System: SwitchRelease date: June 19, 2024Developer: Studio SupersoftPublisher: Uncooked Fury
It’s at all times refreshing when builders make an effort to shake up a style by injecting one thing new into it. It usually yields surprising surprises, or on the very least a special expertise, which is equally as priceless in an overcrowded style. Moonstone Island is one other recreation that has taken the daring and impressive transfer of throwing half a dozen totally different gameplay mechanics from assorted genres right into a blender to see what comes out. The result’s nowhere close to as messy as that means, however extra care may have been taken with what was included nonetheless.
The premise of Moonstone Island is a bit of totally different out of your customary life sim fare: a younger alchemist, your character has simply completed faculty and is now about to set off on their very own for a 12 months to make their mark on the world. Sadly, their broom breaks partway via their journey, they usually crash on the titular Moonstone Island, one in a cluster of many floating islands, populated by numerous useful (however reasonably forgettable) NPCs. It’s nearly as good a spot to arrange as any, proper? There’s a bigger story to be discovered right here as you progress via the sport, however like many life sims this extra in regards to the story you select for your self, as you may concentrate on which characters you wish to work together with, once you wish to full the primary story quests (if in any respect) and the way you spend your time.
It could sound like your customary life sim, however from a gameplay standpoint Moonstone Island is quite a lot of issues. It’s a life and farming sim, but additionally an open world journey recreation, a flip–primarily based card battling RPG, and it pulls inspiration from any variety of totally different genres as properly. A few of these issues it does higher than others, however essentially the most noteworthy, and certainly admirable, factor in regards to the recreation is that nothing is inherently damaged in such a method that you simply’ll by no means be capable of progress. The sport would possibly sluggish your tempo to a irritating crawl (and it’ll do that in its opening hours with alarming frequency) however the whole lot that you simply do has a goal, and contributes in direction of your final goal, which is properly laid out for you in your journal to remind you in case you ever neglect. It’s by no means tough to seek out out precisely what it’s that you must do, and there may be by no means any strain positioned on you to do it.
Moonstone Island lets you do what you want at your individual tempo: when you really feel like spending the day planting seeds, deforesting the encircling space, or hammering away at rocks within the mine, it’s solely your name. Your solely limitations come within the tried-and-true day and night time cycle and stamina meter. No matter you wish to do on that day must be finished earlier than your stamina runs out or 2am, whichever comes first. Failure to heed these restrictions means collapsing from exhaustion and waking up later than ordinary the subsequent day, supplying you with even much less time to perform issues. You’ll be able to alter the pace at which days progress within the menu and you may restore stamina by consuming, so there are methods to handle this stuff in-game to attenuate any strain you would possibly really feel to get issues finished or to hurry issues alongside, to a level.
Nevertheless, regardless of the liberty the sport permits you in the way you spend your time, it’s a misleading phantasm at finest. You would possibly be capable of select once you do one thing, however not when you do it. Moonstone Island requires you to do the whole lot sooner or later, whether or not you wish to or not, and therein lies the issue. Not all of its numerous gameplay programs have been created equally, and though all of them match collectively way more neatly than you’ll count on, some really feel as if they’ve been included for the sake of being included, or rammed into place with pointless drive with no regard for a way they could impression the general image.
For instance, rising crops provides you with objects for restoring your stamina and your spirit’s well being. It’s not a really participating or pleasing technique to spend your time, consisting of the same old tilling the soil, planting the seeds, and ready a requisite variety of days till you may harvest them for a small, unsatisfying achieve that doesn’t really feel as if it was well worth the time you needed to put into it. However when you neglect this you can see your self struggling within the recreation’s dungeons, as your spirit’s well being and character’s stamina is slowly chipped away and also you collapse. The sport does assist you to pace this up utilizing the Alchemist’s Wand merchandise, however this prices a considerable amount of stamina to make use of, that means you’ll be spending the time on the crops regardless.
To have the ability to use stronger spirits that you must craft sure objects, which requires quite a lot of hacking away mindlessly at timber and rocks for assets, ready for forges to organize ingots, and recipes that progressively grow to be extra advanced or costly to fabricate. Essentially the most needlessly irritating development block right here is buying Moonstones: these solely spawn at night time, and just one per island. With many important recipes requiring Moonstone ingots, which want three Moonstones per ingot, it slows issues to a crawl, and it’s a must to have interaction in a number of days’ value of tedium earlier than you can also make any progress.
None of this might be an issue if it was a bit of extra participating, or you might dip out and in of it the best way you may in comparable titles that mix farming and life sim parts with dungeon exploration and fight such because the Rune Manufacturing facility collection, however most of the life sim staples of Moonstone Island are included into the sport at their most elementary stage, and their inclusion feels extra like a box-checking train for the style than it does one thing that provides actual worth to the gameplay loop. You’ll be able to solely progress to this point in dungeons earlier than an absence of things or the flexibility to make use of higher spirits will drive you again to grinding these out at your homestead, ready round for assets, or for night time to fall so you may attempt to find the one Moonstone on the island, and this doesn’t really feel a lot like a welcome break because it does a pressured interruption once you wish to discover however are pissed off by the shortage of assets.
Adjusting the tempo at which you play to swimsuit the sport will also be problematic at instances outdoors of being pressured to interact with the weaker life sim parts. Ready round for NPCs to indicate as much as allow you to entry store services or making an attempt desperately to clear a dungeon earlier than the day ends should not unusual occurrences, and additional frustrate development. Moonstone Island is a title that wishes you to take your time to interact with the whole lot it has to supply, to the purpose that it’s going to drive you to do that whether or not you wish to or not, which provides the liberty it affords you a really synthetic feeling to it: you’re not taking the sport at your individual tempo as a lot as you’re pushing aside the chores that you simply’ll finally have to do to beat the subsequent hurdle. It’s not a flaw distinctive to the sport, however it’s a disappointing one nonetheless contemplating how pleasing the opposite aspect of issues may be when you get into it.
When you overcome these preliminary hurdles and grow to be a longtime alchemist, Moonstone Island opens up and turns into an absolute pleasure to play. The expertise is at its finest when it stops making an attempt to be yet one more life/farming sim in an unlimited ocean and lets you roam the chain of sky islands that comprise the map, traversing dungeons, battling spirits, and progressing the primary story quests. There’s a incredible sense of exploration in Moonstone Island as islands have their very own distinct biomes and native Spirits, which grow to be progressively stronger the farther you enterprise from the central island.
You’ll have to uncover the map your self as you fly throughout the empty expanse, and one factor I appreciated was that there was at all times one thing to find on every island, whether or not that was a brand new dungeon, Spirit, or flora so as to add to my rising assortment to unlock a brand new recipe I may concoct after I returned house. Exploration was at all times rewarded and gave a satisfying sense of development, serving as a welcome break from the tedium of the weaker life sim parts. The dungeons are fairly simple and are usually solely a handful of small rooms with some fundamental puzzles, Spirits, and a boss guarding a tree that can improve your stamina by a small quantity on the finish, however their inclusion provides a novel taste to the islands, and there are a surprisingly massive variety of them to plunder.
Fight in Moonstone Island additionally works surprisingly properly and is one in every of its extra pleasing parts. You’ll create a celebration of three Spirits, and each has a deck of playing cards, which you’ll use in turn-based fight. You will have a restricted variety of motion factors per flip, which you should use in a number of methods. You’ll be able to elect to play a card out of your Spirit’s mixed decks, with stronger playing cards having the next price to them. The Feed command lets you both give your Spirit an merchandise to revive their well being or increase their fight efficiency (supplied you employ the precise merchandise, in fact) or to present an enemy an merchandise to replenish a coronary heart and recruit them to your aspect. You even have the choice to Flee from battle, which may be upgraded to enhance the percentages of success through the Talent tree, though this requires all your motion factors for the flip.
Each your Spirits and your enemies even have armor to cut back injury, which you’ll both have to take care of or use particular playing cards to interrupt, gorgeous them for a flip and permitting you to deal extra injury. They, in fact, can do the identical to you, making for an attention-grabbing back-and-forth change the place that you must think about what playing cards to play, and how one can construction your deck. Spirits have the same old elemental attributes, which brings with it weaknesses, resistances, and totally different card sorts, opening up the strategic parts even additional. Initially it feels fairly unbalanced as a result of except you select one of many starters that isn’t an earth elemental, you’ll be caught with that single factor for the opening hours of the sport, and might want to undergo a number of prolonged sidequests earlier than you’ve the services and functionality to tame totally different spirits and range up your workforce. Even upon getting that capacity, the sport feels unfairly stacked in favor of the poison factor, which does absurd quantities of harm over time, trivializing the fight when you use it, and making it a tedious chore when you’re going through it. Nevertheless, there’s a good quantity of selection to be discovered right here, and it turns into extra advanced as you progress and unlock new Spirits.
Though the Spirits are primarily vessels for his or her playing cards and share a standard card pool and elemental sorts, they arrive with their very own stats: when your Spirits stage up you may assign factors into one in every of 4 stats to enhance their armor, energy, pace, or well being, and additionally, you will be capable of select a card so as to add to their deck. Playing cards will also be added, eliminated, or upgraded outdoors of this through a vendor or from objects acquired at gateways scattered throughout the islands, permitting you to customise them additional.
One other one of many foremost parts that makes Moonstone Island so interesting is its stunning pixel visuals, which stand out from the gang and are an ideal match for handheld play particularly. It has a vibrant world with a incredible quantity of element packed in, however favors a easy design for the character fashions and Spirits which makes them really feel distinctive and memorable. That is accompanied by a lightweight and stress-free soundtrack that ups the tempo barely in fight, giving it a pleasant edge that makes it really feel extra thrilling than it might have in any other case been.
The Verdict
Moonstone Island needs to do the whole lot without delay, and it succeeds at marrying numerous totally different genres in a method that basically doesn’t really feel prefer it ought to work in addition to it does. The issue is that quite a lot of its actions really feel like senseless chores that pull you away from the components of the sport which are truly distinctive and enjoyable to interact with. If in case you have the endurance and willpower to push your method via that opening grind, then Moonstone Island is a extremely pleasing expertise. However you’re sadly going to must take all the luggage that comes with it.
Moonstone Island copy supplied by the writer for the needs of this evaluation.
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