

Lunarium is a special game with 15% jank, 60% perfectly passable isometric combat, and 25% brilliant heartfelt excellence. I love parrying and perfect dodging in most games, and I'd say they both feel pretty good here, though there's something about the parry that made it hard to master. I think it's because most of the enemies are very small on screen and their attacks are not telegraphed with the right levels of exaggeration/anticipation. I tried a parry focused build more than once, but to beat all the hardest bosses I had to switch to perfect dodging or something more balanced. Some of the bosses are really good, especially in Cyanstone, while others are baffling, like the giant fish. I found the final boss much harder than the rest of the game as well, but I was trying to get to know her moveset. I finally won by overwhelming her with my own big attacks. The visuals are wonderful throughout, featuring a lovely watercolor aesthetic with bright tones and soft lighting, all while maintaining a good level of distinction between areas and a clarity of characters and enemies. The animations of Ave and Lune are also impressive, making the whole game a constant joy to look at. And the relationship between Ave and Lune was a surprise standout for me. It is explicitly platonic, which some may find disappointing, but the depth to which they forge their friendship brought tears to my eyes more than once. Ave's forthright, passionate decrees of loyalty and Lune's poetic, sincere reciprocation over time filled my heart and made me love these two and their bond. I liked the dialogue as well. I always appreciate when characters are as smart as the audience. There were some weird localization glitches, with some lines of dialogue repeating, appearing out of place, or assigned to the wrong speaker, but I managed to follow the story well enough to stay invested and appreciate many lines of clever, funny, or moving dialogue. The philosophy underpinning the story is SO up my alley — very humanist, anti-religious, eternity-skeptical. I loved it, and the presentation and rumination on complex spiritual ideas from a variety of unique character perspectives worked really well for me. Overall, I thought Lunarium was wonderful. I'm very happy to have stumbled upon it and played through, even though it runs inconsistently on Steam Deck even at 30 fps. Worth your time if you like combat-focused, pretty games with thought-provoking stories.