moon: Remix RPG Adventure

A cute game, a wholesome game. Not the [i]"reddit gold wholesome chungus"[/i] kind, just something pure. [b]A very kind game, very optimistic, very honest, very friendly.[/b] Honestly this whole game is just a vibe. I absolutely adore how every character has a uniquely predictable routine that they closely stick to throughout the weeks, giving you many opportunities to witness them believably living their lives. It's so uniquely exciting to expect to see a character at a given place, only to spot them sneaking elsewhere to do something else and catch them in the act. As a result, you'll naturally come across many situations and interactions through pure happenstance by virtue of you being in the right place at the right time. Some stuff will require proactive, thought-out planning, but most things can be found or learned-about by randomly timed exploration - very neat. The artstyle is cute, the music is vast (as you'll discover through the many unlockable MD tracks) and the characters are a delight. Very rarely was I not having a good time! Unfortunately my only concern with the game stems from the core gameplay loop - as the game goes on, you'll spend more and more time idling to pass time just so you can do something particular at a particular time, repeatedly. It wasn't uncommon to find myself walking away from my computer and keeping myself occupied as time passed in-game just so I could intercept an interaction. There are ways to find hints to minimise the need for aimless waiting, but you'll still find yourself waiting a LOT. I'm patient, but sometimes it can be exhausting. That small issue aside, this is a very precious game. Highly recommended if you can stomach being self-driven enough to explore and learn the whole game without a guide (you'll probably still need one).

I've played it twice now, and I still can't stop thinking about it. [list] [*]Bizarre, sometimes incredibly obscure, puzzles [*]Charming tongue-in-cheek writing that loves poking fun at RPG tropes [*]Collage-like mishmash of art styles [/list] At its core, this game is about [b]sonder[/b]; you become invested in the lives and habits of its characters. [i]moon[/i] tries to get you to re-evaluate your worldview by superimposing its world onto ours and asking, "What steps/where can you provide 'love' to all the people you meet in your life?"

More than being just a funny parody or subversion of RPG tropes, I think the reason why MOON endures is the same as why people still return to good "conventional" RPGs or MOON successors like Undertale. At their best, these games replicate essential human experiences: walking around, meeting new people, fishing, listening to music, growing as a person. Without combat or a high-stakes fantasy story, MOON is entirely about these small human experiences and the somewhat paradoxical theme of the importance of logging off, going outside, and trying new things. MOON gets away with this through the same quality humor, creativity, and abrasive gameplay that Love-de-lic developers would become known for later on. MOON is well worth the investment of time and a little patience for a game well ahead of its time.

There's something so ethereal about this one. It's so bizarre, and I can see why it was never localized back in the day. But if you can get into this, it'll be a hyperfixation for you for a good month or so. There are very few parts of this game that take itself seriously, but when it does, it hits hard. I'm a sucker for a game with an in-game clock.

So, moon: Remix RPG Adventure. It is a very charming RPG game, it's art style of modeling clay used for the characters makes them feel very unique among other RPGs as it focus in making caricature of people that gives this familiar and yet strange looking sprites. The music used is very good even tho most of the game is silent letting you set the tone for you adventure with the Moon MD system where you can put songs to play, there is few songs you can find by story progression but mostly you can buy later. But the ones that unique like Moonlight On Granny's Face (Which is just Clair de Lune) are very fitting for the scenes. As for gameplay that sadly didn't age that well, the core gameplay is not that different from a point and click game where you grab item X and use in place Y so you can progress or get Z, the main problem is specially later in the game there is a lot of walking in between places that take too long and nothing in between so the second to last half of the game is mainly walking around to places. In the game defense it has Pistil which functions as rudimentary fast travel and it has the Octolips which allows you to warp back to the last place you slept but even with those there are many places you need to go in and out a dozen times and that can really ruin the charm of the game making you want to finish ASAP to be done with the game already. The NPCs having their own schedule and having specific days is impressive but sometimes makes you sleep for a whole week to just get the event you want. As story goes is very... bizarre, I will not even try to say what is even about, all I can say is that is about love. It has some interesting lore and you get the story from bits and pieces from everyone and their own problems allowing you to experience a lot of different types of story. Overall, do I recommend moon: Remix RPG Adventure? Yes*. *As an experience, not as a game, play this game sparsely, I don't advise playing it for hours because then the flaws really start to become more unbearable, but if you like play with a friend, watch someone playing or just playing a few hours it should be an interesting experience to have . Also use a guide if you are stuck, this game has moon logic for a some things.

thank you for the memories. thank you for the love.

I love that this game ends by telling you to go outside, and I will, but first I have to write about how amazing it is. Truly one of the most unique gaming experiences of my life. It's from 1997, it looks like its from 1997, and it feels like its from 1997. The art style is a weird amalgam of traditional 2D graphics, CGI renders, and claymation. The soundtrack is by like two dozen different artists, characters speak in bizzare multilingual audio-collage voicelines. You've really never seen (or heard) anything quite like this. And after a surprisingly lengthy prologue you're just sort of dropped into the game with little instruction. I highly recommend reading the "help" option in the main menu before playing, otherwise you'll have a horrible time. Time is the primary resource in this game, every second matters in the early game, and unless you understand exactly how that all works you're just gonna get sent back to the main menu over and over. I've never had a game that makes me think about how long I'm spending doing things like this outside of like Stardew Valley and other similar farming games. Eventually you feel less stressed and rushed, but time is always on your mind. Characters and puzzles might be only accessible at a specific time of day or day of the week and, of course, you either need to figure it out on your own or learn it through talking to/interacting with things. This game is obtuse, and I'd be very surprised if you reach the end without looking up a single thing. Around the halfway point I had no idea how to progress, and after looking it up I'm pretty sure I would have never figured it out alone. I'm sure very few people actually beat this in 1997. But all the friction with the time mechanics and lack of instruction is what makes this game so great, it gives it a ridiculous amount of personality. I'm one of those Fromsoftware fans that will find a way to compare anything to Dark Souls, but if someone asked me to recommend games for fans of soulslikes that weren't soulslikes themselves this would be at the top of my list. The characters are all really weird and unique, the lore is drip fed through item descriptions and dialogue, the early game feels bafflingly punishing, and odds are you will miss a lot of stuff on a first playthrough. But also its just a cutsey little game about saving animals and making friends. I really wish the international release of this port and the Switch version got more traction (I only happened to stumble upon it due to a newer game by the dev team) because it really deserves tons of attention. Without this game Undertale wouldn't exist, and without Undertale this port wouldn't exist. Its crazy.

1997!!!!?????

Fishing contest impossible! Will be blowing my ♥♥♥♥ SMOOOOOOOOTH OFF if i dont get it in another 200 attempts, Edit: I did it 10/10 game

I might trigger some fans here, but I found it to be super confusing and jank with an unintuitive bad interface. I love Onion Games and this game is supposed to be groundbreakingly significant and different for its time (Undertale for one was partly inspired by this I believe), but I couldn't get into this. There's a lot of story (okay good) and then you walk around and try some things. Suddenly you're dead and you have to restart. Hardly anything is ever explained, but supposedly you have to get back to bed after some arbitrary invisible time or action limit? Any progress you made is then lost, too, because you just have to reload your last save. This feels like the game repeatedly resets your progress in ways that feel arbitrary, turning exploration into repetition instead of discovery. I mean it's a game from 1997, I think the re-release could have really benefitted from some QoL updates.