Moonlighter

 Xbox One
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 58 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 41 out of 58
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 58
  3. Negative: 9 out of 58

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  1. Mercyscene
    Jun 24, 2020
    9
    The two core mechanics of dungeon crawling and buying/selling create an addicting cycle kept me thinking, “Just five more minutes.” The play is simple but fun. The dungeons remind me of the original Legend of Zelda.
  2. Broyax
    Aug 22, 2019
    0
    Du pixel lard bien dégueulasse pour l'indé du jour et en plus et de surcroît... de très mauvais goût !... en fait, c'est tellement laid, tellement infect, c'est à faire vomir un bouc ! Et pourtant les boucs, ce n'est pas très regardant.

    L'espèce de "jeu" proposé (dont on ne voudrait même pas pour garnir la cuvette des chiottes... mais comme débouche-merde, qui sait, ça pourrait marcher    Du pixel lard bien dégueulasse pour l'indé du jour et en plus et de surcroît... de très mauvais goût !... en fait, c'est tellement laid, tellement infect, c'est à faire vomir un bouc ! Et pourtant les boucs, ce n'est pas très regardant.

    L'espèce de "jeu" proposé (dont on ne voudrait même pas pour garnir la cuvette des chiottes... mais comme débouche-merde, qui sait, ça pourrait marcher sur un malentendu) l'espèce de "jeu" disais-je est bien entendu très con, très limité, très simpliste. En plus d'être simplet.

    M'est avis que cet étron a été boulotté par des polios du clavier, mi-autistes, mi-mongolos. Et sponsorisé par une poubelle. Justement, en parlant de poubelle, je ne crois pas que la poubelle jaune l'accepte : il faut le passer au lance-flammes et tout décontaminer après.    … Expand
  3. Lordfate
    Nov 14, 2018
    2
    Pretty garbo. Great idea with really poor execution. Controls and interface are clunky to say the least. Forced failure to advance the story is just lazy and stupid. Save your money for a root canal.
  4. SWERY_51
    Nov 14, 2018
    8
    Pros :
    + Incredibly addictive 10 hours adventure
    + Very fun and rewarding (dungeon crawling, shop keeping, crafting...) + Music and sounds are a blast + Good looking 2D with pretty nice animations + A lot of things to do, to buy, to craft, to discover + Some fresh ideas and mechanics + 3 difficulty settings for different kind of players + Texts are available in many languages    Pros :
    + Incredibly addictive 10 hours adventure
    + Very fun and rewarding (dungeon crawling, shop keeping, crafting...)
    + Music and sounds are a blast
    + Good looking 2D with pretty nice animations
    + A lot of things to do, to buy, to craft, to discover
    + Some fresh ideas and mechanics
    + 3 difficulty settings for different kind of players
    + Texts are available in many languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian)

    Cons:
    - Poor endgame, with bosses not respawning
    - Can't see my total play time anywhere? (on PS4)    … Expand
  5. Weekend_Knights
    Aug 6, 2018
    9
    Moonlighter has all the hallmarks of a modern classic. Whilst the game makes aesthetic and thematic references to classic RPGs, Moonlighter’s simple formula is interspersed with enough quirks to keep it feeling fresh. This Kickstarted indie title has fun-yet-challenging gameplay, coupled with beautiful, stylised visuals and an enchanting soundtrack. Whilst these things make it aMoonlighter has all the hallmarks of a modern classic. Whilst the game makes aesthetic and thematic references to classic RPGs, Moonlighter’s simple formula is interspersed with enough quirks to keep it feeling fresh. This Kickstarted indie title has fun-yet-challenging gameplay, coupled with beautiful, stylised visuals and an enchanting soundtrack. Whilst these things make it a technically solid little game, it is the indefinable lovable quality which overarches all of this that has us yearning for a sequel. If the day ever comes, we’ll back it in a heartbeat.… Expand
  6. GBG_Jason
    Jun 12, 2018
    8
    The title of the game serves a couple of purposes – it’s your family name, and you’re the last in the line of store owners, but you also moonlight as an explorer despite the advice of your elder who says you should get out safely once you’ve gotten enough items to pawn off at your store. And this is the addictive gameplay loop that you’ll come to love over the course of the game. WhileThe title of the game serves a couple of purposes – it’s your family name, and you’re the last in the line of store owners, but you also moonlight as an explorer despite the advice of your elder who says you should get out safely once you’ve gotten enough items to pawn off at your store. And this is the addictive gameplay loop that you’ll come to love over the course of the game. While exploring the dungeons, you must make use of your storage and decide when it’s best to head back by teleporting at the cost of some gold. You can only hold a limited amount of items at a time, and if you die, only the items shown on the character will still be available – all the bagged goods will be lost. The storage of items becomes a pretty big part of the game, as goods you find in chests will have different requirements to keep them, such as destroying an item in a given direction, not taking a certain amount of damage while it’s in your possession, turning a selected item into the item shown, among others. After progressing in the first dungeon you’ll come across a way to sell merchandise to make room while in the dungeon, albeit at a much lower amount than you’d be able to make at your store.

    Once you’re selling stuff at the store, it’s important to realize that people won’t buy something that’s way overpriced; you can gauge prices by looking in your journal as it determines what is too cheap, just right, a bit overpriced, and way overpriced with what you’ve attempted. Once you’ve made some money, it’s time to invest it. In addition to adding new people to the town which will help with your exploration in the dungeons, you can also upgrade your store. This allows for you to sell more, store more, and actually introduces more elements like thieves and different types of shoppers looking for certain merchandise.

    To upgrade your character, you’ll make him some new gear with items you find in the dungeons in addition to gold. This means you have to balance the items you sell and the ones you use for yourself. Of course, this would be much more difficult if the game didn’t offer its wish list feature, which allows you to highlight the items you want to make, which tags any items in your inventory that you need for crafting. This means you only have yourself to blame for selling that rare item you needed for your new sword and shield, bow and arrow, spear, longsword, or gloves. After buying your new gear, you can enchant it to boost the stats of them even more – this goes for any defensive gear you make too. Should you have the money to burn, you can always purchase items from a shop instead of finding them yourself.

    When exploring the dungeons, you can have two different weapons equipped at a time, and switch between them on the fly. You have a normal attack and a charge attack (or block with the sword and shield), a dodge roll, and potions for your basic arsenal. Each level of a dungeon has a pool that will restore your health, rooms full of enemies that you may or may not have to demolish to move on, and other secret locations. You’ll find an assortment of lore as you explore, learning more about what exactly is going on with these dungeons. At the end of each dungeon you’ll come across a boss, all of which are absolutely beautiful to look at, but none of which are all that difficult battle wise. Assuming you’ve got a solid setup, these will last a couple minutes. Probably the biggest danger you’ll face is time, as a slime-like ghost appears if you take too long to complete a room, much like the ghost in Spelunky.

    The saddest thing about the experience is that it’s plagued with technical issues. When I first started it, I noticed item descriptions being misspelled (shwon instead of shown), but it soon became more than that. While exploring on the last level of dungeons, the boss would be introduced randomly in incorrect rooms. That’s all fine and dandy, but soon the attacks would be hounding me in other rooms, which resulted in the ghost spawning more than I wanted. In addition to that, beating bosses spawns a large chest with unique treasure you’re likely not to find elsewhere. Sadly, on multiple occasions I found the swapping of said treasures into my bag a bit problematic – so much so that the game froze and booted me to the dashboard. As mentioned, the bosses aren’t too difficult, but having your first victory followed by lost progress due to the crash leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

    The game’s story is interesting, both the dungeon and store gameplay is solid, and the art as well as the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful. If it weren’t for all the technical issues, this game would be near perfect. Surely a few patches could rectify this, and I hope they do, as this is something truly special that people will no doubt fall in love with.    … Expand
  7. Xbox_Alive
    Jun 7, 2018
    9
    Even though I’m a big fan of dungeon crawlers I feel like the genre is a little on the stale side and I think that’s mainly down to there not being anything really new included in recent times. This however has all changed thanks to the newly released dungeon crawler Moonlighter. Without a doubt this game has given this particular genre a new lease of life and the best thing is that theEven though I’m a big fan of dungeon crawlers I feel like the genre is a little on the stale side and I think that’s mainly down to there not being anything really new included in recent times. This however has all changed thanks to the newly released dungeon crawler Moonlighter. Without a doubt this game has given this particular genre a new lease of life and the best thing is that the new unique elements work extremely well throughout your time with the game. The biggest pulling point for me with this game is its shopkeeping elements and this is what gives Moonlighter its unique edge. Thankfully this particular element is fantastic and it gives the game a lot of replayability, but you will have to get used to how the shopkeeping formula works because there isn’t much of an explanation available to you. Thankfully though this isn’t a massive problem and everything else in the game is simple to grasp. One aspect of the game that is particularly easy to understand is the combat, and this in turn makes the combat remain fun and interesting throughout your playthrough. The combat is further enhanced thanks to the fantastic enemies you come across. Each enemy has a huge amount of variety present in them and to say I enjoyed taking on the brilliant bosses would be a massive understatement. In fact I would go as far to say that the bosses that are present in this game are some of the best bosses I’ve ever faced, which is a very impressive feat. Another impressive thing about the game is the amount of content the game has. In terms of content the game has more than enough to keep you satisfied and the best thing is that the content has a great deal of variety dotted throughout, which in turn keeps things fresh and interesting for quite a while. I don’t really have many gripes with this game and the only thing I would’ve really liked included in the game is a little bit of a story because I think a story would’ve made the game even more of an enjoyable experience. The presentation side of the game though makes you forgot about the lack of a story and that’s mainly down to each aspect being done really well. Whilst the sound design is more than good enough the true beauty of this game is found in the visuals and the charm that comes from these visuals is huge, which is great. At the end of the day Moonlighter has made me realise why I love dungeon crawlers so much because it’s taken everything I like from this specific genre and improved it whilst at the same time adding its own unique features. Without a doubt this game gets a huge recommendation from me and if you’re a fan of these types of games then this game is a must buy.… Expand
  8. cash_register
    Jun 3, 2018
    10
    I love this game! It is VERY addicting! It especially reminded me of old childhood games like Animal Crossing mixed with others like (obviously) Zelda. But the game has this special and unique aspect to it. I for one Loved this game!
  9. kaiserkiwi
    Jun 1, 2018
    10
    This game is just so awesome. I can’t stop to think about the moment I can finally play again. It’s so beautiful, relaxing and cute, that my understanding of the English language is not enough to express how awesome this game ist.
  10. SuperkenGaming
    May 29, 2018
    8
    Moonlighter
    A Zelda Shoppe Keep
    Moonlighter is a Zelda dungeon crawler meets store management game where you play as Will, You’re a shopkeeper by day, dungeon crawler by night. At first I thought this game was ridiculously unfair and needlessly difficult… you go into these dungeons your attack these monsters that drop items, and your goal is to make it back to your shop with as much    Moonlighter
    A Zelda Shoppe Keep
    Moonlighter is a Zelda dungeon crawler meets store management game where you play as Will,
    You’re a shopkeeper by day, dungeon crawler by night.
    At first I thought this game was ridiculously unfair and needlessly difficult…
    you go into these dungeons your attack these monsters that drop items, and your goal is to make it back to your shop with as much as you can…
    but enemies were going crazy damage, dying would start me back to the beginning of the dungeon and I would drop everything I had…
    worse every time the dungeon was now different, its random every time..
    I was ready to tear this game apart…
    and then I got it.
    I understood the game and that’s when it got its hooks in me.
    The overall objective of the game is to clear its 4 dungeons and unlock the 5th and final gate…
    make it through 4 doors and then take town its boss for a key, doing so would will unlock the next dungeon.
    but you’re not going to do it on pure skill alone. you need better weapons. you need better gear…
    and you need to save the materials and money for this gear
    this is where the hood of the game comes into play.
    you aren’t going to just go in and clear a dungeon…
    There is a hood of explore the dungeon. get as many materials as you can without pushing it… or risk losing it all. once you’re satisfied with the gear you’ve collected you then use your pendant to teleport back which does cost cash.
    to earn this money you sell the items in your shop.
    which is another almost as addictive aspect of this game.
    you aren’t going up to a merchant and selling what you don’t need..
    you are the merchant..
    you put your items on display and town people will come in to look at what you have..
    they will react to your prices and you adjust the prices up and down accordingly…
    and then there’s an added layer of strategy of what to do with this newly acquired cash..
    dump it into your shop so you earn more for the items sold.. bring in new moonlighters so you can purchase weapons potions and items…
    invest in your bed so you can enter a dungeon with an extra layer of protection.
    all of this so you’ll be able to go deeper into a dungeon each time.
    gathering the materials needed to craft one of several weapons types as you’re able to carry tow at a time. I personally chose to go with a two-handed sword and an elemental bow.
    but before I put my effort into the weapons I put my effort into crafting the best armor I could with the materials found in my current dungeon…
    there’s also strategy in how you arrange the items in your bags, as some items found in chests that are unlocked after clearing a room can be cursed positively or negatively
    breaking other items when you return to town, or needing to be placed in a certain position in your bag…
    this keeps the dungeon crawling and item management addictive..
    it stops the game from feeling like a stale resource gathering game…
    you’ll also be able to summon a portal for an insane amount of cash that will take you back to town and let you teleport back into the same dungeon and room you left off in. as no matter how deep you get. if you die or leave and don’t use this portal, you start at the beginning of a random portal…
    getting to the 4th room is no easy feat, though there are rejuvenating pools to give you some health to help you along your way.
    I would save these portals for the room right before the boss, go back to town buy some potions go in once I have all of the beast armor and weapons possible at that point and clean house…
    its did start to feel a bit repetitive to me in the 4th dungeons but ultimately I’m surprised how addictive this game ended up being, taking me around 15 hours to clear…
    and I was hooked the entire time..
    I hated moonlighter at the beginning, but I slowly fell in love.
    I give Moonlighter
    an 8/10    … Expand
  11. cash_register
    Jun 3, 2018
    10
    I love this game! It is VERY addicting! It especially reminded me of old childhood games like Animal Crossing mixed with others like (obviously) Zelda. But the game has this special and unique aspect to it. I for one Loved this game!

Awards & Rankings

21
#21 Best Xbox One Game of 2018
66
#66 Most Discussed Xbox One Game of 2018
60
#60 Most Shared Xbox One Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
84

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. TheXboxHub
    Aug 24, 2018
    90
    Moonlighter is a game of two halves that when combined makes for a truly enjoyable experience and one that’s hard to put down.
    Read full review
  2. Official Xbox Magazine UK
    Jul 23, 2018
    70
    Beautifully made if somewhat linear. Fun to play through even though the town is quiet. [Aug 2018, p.82]
  3. XBLA Fans
    Jun 13, 2018
    100
    This game is a beautiful experience from beginning to end and something that is not only unique but can be a fantastic introduction into the rogue-lite genre for those that have never ventured in or even those that felt the genre was maybe not for them.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »