Saga of the Moon Priestess Review

I always enjoy playing titles that look like they have taken inspiration from titles that I love, like The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. Developers Pixel Trash, Eastasiasoft Limited have created an old-school action-adventure title that has you travelling the world of Lunaria while you try to rescue the young prince who has been kidnapped. But before you take on the role of our heroine, you start the game as the young royal wanders through the castle. It is obvious that something is wrong; books are strewn around the floor, and the royal treasure has been stolen. He suddenly looks out the window and sees a silhouette of a mysterious woman. She says that she will return the king and restore the castle to how it once was if the prince yields. He doesn’t put up a fight, and he gives himself up.

Now that we have seen how the prince was captured, it is time to take on the role of Sarissa, a young heroine whose task is to rescue the prince. She is equipped with only her sharp spear, but she also has the ability to communicate with the Goddess of the Moon, who will assist her on her journey as she explores a variety of terrains like grasslands, deserts, and ice lands, to name a few. Each of these areas has its own dungeon that you will need to explore and enemies to defeat. Fortunately, Sarissa will acquire new weapons and attacks to use to complete the puzzles within and traverse the rest of Lunaria.

Like other action-adventure games, Sarissa will gain the ability to pick up rocks to use as weapons or uncover hidden passages, carry bombs to blow up cracks in walls, and use a bow and arrow to hit targets that are further away. She is also able to use her spear to destroy patches of grass, attack bushes to search for red and blue beads — used as in-game currency — and search for hearts to replenish your health bars. You begin the game with only three bars of health; as you progress and defeat bosses in dungeons, you will find Goddess Tears, each adding an additional box to your health bar.

There are statues of the Moon Goddess placed in each dungeon and in a few areas around the map. You can talk to it for advice or save your game by hitting it with your spear. If you die while exploring, you will restart the game at this location. Be sure to save as often as possible, especially when you get a new weapon or ability. Nothing sucks more than having to backtrack and redo things that you have already spent time on. Or if you happen to get a blue screen of death like I did and have the game crash on you, sending you back to when you last saved, it sucked. It happened during a boss battle, so I had to go and find my way through the dungeon again to challenge the large beetle bosses once again!

Saga of the Moon Priestess has a classic pixel-look to it that will surely remind you of playing titles like Link to the Past, but instead of a character with a green hat and shoes, we have a girl with pigtails and bright red ribbons holding them. There’s a variety of enemies to fight, from slimes to creatures like scorpions, snails, and bats. The type of foe will change depending on where you are exploring in this world. Some are easy to take down with one hit of your spear — like the green slimes — but others are trickier, like the bats that are constantly flying at you. Watch out for the enemies that shoot at you; their bullets can fly through anything, including rocks, so trying to use objects in the environment as shields will not work. There is also an issue when you “pause” the game or go into your inventory to swap weapons. Everything in the outside world is still moving, so watch out; it is easy to take a lot of damage in these moments.

Even though Saga of the Moon Priestess looks simple, the game isn’t as easy as you may think. The controls in the game work fine, but decisions like making you have to go into a menu to swap your weapons while you are in the middle of a battle while foes are attacking or giving no guidance as to which of the dungeons you should challenge first to get the required skills needed for the others add to the amount of backtracking that you were doing. There is nothing like getting to the boss and not having any idea how to inflict damage and realising that you are missing the required weapon, so you need to leave and figure out where you need to go next.

This title was interesting to play, but the bugs that cause the game to crash, music to completely disappear during a boss battle, and enemies still being able to hit you with bullets after leaving the screen they are on felt unfair. If you decide to check out this title, make sure to constantly save and be prepared to feel a bit frustrated.