Moonlighter strikes an interesting cord with me. When I was younger kid, I played Dragon Warrior IV for the NES. And my favorite part of that game was the third chapter, when you were a shop owner. During the day running your shop, buying and selling weapons and armor, at night fighting monsters to get more gold and items to restock your shop for the next day. I don’t know why, but I loved this gameplay. Moonlighter takes this small piece of a old game, and expands the concept into a full game.
You are Will, a merchant living in the town of Rynoka. A mysterious old dungeon that was once boarded up becomes open and against your Grandfather’s will, you begin exploring. Each dungeon is three floors,each randomly generated. There are four dungeons in total, each one unlocked after defeating the boss at the end of the third floor of the previous.
While in the dungeon, you’ll collect loot and money. You have a limited sized backpack, so you’ll need to pick and choose what you collect if you find a lot of items. Once your backpack is full, you can use a special item to return to the town with all your items. Then you can drop them off in your shop to be sold the next day. If you lose all your HP, you get knocked out, lose all items in your backpack (nothing on your person) and wake up outside the dungeon.Part of your goals is to upgrade the town back to its former glory. As you earn money from selling things in your shop, you can expand your shop to hold more items, as well as bringing new vendors into the town. There is a blacksmith where you can craft new gear, an enchantress to craft potions and enchant items, and a few others to help along the way.
Moonlighter is a charming game, but I think it falls a little short in what it could have done. After the second dungeon, the shop management part of the game is almost completely phased out. This was a little disappointing because I had such high hopes of that part of the game, maybe because of my childhood. The game plays very well, controls are simple and intuitive, and has a crazy twisting story.
