Recent reviews by starlightmeteor

This game is sick as hell! I hope it gets a lot of attention and I'm looking forward to it's release!

This is unserious game XD
Game doesn't tell you s***, and balance is whack, but it's extremely fun and worth your time!

I AM ONE WITH MY RAT PEOPLE!!!

TLDR: A great rouglike deckbuilder among great rouglike deckbuilders. Fun, Varied, Difficult, Fair. I can't get off the ride...

++I Highly Recommend This Game++

It's great, just look at how many hours I've played this silly block game!

ට﹏ര Yeah I adore this game. It's really something special, and something that really hasn't been done in this way before.

It's not traditional horror, but managing the SCP-like monsters that appear in this game, I initially found to be a genuinely terrifying experience. You need your employees and feel responsible for their safety, as well as an overwhelming sense of being unprepared and unable to live up to the expectations placed on you as manager. This feeling compounds as the facility grows larger and the monsters more mysterious and deadly.

The journey from trepidation to cold-hearted calculus was breath-taking.

First is was, "Oh God... oh crap... I have no idea what this does... I'm gonna throw the newbie in and see what happens."

Then it was, "Alright! I'm going to sacrifice this employee to let this dangerous monster out. Then I'll lead that monster to the other monster, and he'll take it out for me!"

Thirty-something hours later and my transformation was complete...
"Hmm, that's not good, definitely need to kill every single employee in that department!" is a sentiment I have genuinely followed through on (I DETEST YOU PINK SLIME!).

I have my gripes with some creatures from a game-design perspective (there are some run-ending disasters in there), but the foundations of this game are spectacular! Good writing, good characters, and a hopeful story in an otherwise grimdark world. What more could you ask for?

WARNING! - SATAN IS ON THE FLOPPY DISK! - DELETE THE GAME!

The game looks pretty darn good. It kind of reminds me of the GBA Legend of Zelda titles but with greater detail. The art for the characters is also great. The game took obvious inspiration from Studio Ghibli and it adds a ton to the game for me. I could see it not being you're cup of tea, but it's an easy 5/5 for me.

The game's music is gorgeous. It really fits the game and it never gets in the way of the experience. Great soundtrack, particularly the battle themes <3. They should really make it so that the menu theme's volume can be adjusted separately from in-game (it's always at base loudness when you boot, it's never hurt my ears, but it's a little bothersome).

The deckbuilding battles are fun to play and even funner to build. You have 3 energy to spend on a given turn, and you spend them on a deck comprised of all 3 of your creatures moves shuffled together. You can add cards to Spirits decks, upgrade them, or delete them with runes. It's not particularly balanced (looking at you Psychic Spirits) and you can do some crazy broken stuff, but it is absolutely fun. Unfortunately all of the creatures of the same element are effectively interchangeable (they learn all the same moves, their stats are the same, and they will always share 1 specific weakness). This means that when you deckbuild, you do so with Spirit types and not necessarily with creatures themselves (with the exception being their abilities). While this is still loads of fun, something like a signature card for each creature could go a long way for making each of them feel more unique in battle. I love that some of them have abilities that effect the social/exploration/farming side of the game. Armbot's "Long Arms" ability allowing me to pick up items in the overworld from a longer range is a great example and such a neat idea. Unfortunately I couldn't keep him in my party without throwing my combat strategy wildly off balance, so I only brought him out occasionally. I would like a reserve system that would allow spirits to follow you for effects while also keeping them out of your combat. There also isn't anything you can do with your creatures outside of having them follow you, feeding/brushing them in the barn, or battling with them, which is fine ig, but anyone looking to interact with their creatures any more because its a farming sim will be disappointed.

I like the people on the island, I really do. They have their quirky personalities, their likes and dislikes, you get it. But the town itself doesn't really feel quite alive. Maybe it's because Moonstone Island doesn't really have much of culture. There aren't any events or festivals to partake in, no games to play, or anything else fun to do with them besides dates. It's all very insulated. I was shocked when I realized that the New Years fireworks event was the only one in the game and it's not much of one. The dates are quite good, and a highlight of this part of the game. Strangely, while you can "enter a relationship" with someone by giving them a moonstone ring this doesn't actually change anything about your relationship except allow you date them at their house and to sleep in their bed. While I understand the implications of such an act, particularly after an exciting date, I can't help but feel the game is missing something really obvious here. After exhausting all the dates and being in a relationship with them for a while I was expecting something to change. Unique text boxes to appear or perhaps marriage? While I wasn't excited for this part of the game in particular I am still a bit disappointed by its limits. The game, it's main conflict, and by extension the town, kind of stop existing past the first year (no new newsletters, events, or quests) which is a bit of a shame. The game has an excellent setup to add rich content to the later years over time, and I hope to see such additions in future updates.

Exploration is fun, particularly at the start when you don't know what everything is or what to expect. Each island is based on a Spirit's element and will only have the matching creatures, fish, and that element's seasonal plants. The fruits of the fields are plentiful and goofily themed. Hot air balloons, pinwheel flowers, and lightning bolt shaped plants abound. These are all great to find and collect. The very act of flying from one island to another, when I don't know what to expect, is a joy. Finding statues that teleport you to other islands or rune gates to upgrade your Spirits are also fun treats. Lightning islands make it harder to traverse them they taking a bit of your stamina while you're on them, Fire island make it harder to traverse them they taking a bit of your stamina while you're on them, and Dark islands make it harder to traverse them they taking a bit of your stamina while you're on them. Yeah, it's a bit generic in that aspect. There is little else different between two islands of the same element outside of what I've mentioned besides layout. They have put a ton of effort into making each island feel distinct (as the layouts are all 'handmade' as it were), it will still suffer a bit from a lack of variety by the end of the game.

Each island has a random chance of harboring a dungeon, which are Legend of Zelda like mini-trials that offer a variety of hidden loot and enemies to challenge you. These puzzles are fun, but repeat similar elements, losing a lot of their appeal after the 10th dungeon or so, despite their lovingly crafted layouts <3. You don't need to complete more than 10-15 or the games 50 dungeons, but I went for the achievements on this one. The game's Seasonal Temples are, in my opinion, the most enjoyable parts of the game and something I always looked forward to. They function similarly to how pokemon's gyms do, with a bit of legend of zelda items mixed in there. The 4 items you receive from doing the 4 temples are all very useful and interesting and the bosses are an absolute blast. I was worried that I would overlevel and overpower all of the bosses, and while I did still do that a bit, because the bosses are all gimick battles, I still feel like I got the interesting and engaging experience the developers intended me to. It doesn't hurt that the boss battle theme is amazing. An incredible, iconic feature of this game for me.

The game has farming. It works like it has always worked since the very first harvest moon game back in 1996. Here it is easily automated, so If you don't particularly like this aspect of the game you don't need engage with it. But if you are into this stuff the game gives you the tools to have a blast, make a huge farm, and some huge income. I enjoyed it, even if I didn't go quite as wild with it as some will. The same is true for customization. If you like the idea of making furniture and decorations for your house, this game has got it and you will get some good mileage out of it. You can even customize Moonstone island itself! You can't remove much there, but you can add! It's a bit of a bummer that you cannot customize your character in any way (maybe in a future update? devs? <3).

This game is so fun and addicting. I wasn't expecting much due to the game's artstyle and moble-game like nature, and things might seem like RNG at first, but this game is really deep and strategic. No microtransations involved.

I've gotten over a hundred hours out of this game and maybe you will too. If you're on the fence, I'd give this one a try!

(Highly Recommended)
This game is an elegant dance between you and your opponents.