Cozy World
Usually, in a review of a sequel, it's customary to compare it to the first part, meticulously analyzing the changes and reflecting on what has improved and why. But this review of Moonlighter 2 won't do that. It just so happens that the first part of this roguelike never made it onto our radar, and it was released way back in 2018. So this review is about impressions of Moonlighter 2 literally 'from a clean slate'.
And this leaves a certain mark on the text. The authors managed to create a truly warm atmosphere. Each character presented has their own background, unique speech characteristics, and personal history. At the same time, these details are not chewed over for newcomers in dialogues but are mentioned in passing — as they should be. The story tells of the village of Reoka, whose lands were invaded by the intergalactic collector Moloch, who expelled the inhabitants and opened a path to other dimensions. Those starting with the second part will guaranteed miss some details, but Moonlighter 2 is not a story-driven game, but a roguelike (rogue-lite). The plot here is more of a function than a standalone story: its task is to interest the player and create an atmosphere. This is neither a plus nor a minus, but an unusual feature of this particular roguelike.
The narrative itself is warm, almost 'lamp-like', with a good and gentle sense of humor, so it's really pleasant to immerse yourself in the story. Every now and then, the thought crosses your mind: maybe I should take a closer look at the first part? But then you look at the screenshots and pixel graphics of the original, compare them with what you see on the screen in the second part, and you no longer really want to get acquainted with Reoka in its old rendition. Not because the first part is bad or ugly — it's a typical pixel art game, albeit with its own charm. But Moonlighter 2 is good.
The character design, carefully transferred and modernized from the first game, the elaboration of locations, the color scheme, and the animations leave a very pleasant impression. It's clear that the project was made with soul. Yes, the graphics cannot be called technological, but the design elevates it to a very good level, despite the overall simplicity.
The only thing that bothers me in this idyll: for the first time in many games, it was in Moonlighter 2 that the Xbox Series X (!) made its coolers hum a bit. It's clear that the graphics don't come easy for it. Playing on Xbox doesn't bother me (Xbox is generally a quiet console), but the fact itself is surprising. There's a suspicion that there might be problems on weaker PCs. But we haven't tried it ourselves.
And now let's return to the visuals, or rather, finish with them. Beautiful and stylish graphics, high-quality animations, well-written dialogues, and pleasant music together create a cozy vibe that is hard to put into words. It's pleasant to be in the game, especially when you're just starting your journey. And even when the mechanics become familiar after many runs, this feeling doesn't disappear: the game continues to envelop you with its calmness, without becoming boring or annoying.
Subconsciously, from such a visually cozy game, you expect the same gameplay. Something in the spirit of typical 'cozy adventures' — with a farm, garden beds, or a shop with regular customers. And partially, the game lives up to this expectation. But only partially. Like the first part, Moonlighter 2 combines a magical artifact selling shop simulator with dungeon crawling.
The Grin of Capitalism
There are many ways to transform your shop. There are several levels of development: as you progress, the area, the number of display cases, and their quality increase. And there are wide possibilities for customizing the appearance — from the color of the wallpaper to the selection of carpets and bedspreads. In addition, you need to choose and arrange furniture. The task is actually not trivial: arranged items give various bonuses, and their proper placement on carpets and the selection of display cases turn furnishing into a real mini-strategy for squeezing additional profit from every square meter.
For example, there are display cases that give bonuses when selling luxury items, there are priority flags — items from this carpet are sold first, there are bonuses for artifact rarity, for the place of extraction, etc.
Of course, all this can be ignored, but in this case, you will lose money. And money is about upgrading, upgrading, and upgrading again. And without upgrading, there will be less money. So it's not recommended to completely neglect the shop.
In general, the presence of this shop causes a certain dissonance. The atmosphere of the town itself and the process of settling in, when you slowly build your nest — all of this should ideally be meditative and unhurried. But here it is not. At the beginning of the game, trading is a whole quest of 'guess the artifact's price'. There is no catalog with fixed prices, and we begin a long and painful selection. The price can be low, normal, high, and inflated. At an inflated price, your item simply won't sell. At a high price — it will sell, but don't expect tips, and the customers' attitude towards the shop will be so-so. Selling at a low price is a simple way to gain popularity, but such popularity cannot be called cheap: this generosity directly hits your pocket. And money is what? Upgrading, upgrading... Well, you get the idea.
This search for the ideal price adds unnecessary fuss, especially at the start. You run between counters, arrange artifacts, adjust price tags. The mechanic has migrated almost unchanged from the first part, and the 'open market' is one of the key features of both games. Is it worth it? You can only answer this question by trying it yourself. In my opinion, such fuss is not very necessary, but some players enjoy it. Although, overall, tinkering with the shop is pleasant.
Into Battle
What about the roguelike and combat part?
The combat system here is well implemented. The character is offered several types of weapons: a versatile sword, a long sword (slower, but more damaging), a spear (to keep enemies at bay), and gloves/fists (for furious close combat). Melee weapons are complemented by a 'splattergun' — a fantastical analogue of firearms. It is also not presented in a single instance: among the 'splatterguns' there is a 'sniper rifle' (hits far, but not very hard), and a shotgun (deals huge damage, but only at close range).
Subjectively, the long sword turned out to be more convenient for me than other types of weapons. But here everything depends on your preferences. Close-range fast assault with gloves is simply not very close to me, but someone else might prefer it. Of course, the most versatile 'medium' combat with a regular sword is still an option. But there is one problem here. There isn't enough money to upgrade all types of weapons (you need to upgrade more than just weapons). So in the middle of the game, you will most likely be left with your upgraded favorite blade/spear. Which makes you a kind of hostage to your initial choice. Or you'll have to grind.
And you can also use your own backpack as a weapon, throwing enemies with it. And not just anywhere: for example, onto spikes, which will hold the villain for a while and deal additional damage. And if the enemy is stunned, you can even knock them out of the arena with the backpack. In addition, you can deflect some types of projectiles with the backpack, returning them to the sender. Given that the main weapon has two types of attacks, it turns out that in close combat you can fend off enemies in at least four ways, skillfully combining them.
Initially, such variety is somewhat confusing. The not-so-convenient control layout on the gamepad doesn't help either. Of course, you can reassign it, but you can also just get used to it. The first runs are painful. Confused by buttons and attack types, you try to fend off enemies rushing into the arena and dodge archers perched on high ground.
But from run to run, your skill grows, and finally, the leveling starts to work. And it starts to work so well that you can simply overlevel. That is, after several dozen runs, you fly through the initial locations in each biome, dishing out damage left and right automatically (skill), and enemies are defeated in one or two hits (leveling). And once fully leveled, you can even take down a boss with a mop (yes, there's even such a quest in the game). This doesn't mean that you can't complete it with just skill without leveling. You can. But there's little enjoyment in it: enemies are 'chunky' at first, especially closer to the boss. However, total overleveling of the character also reduces the enjoyment of combat.
But the main problem with Moonlighter 2 is not the combat mechanics or leveling. The game simply doesn't work well as a combat roguelike.
The key word is — combat.
During a run, it doesn't offer many opportunities to choose bonuses. And considering that some of them affect not combat characteristics, but only the quality and quantity of loot, there's no real build-making in the game.
And build-making is the foundation of the genre. 'From rags to riches' — that's the recipe for any good roguelike. But it's not here. If you start clearing a dungeon 'in rags', you'll stay there until the end, if you even make it. And no, the few bonuses won't change that. Perhaps with pure skill, you can still struggle to carry away more loot. But if you start a run as an already leveled warrior, you can completely ignore dungeon levels with bonuses: it's easier and more profitable to simply carry away more resources and loot. Here, it's more appropriate to talk about the game belonging to the diabloid genre, not roguelikes. But if you look at genre affiliation through the prism of loot, it's a bit more interesting (but more on that below).
The second not-so-pleasant feature is the limited variety of gameplay situations. Levels are generated procedurally, but the building blocks from which they are assembled repeat very often. So from run to run, you run through familiar, slightly shuffled locations, gradually bringing the completion of individual fragments almost to automatism. So much so that after a while, you can calmly turn on a podcast (for example, IXBT.games) to listen to it and play at the same time. Generally speaking, this is not a very good feature of the game. There are two mini-bosses per biome. Given that you run through them regularly, after a while, defeating them becomes a routine, as do the runs in general.
But the situation with bosses is better. Fighting them is enjoyable and appropriately challenging. With the caveat that this is not a souls-like game, and there's no hardcore for hardcore's sake here.
Also, as you progress, there's a tiny handful of exploration. NPCs give out several quests to find items, and these secrets need to be found. However, hints are given in the style of Captain Obvious. There are amusing platforming levels, but they are one-time. Overall, pleasant additions, but they don't affect the overall impression of the game.
By the way, about biomes and locations. The game has three biomes-dimensions: a desert with bugs, a future collection in space with robots, and meadows with fairies and wizards. First, day runs are unlocked. After the day boss is defeated, it becomes possible to complete more difficult night levels with richer loot and other resources that unlock new items.
For the Loot
The process of collecting loot itself deserves special mention. It's not just about dragging artifacts from a chest to a backpack. Each artifact has a 'curse' on it. By properly arranging items so that the curse works as intended, you can increase their value (remember the money), but inattention can lead to the destruction of valuables or a significant loss in your wallet, when instead of profit, you get losses.
What does 'properly' mean? Each curse has an area of effect. This can be all adjacent cells or separate adjacent inventory cells, the area of effect can be a row or a column. By combining different 'curses' and artifact locations during a run, you can significantly increase their quality.
Opening each chest turns into a kind of artifact Tetris. This is fun, but this micromanagement can disrupt the rhythm of the playthrough if you spend too long rummaging through your inventory after opening each chest.
And this mini-game is, in a way, actually the roguelike. That is, we are not creating a character build, but an inventory build? This is unusual, on the one hand, but, as they say, there's a nuance. Usually, players in roguelikes create a character build, expecting perk synergies and the hero turning into an all-killer. But here — synergy of curses and increasing loot quality? Perhaps not a very equivalent replacement.
At the 'base', where our shop is located, there is also a day and night cycle, but this change hardly affects the working hours of NPCs (except for one of them, but even that is purely cosmetic).
As mentioned, the locations are drawn with love for detail. And as a backdrop for adventures, they are beautiful, but the exploration part is not very good.
And finally, a few words about the technical side. On Xbox, Moonlighter 2 generally plays well, but the (few) crashes, some graphical artifacts, and isolated technical rough edges do not spoil the overall experience, but they cannot be ignored either. They are there. Such things could have been ironed out in early access.
Diagnosis
Moonlighter 2 is a game I really don't want to criticize. On the contrary, I want to praise it for its visual style and atmosphere, for its cozy vibe and pleasant music, for its combat system with its variety of weapons and backpack mechanics, for its high-quality animations and well-designed sound. There are many pros, and they outweigh the cons.
But I can't turn a blind eye to the obvious shortcomings. Moonlighter 2 doesn't work as a cozy shop simulator or as a roguelike. The shop simulator turns into a routine due to the need to adjust prices, and the roguelike doesn't offer full-fledged build-making within a run. And price adjustment generally turns into a trivial computer science problem. You have a very high price, a very low price, find the boundaries between different price levels with as few sales as possible. And how can you relax then?
But, weighing all the pros and cons, you come to the conclusion that you have a pleasant time-killer that doesn't claim to be a masterpiece, but also doesn't annoy. It's pleasant to spend evenings with it, especially since it allows you to listen to podcasts. Hands are busy with the gamepad, ears are busy with the podcast. Um... The question remains, what is the brain doing at this time?
Is it worth adding to your collection? In my opinion — no. But the game is available on Xbox Game Pass, and playing it there, if you have no other releases in your queue, is a sweet deal.