The moonlight shines bright in developer Bombservice’s and publisher PLAYISM’s latest entry to their Metroidvania ‘Momodora’ series, ‘Momodora: Moonlit Farewell’. Taking on the role of Momo, a moon priestess from the village of Koho, players will go on a gorgeous adventure through many realms bloodied up by feuding gods as you seek nothing more than peace and tranquility under the starry skies. I really enjoyed Moonlit Farewell and I think it’s a great entry title for players new to the Metroidvania genre.
Sharpen your leaf, it’s cleansing time.
Sparkly Lunar
For anyone unversed in the Metroidvania genre, Moonlit Farewell is a 2D adventure game where you explore areas to the best of your ability, finding new gear and powers that ultimately will help you cross into other areas that can be seen but are out of reach. Having been many years since the last Momodora game (eight actually, imagine my surprise), I found that Bombservice found a good middle ground in building a welcoming but also keep the player challenged thanks to good enemy placement and fairly good pacing between new power upgrades. It’s visuals are also gorgeous, from the lighting to the character sprites, this game is beauty incarnate for the pixel art fan.
Momo is a capable warrior, though she does start off a tad weak. She has two modes of attack: a simple three-button melee combo with her trusty Sacred Leaf and a bow and arrow attack. As you explore the realms, you’ll find Sigils, companions, berries that strengthen your basic stats, and more. It won’t take long for you to go from simple leaf slashes to your screen exploding with magical swords and fire effects. Enemies collapse with a satisfying boom and a brief screen pause, giving the world a much-needed weight to your moon-influenced cleansing.
That doesn’t mean all of Moonlit Farewell’s baddies are chumps, though. Many of them can inflict status ailments that drain stamina and health, and even a small nuisance becomes a greater one when placed in the right spot. Thankfully your dodge button is always available, though limited in consecutive uses. The window for invulnerability given by the dodge button is fairly large as well, so even if you find yourself swarmed by baddies, keep calm and dodge-on.
Enemy design is varied; many will charge at you, guard zones, fire ranged attacks, and so on and so forth. Some of these can be fairly annoying, as ranged attacks can often cross barriers and if you’re unlucky, you’ll have to time your dodges to enemies blasting moons at you from the other side of the map. I did take some issue with two or so enemies that have fairly annoying sound effects—the butterflies in particular took “flapping” to new heights, had I been told it was the sound of someone airing out towels I’d be none the wiser.
Past some frustration with enemy setups, the boss fights are great. Enemies tend to border on the larger side of things but there are 1:1 scaled fights that’ll test your dodging mantle. Even better, once you’ve completed the game you’ll have a change at fighting more difficult versions of these bosses. Endgame lets you go back and explore the rest of the map as well, which is nice as not a lot of Metroidvania titles do this. More importantly, the overworld has a fishing minigame. What you do with the fish, I never quite figured out, but I like fishing in games and this simple task had me unexpectedly blow 30 minutes of my life away.
Speaking of runtimes, Moonlit Farewell should run you about 6-9 hours depending on your pacing. Experienced players will blow past the main game with ease (appreciate the fast travel, too!), but thanks to helpful Sigils and easier difficulty settings, even novice players can pick up on 2D platform mechanics. It helps that this game is also much slower in its pace, relatively speaking to other titles in the Metroidvania genre. Newbies, take your time and you’ll be a wall-hopping fanatic searching for secrets in no time.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is a great 2D platformer title that boasts a beautiful presentation and good level design that can challenge but never strangle you. Good narrative pacing and ability acquisitions keep Momo’s game from becoming stale—and don’t get me started on the fun boss fights. A perfect title for the Metroidvania faithful and newcomer. ∎
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Beautiful pixel-art presentation.
- Fun gameplay that prides on simplicity.
- Great level design.
CONS
- Occasional annoying SFX.
- Enemies sometimes blend into the background.
