Lunarium

I came away really enjoying Lunarium, and considering it's the developer's first game, I was surprised by just how polished and focused the overall experience feels. The art is beautiful, the soundtrack complements the world wonderfully, and the combat is genuinely satisfying to engage with. I also have a soft spot for stories centered around worlds slowly succumbing to corruption, and Lunarium's setting immediately hooked me because of that. One thing worth mentioning right away is that the game places a strong emphasis on its story. There is considerably more dialogue than I personally want in my games, so you'll want to go in expecting the narrative to be a major part of the experience. Thankfully, you can hold the dialogue advance button to skip entire conversations, which I greatly appreciated. If you do choose to read everything, the writing is generally good. There are a few minor typos, some surprisingly modern phrasing that occasionally feels at odds with the setting, and a handful of more esoteric concepts that can be difficult to follow, but I still found the narrative engaging overall. Cutscenes unfortunately cannot be skipped, which becomes a little frustrating when replaying bosses after dying, although there thankfully aren't many of them. Combat is where Lunarium really shines. It starts off deceptively simple with a basic three-hit combo, but quickly expands as you unlock skills. You can add new attacks onto existing combo chains, gain mobility options like dashing toward enemies after firing an arrow, and gradually build a much more expressive moveset than the opening hours suggest. The Cloak system is one of my favorite mechanics in the game. Rather than offering small statistical bonuses, each cloak meaningfully changes how Ave plays. One completely replaces the standard combo system with a faster two-hit chain built around maintaining aggression and building combat stacks. Another slows time after a perfect dodge, while another transforms your charge attack into a spinning attack. They feel genuinely different to use, making experimentation rewarding throughout the adventure. The Embroidery system adds another excellent layer of customization. Functioning similarly to equipment, these alter both Ave's and Lune's abilities in meaningful ways. You might gain an additional Resonance point, make perfect parries easier while removing standard parries entirely, or increase your damage when attacking enemies from behind. These kinds of trade-offs help create builds instead of simply equipping whatever has the highest numbers, which I always appreciate. Defensively, the game is built around parrying and dodging. Most attacks can be parried, while enemies that glow red must be avoided instead. The timing windows feel forgiving enough to learn while still allowing enemies to delay attacks and catch impatient players. Area-of-effect attacks are telegraphed clearly with red indicators, making encounters feel fair even when things become hectic. Enemy variety is another strength. Enemies often have mechanics that encourage specific counters rather than simply hacking away at everything. Shield enemies, for example, completely shut down normal attacks until you stagger them with a charged attack. Bosses are even better, consistently introducing mechanics that feel unique without becoming overwhelming. Several bosses expose temporary weak points that must be shot with an arrow under pressure, creating some of my favorite moments in the game. Combined with checkpoints placed immediately before boss encounters, the game keeps the focus on learning fights rather than replaying long runbacks. Another mechanic I particularly enjoyed is the stagger system. Filling an enemy's stagger meter leaves them vulnerable, and later in the skill tree you unlock a powerful execution attack that capitalizes on it. I love this style of combat loop in almost every game that features it, so it was no surprise that I enjoyed it here as well. While exploring, dialogue appears frequently and advances fairly quickly. I think some players may find this pace a little exhausting, and voice acting would have gone a long way toward making these conversations feel more natural, although I completely understand that this was likely outside the scope of an indie budget. Thankfully, every conversation is recorded in an in-game dialogue log, so if you accidentally skip something or simply read too quickly, you can always review it later. I think that's an excellent quality-of-life feature. Exploration is also handled well. The map is genuinely useful, allows players to place custom markers, and makes navigation much easier than many games in the genre. There are also plenty of hidden collectibles and secrets scattered throughout the world. Even after deliberately searching for them, I still missed several, and I honestly have no idea where they could be. Completionists will probably want a guide for 100%. The final act is where the game lost some momentum for me. The focus shifts more heavily toward story, sending the player back through previously explored areas without map markers directing the way. While this serves the narrative, I found the backtracking less engaging than the excellent pacing found earlier in the game. Several side quests also revisit old areas filled with enemies you've long since outgrown just to reach newly added bosses, which made these sections feel more like cleanup than meaningful content. The final boss was also a noticeable disappointment. It's a lengthy three-phase encounter with unskippable transition cutscenes between phases, making repeated attempts slower than they need to be. More frustrating is a grab attack that traps the player in a lengthy animation, removes roughly half your health, and requires extremely specific dodge timing to avoid consistently. It felt significantly more punishing than anything the game had asked of me beforehand and unfortunately soured what had otherwise been a fantastic experience. I also encountered a handful of technical issues during my playthrough. Early on, I lost control of my character after a dialogue scene and had to restart the game. Later, reading a letter in the village caused the same issue, again requiring a restart. I was also unable to upgrade my Prayer ability for nearly my entire playthrough, leaving me with only the default three heals. Thankfully, the developers patched this before I finished the game. Given how quickly they've been releasing updates, I'm confident future players are unlikely to experience most of these problems, but it's worth mentioning for transparency. Despite those criticisms, I thoroughly enjoyed Lunarium. The combat systems are thoughtfully designed, the build variety is excellent, the bosses are consistently fun to learn, and the presentation is incredibly impressive for a debut project. The final act loses some momentum and the final boss could certainly use another balance pass or reduced interruptions, but these issues weren't enough to overshadow everything the game does well. If you're looking for an action RPG with rewarding combat, meaningful customization, and don't mind a heavier focus on story than I typically prefer, Lunarium is an easy recommendation. I'm genuinely excited to see what this developer creates next.