Moonscars Review

Moonscars is a soulslike title in which you will play as Grey Irma on a quest to reach the Sculptor, a sort of god to the realm you're in. Throughout the review, I will try to focus on the negatives first, as they are pretty substantial and will be the deciding factor whether you like Moonscars or not; I'd suggest you try to get through them before you make a final judgement. But know this — out the other side, you will either love or hate Moonscars.

The story in Moonscars is... complex. Told in typical soulslike fashion, you'll often have to decipher riddles in order to truly understand what is occurring in the world and what Grey Irma's quest is. That said, although it's a very complex storyline to decipher, it becomes more accessible due to the amount of dialogue meant to help you understand what is really happening. Now, I'm not going to say I particularly liked this aspect of Moonscars — I prefer my stories being told directly to me — but one thing I did like about the game was its world and setting. The dark medieval world paired with the unique story really fits in perfectly with the soulslike genre, and I'm sure that any fan of that sort of storytelling will be smitten by it.

This relatively short title (10 hours by the time I reached the end credits) has you exploring the entire world and fighting numerous bosses that seek to stop you in your tracks. In typical soulslike fashion, Moonscars' only job is to make your life a living Hell as you try to reach the ending, and it does so with surprisingly fun gameplay. You'll fight through enemies with six abilities: your basic attack, secondary attack, two witch abilities (from a wide selection), a dodge, and a parry. Using a combination of all six, you'll need to fight through increasingly tricky foes to reach your destination. Moonscars slowly introduces new strengths and mandatory playstyles to progress — a system I both liked and disliked.

Fighting in the game is incredibly fun, with numerous approaches you can take. There are several secondary weapons you can wield that will work as a melee spell you can use against your foes, though this is a temporary weapon that goes away once you rest at a mirror (the savepoint). Once you've gone through, you'll have to fight a doppelganger version of yourself in order to retrieve the capability to wield your secondary weapon, which was fun but became boring, as AI Irma didn't have the most in-depth set of skills to fight. Don't get me wrong, I understand that the doppelganger can't be an exceedingly difficult foe; otherwise, resting would be far more of a burden than it already is, but it was still a system that grew old despite its fun original concept.

As you reach the later areas in the game, you are introduced to enemies with resistance to physical attacks, which discourages a melee-only playstyle in exchange for a hybrid/caster one, and although I did enjoy having a reason to use my skills, it trivialised using the weapons entirely. While I usually play brutish tanks that can handle any blow and barely rely on spells, Moonscars forced me out of my comfort zone, but it did so too strictly and trivialised more than half of Irma's kit overall. What was once a combination of using witch attacks to take out flying foes, your two melee weapons to fight ground enemies, and dodge and parry as defensive tools became me trying to parry foes and then immediately casting a spell, repeating that process throughout eternity.

Although I managed to breeze through the game and have very few deaths (until the final area), I've heard a lot of complaints about Moonscars' difficulty, and they're entirely valid. The game seemingly punishes you for everything you do, and it can become a taxing experience when you aren't adept at the game enough to hold your own. When you die, the Moon (yes, the Moon) gets hungry and foes grow stronger, having more damage and HP than usual, but they drop more bone ash — your experience and currency throughout the game. This tradeoff is meant to help you unlock more skills, and although I never struggled with the Moon mechanic myself, it's stupidly punishing to those that are less skilled at the game. Moonscars also punishes you for wanting to stick to one secondary weapon, as two of your three choices (a roguelite system to encourage you to try them all) will either increase your ichor (your mana) or your HP, but the one you had before you rested in the mirror will have no benefit. After receiving the hammer for the quintillionth time in the HP slot, I decided to stop trying to use the secondary weapon and stick to my normal kit — another thing Moonscars punished by forcing me into a sorcery playstyle late into the game.

If all of this sounds bearable, and none of these negatives are dealbreakers for you, then Moonscars is a phenomenal experience that has an incredibly steep but satisfying challenge — you will need a lot of either skill or patience to pass this game, and it's fantastic. For me, the early levels were elementary, and I managed to get through about 90% of the game without dying once, but the final level gave me a run for my money. This difficulty, and being forced to learn to play as a witch rather than a bruiser, was enjoyable despite the sudden burst of challenge that I had to face, and I personally welcomed it, but I recognise that this will not be something everyone enjoys.

All of the bosses have a simple attack pattern of a couple of hits (usually ranging from 2-6 from my count) that you can learn and use to your advantage, but their design is some of the best I've played in recent times; each new boss fight was exhilarating, and I was genuinely excited to get to the next one. When Moonscars' combat is done well, it's done excellently, but it demands a level of skill and patience that I know some will not have. Despite finishing the bosses with relative ease and being disappointed by the difficulty, they were all gratifying in their own way, though none as much as the final two bosses, which were the real challenges to behold. Finishing and reaching the end screen was a satisfying experience, similar to the one I felt with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, though not nearly as intensely.

Exploration in this title is relatively simple, and there aren't any things that were hidden that felt impossible to find, although admittedly, I did not find every upgrade there was to get. Exploring, you can get health, ichor, and damage upgrades, all of which will come in handy and are a necessity unless you want to play Moonscars as a one-hit challenge, but these upgrades were often in my path. Although I did get lost countless times, with Moonscars offering little guidance on where to go next, so do take that with a grain of salt. That said, despite the simplicity of the exploration, Moonscars makes it enjoyable by having breathtaking graphics and an incredibly satisfying sound design that amalgamates expertly with the game. The music in the areas and boss fights was definitely a plus and helped against getting tired of exploring the same area due to an unintuitive map system.

The game's soulslike elements don't come into play until the final two areas, but once they do, they really test your mettle. If you're up for the challenge and have the patience to experience it, Moonscars is an excellent entry to the genre but far too punishing for newcomers and those that don't have the patience to arduously train every battle. When it's hard, it's demanding but satisfying, making Moonscars a great title and one that I'll remember fondly.