Moonglow Bay

 PC
Metascore
63

Mixed or average reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 11
  3. Negative: 1 out of 11
  1. Cultured Vultures
    Nov 14, 2021
    85
    Moonglow Bay is a fun fishing/slice of life game with a charming story and rock-solid gameplay.
  2. God is a Geek
    Nov 5, 2021
    75
    Moonglow Bay is a genuinely moving and surprisingly feel-good tale about coming to terms with grief and embracing change.
  3. RPG Fan
    Feb 14, 2022
    72
    Despite developer Bunnyhug getting so much right in terms of the presentation and some of the gameplay, the multitude of bugs and questionable design choices cast a heavy shadow that is impossible to ignore. Since its October release, there have been two patches to address some of the bugs, but the game still remains a messy experience overall. If you can look past the technical issues currently plaguing the game then Moonglow Bay could be a worthwhile time-sink, but it otherwise remains a difficult sell for all but the most diehard Harvest Moon fans.
  5. RPGamer
    Dec 15, 2021
    70
    As a huge River King fan, trying to find a fishing RPG that gave me a boatload of mellow emotions has been challenging over the years. Moonglow Bay really feels like a lot of thought and care went into every aspect of the game. While not everything is perfect, it’s hard to deny the comfort that comes from chilling in your boat, catching some crazy species of fish, and sailing around to take the blues away. Moonglow Bay is the comfort food that you didn’t know you needed, and a game that constantly reminds you that you’re never alone, and even when you are, you can sail away to a better place and time.
  6. Digital Chumps
    Nov 15, 2021
    70
    This kind of game is a welcome change to the farming/life RPG genre. If you are a player that enjoys fishing in games, then this is the game for you because it’s all fishing, all the time. Moonglow Bay is overall a fun, relaxing game, but it struggles with controls, game-breaking bugs, and glitches that can ruin the game.
  7. Vandal
    Nov 1, 2021
    70
    This is exactly what it looks like: a relaxing fishing game. If you’re looking for an experience like that, Moonglow Bay is a good option.
  8. Twinfinite
    Oct 27, 2021
    70
    I still found myself sinking hours at a time into the charming world of Moonglow without even realizing it. Its voxel art visuals are beautiful and the soundtrack is suitably chill. Moonglow Bay has been developed by a truly passionate team, one with so many great ideas that, in trying to implement them all, perhaps haven’t had the time or experience to flesh them out with the depth they truly deserve. Still, if the idea of saving a town through fishing sounds like your cup of tea, Moonglow Bay is worth checking out. Just be prepared for a rather simplistic ride.
  9. The Indie Game Website
    Nov 9, 2021
    60
    Even though I don’t see myself swapping out my go-to “rainy day” games like Stardew Valley or Moonlighter for Moonglow Bay anytime soon, I’m also not ready to say that I definitely won’t. The amount of progress that the game made in just a week and a single patch has given me nothing but hope for its future, and it’s a game I’ll be keeping an eye on in the weeks to come. Moonglow Bay also supports local coop, and while I’ll always support anything that allows me to play with friends, the game feels like an almost personal experience that I didn’t ever feel the urge to invite someone to share with me. So with that, I’ll leave you with my closing thoughts of Moonglow Bay: Not bad, cod be better.
  10. New Game Network
    Jan 31, 2022
    59
    Moonglow Bay starts strong with its emotional story and initially solid gameplay loop of fishing and cooking. Unfortunately, bugs and the lack of variety quickly become its downfall, resulting in an experience that grows more bland and frustrating to play the further you progress.
  11. Edge Magazine
    Dec 2, 2021
    50
    Pleasantly meditative as it can be, it feels worn and ragged in places, that uncomfortable woolly itch coming just too often to ignore. [Issue#366, p.121]
    All this publication's reviews
  12. Cubed3
    Feb 13, 2023
    40
    A super-calm mix of fishing, cooking, business management, and town-restoring RPG, Moonglow Bay is a decent idea that wasn't executed that well, and is thus very boring and repetitive. It also struggles with making you care about anything. Players do things just to do them, with the tiniest sense of progress possible. Take your fishing rod and fish somewhere else.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
This publication has not posted a final review score yet.
These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

?
  1. Polygon
    Oct 27, 2021
    The slow pace and gentle yet solemn storytelling — with lots of bright, joyous moments, too — is delightful, and I’m eager to learn more about Moonglow Bay and its people, in a town shaped as much by fishing as it is by grief.
  2. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Oct 25, 2021
    The game's story keeps unravelling towards a genuinely tearjerking ending, digging into its themes of community, resilience, and rebuilding in surprising and consistently interesting ways. It keeps a steady, compelling rhythm, switching between the normal fishing and cooking to something more dramatic and then back again. And watching the town slowly come back to life, not despite setbacks but building on what they leave behind, is beautiful.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
tbd

No user score yet- Awaiting 1 more rating

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 2 out of 3
  1. 3t3rnal
    Feb 5, 2022
    3
    Moonglow Bay could have been either a nice casual fishing and cooking game, or a challenging business simulator game. It tries to go both waysMoonglow Bay could have been either a nice casual fishing and cooking game, or a challenging business simulator game. It tries to go both ways and as a result, gets nowhere. Yet, it is still charming in a few ways and a few of the gameplay elements are fun and engaging. So why the negative rating? Technical issues and lack of polish.

    First of, the graphics and the design - the game has a Minecraft+ style, blocky but some detail, and as mentioned, it is pretty charming. Unfortunately, the quality is kinda all over the place. You have locations that are well designed and with a lot of attention to detail, and then you just have other locations that are mostly empty, or they look hastily thrown together. Some of the parts of the game are also in a hand drawn (I guess?) 2D - and it has a very high quality and looks good. It just doesn't really fit for me, it's very out of place for the overall style.

    Sound is okay, the music is okay, a bit bland and generic "casual game" style. Same goes for the ambience. It's good enough, but it's nothing memorable.

    Story wise, it's a slice of life story with some play at emotions. I have seen it praised, but I honestly found it to be a bit bland. It tries to go for the feels way too soon, before I was even immersed into the world, it was already "feel-sad-baiting". The lore of the game, or rather the locations where it takes place, is pretty funny and interesting, though. Also, the narrative has a mild case of "the woke".

    The gameplay, as mentioned at the beginning, is kinda all over the place. The fishing is pretty interesting and fun at first, but there's a completely unnecessary mechanic that allows you to cheese through it. You can of course decide not to use it, but the fact that it even is in the game the way it is makes me question how much playtesting was done. I have a feeling it wasn't much.

    The cooking is also pretty fun, and it has no exploits as far as I know, but the QTEs that are part of it have pretty inaccurate button push/release registration and as the resulting food quality depends on how precisely you do the QTEs, you sometimes get screwed over.

    Finally, there's the business part and the economy. The business part is undercooked, literally. You cook a batch of food, and put it out to sell. But you don't really see how much of what you are selling, etc. Daily, one food gets a bonus, and one a negative status, increasing / decreasing price, but since you don't know how much stuff is left, and which types are sold out or not, you don't know what effect it has on you. You also can't take foods that are already being sold out of the stock and return them once their price increases. There is also no real simulation of demand besides these random statuses, so you can literally spam one type of food - the easiest to make that you can make out of all / most of the fish you catch, and just cheese it this way.

    For some recipes - most actually, you will also need different ingredients. You have unlimited amount of them in your kitchen, but you pay for them when you take them out of your fridge. And my question is, why even have this in? Like, just stop at the point where "you have unlimited other ingredients", remove the paying for them, and reduce the sell price of the foods. It's also not balanced well, and it's literally just more profitable to spam some cheaper foods instead - not to mention that you are supposed to have a fast food stall, and most of the stuff you cook is anything but fastfood, and a lot of fastfood recipes are not available.

    Also, the way fish works is stupid - you get fish, they have weight, etc. - but it does not matter - 1 fish = 1 meal. If the game was trying to stay casual, alright, fine, but it's trying to do this business thing, and it makes no sense. A 40kg fish, allows you to make one batch of fish cakes. So does a 4kg one... How is that even a thing?

    You can also donate fish to local aquarium, and it boosts your sale price - supposedly, I actually didn't see any change, and also, once when I donated fish, the aquarium only accepted some (all were new species), and not the rest - but they still got taken out of my inventory, so I had to donate another specimens of those species...

    Furthermore, there's a bunch of issues with random invisible walls, or places where the ground ends before the hitbox so you float above sea with your character in the parts where you are not on your boat, and so on.

    It just feels hastily thrown together - someone had a cool idea, but not enough patience - or skil, or both - to pull it off. And it's a damn shame, because the premise of the game is really fun, hell some of it is already here - fishing without the quickreeling, some aspects of the cooking, the long list of different and fairly distinct species of fish and other sea creatures... It just isn't done well.    … Full Review »
  2. fluffysquee
    Oct 28, 2021
    2
    Do not play this game - yet.
    This is a game with easy to understand mechanics that are engaging, a lovable setting, all wrapped up with    Do not play this game - yet.
    This is a game with easy to understand mechanics that are engaging, a lovable setting, all wrapped up with wonderful music and presentation; the only problem is that all of the games upsides are buried under a mountain of technical (and some design) issues that make the game completely unplayable. You'll find scripting errors, menu locking, progress locking, movement obstruction, intense frame rate dips, horrible camera angles, multiple songs playing at the same time, confusing and unexplained controls, and more all within the first 30 minutes of your play time. It is not worth your time in its current state; it's hard to imagine they even play tested with the wealth of bugs and glitches in this small scale game.
    I have hope it could one day be a charming and relaxing game but as of its state on release, it is unplayable and frustrating.    … Full Review »
See all user reviews »