Moonscars

by Aethyna Oct 4, 2022 | 1 Votes | 78 Played | 0 Reviews

8 rate

Genres:

Action

Graphics:

Labels:

Dark Fantasy , Souls-like , Metroidvania

Platforms:

Publishers:

Humble Games Play as Grey Irma, the leader of the group of elite warriors, the Pristines, as she tries to piece together what happened to her and her team after they embarked on a quest tasked by their master, the Sculptor, to rid the world of the maddened Clayborns. Help her find some answers in this dark fantasy-themed 2D Souls-like Metroidvania! Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Moonscars is a dark fantasy-themed, Metroidvania-based, Souls-like 2D platformer where you play as the leader of an elite band of warriors, Grey Irma of the Pristines. She and her team were ordered to slay the maddened Clayborns, an entire race of humanoids created by the Sculptor, but something must have happened that had led to her awakening with severe injuries and her entire team gone. With nowhere else to go, she decided to follow the mysterious voice in her head that told her to find the Sculptor. In a world filled with hostile Clayborns and other creatures, will she make it?

Plotline

The story here, prefaced by an introduction where you get to listen in on the conversation between the Sculptor and a rather large kitty, is rather cryptic and a bit hard to follow.

From what I understood, the Sculptor created an entire race out of clay, bone powder and a drop of ichor, and made them in the shape of men. However, in the process, he tainted them, the Clayborns, with his darkness and malice, and the corruption has driven them all mad.

As their creator, the Sculptor tried to rein them in, but it doesn’t seem to be working as he claimed that “he was rejected by his own creation”. Thankfully, he has a plan B; not the most ideal plan B, but it’s still a plan. His plan? To send out his loyal group of elite warriors, called the Pristines, to cull the maddened Clayborns, and essentially fix his mistake.

However, he underestimated the strength and overwhelming numbers of the Clayborns. One by one, his beloved Pristines fell in battle. From eight, there now remained five. This is where things get a bit muddled. It seems like the five encountered something – another powerful being, perhaps – which made short work of the warriors.

You aren’t told what happened to the five – though, you can find out yourself as you progress through the story, collecting memory fragments and watching the story cutscenes – but in this game, you play as the leader of the Pristines, Grey Irma. She somehow managed to escape from whatever fate that has befallen her team… but barely.

With her ichor almost drained, the only way she could fulfill her destiny and seek out the Sculptor as ordered by a mysterious voice is to inhabit a Clayborn-version of her body – the very kind of clayborns that she was charged to eliminate.

Gameplay

If you’re familiar with 2D Souls-like platformers in general, you should be able to easily grasp the game. Here, you can wall jump, perform charged attacks, air dash, roll/dodge right through enemies, parry, and more, all of which are actions that you should already know by heart.

However, if you’re new to the genre, it might still be daunting at the beginning as the game introduces a bunch of actions and abilities one after another, despite the fact that the game itself as a whole is on the easier side. Don’t get me wrong – the game can still be grueling but once you know your enemies’ attack patterns as well as learn how to parry effectively and manage your ichor, you’ll find that you die a whole lot less.

The game is also designed with controllers in mind, so if you’re playing on your PC, you might want to plug in your controllers to get the best experience. If not, the game still plays fine but some of the action keys can be a bit tricky to get used to. Thankfully, you can always rebind the keys should you need to do so.

Now, to survive and progress in this game, there are a few important things you’ll need to know and master. Platforming is definitely one of them. The game has some pretty tricky jumping challenges that will result in you impaling yourself on some dangerous spikes if you couldn’t nail the jump, especially when disappearing platforms are involved. However, it’s not as difficult as a precision platformer, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

Another crucial aspect of the gameplay you’ll want to “git gud” at is, without a doubt, its combat. Being a Souls-like, the game isn’t designed for you to hack and slash your way to victory. Instead, you’re expected to watch your enemies’ attack patterns carefully and respond accordingly. This is especially true for boss and “elite” (a.k.a. glided foes) fights. The game rewards you well for well-timed attacks and parries, so you’ll do well to try to get as much of those in as possible.

Some enemies, like the glided foes, are more vulnerable to Witchery – that’s what the game calls magical spells here – so you might want to get those in as well, just to cut the battle short. However, the game doesn’t penalize you if you chose not to use Witchery on glided enemies. It’s just that those fights would probably end up taking way more time to complete, which in turn means that there are more chances for you to mess up royally and get your butt kicked.

In addition to basic attacks, you can also use charged attacks to deal more damage or use the equipped secondary special weapon to perform special attacks. Unlike your basic sword, you get to choose which special weapon you’d like to use, out of the three choices given. Each weapon has a unique build-up ability which will help you in combat. For instance, as the Spear causes Wither which will make enemies move slower, while the Harpoon has the Pierce ability which makes pierced enemies more vulnerable to Witchery.

Unlike some games where you can simply stick with the single weapon you’re good at throughout the game, you might not want to do so here. This is because two out of the three choices also come with a bonus, either health or ichor. With this game design, the developers are forcing you to pick up new weapons to try them out, just so you could grab the bonus you wanted. After all, choosing one or the other can be pretty important depending on what you need.

Having more health, for instance, would mean you can take more damage before falling in battle, while having more ichor means you can store more of it – you can get ichor by defeating enemies, by the way – and hence, can use your chosen Witchery spells more often. Ichor is also used for heals in this game. Interestingly enough, ichor used for Witchery aren’t consumed per se but it’ll “taint” a part of your ichor, so you can’t use the same part of ichor to cast Witchery spells but you can use it to heal.

But what if you really don’t like the one you currently have and wanted a change? Well, besides spending hard-earned ichor glands to change your weapon at a mirror, the game kind of forced you to choose a new special weapon whenever you use the Mirror to access the Mould Workshop. However, in return, a doppelganger who wields the same special weapon you did before will be spawned and you’ll need to defeat her before you can choose what special weapon you can use to continue your run.

As you progress, you’ll level up and earn Spite Bonuses, which you can choose one out of the three options presented. These stack throughout your run, that is until you die or return to the Mould Workshop. As helpful as these bonuses can be, there aren’t a whole lot of variety here. Expect to keep seeing the same few bonuses on rotation every time you earn one.

Dying is part and parcel of any good Souls-like game. You will lose pretty much everything if you die, including your special weapon and Spite bonuses, except the permanent upgrades such as your Witchery unlocks, which you can get by spending bone powder – the in-game currency- at a mirror, as well as the items in your inventory. Most of the items you’d get are amulets that you can equip, up to three at a time. Though, take note that some of these amulets, when equipped, do disintegrate upon death. You can get more amulets either as loot drops or by spending bone powder at the vendor located in the Mould Workshop.

However, instead of having a day-night cycle, Moonscars is set in perpetual night but there are two phases. The first and most calm phase is called the Full Moon. Here, everything is normal and the game shouldn’t be that difficult.

However, as time passes or as you die, you may enter into the Ravenous Moon phase which alters enemies’ behavior via something called the “Moonhunger”. They become more aggressive, have more health, and deal more damage, but in return, you’ll get more bone powder as loot. This phase can be a boon sometimes, even with the extra bone powder reward, so if you’d like to satiate the moon goddess and get the Full Moon phase to return, you simply need to sacrifice an Ichor Gland via the Moon Rite at any Mirror.

As a Metroidvania as well, you can definitely expect to find secret hidden areas or niches throughout each location… that is if you look closely enough. Usually, you can find bonus loot like bone powder or ichor glands here, but sometimes, you can find memories that you can then “sell” to the Moon Priestess, once you’ve “rescued” her, to unlock a new story-infused dialogue.

Moonscars is fun and all, but the game does have a pretty critical design flaw. You see, whenever you upgrade a Witchery spell via the talent tree, the cost of ichor needed to cast it will increase as well. That is good and all, except that at one point, my maximum ichor isn’t enough to cast the Witchery spell that I’ve heavily invested in.

There’s no way to reset the Witchery tree at the moment, and that you can’t just use the lower-level version of the Witchery spell instead – there’s no option to do so. So, effectively, I’m locked out of my own spells, that is until I can find a permanent ichor upgrade somewhere. Thankfully, plenty of players have pointed this out and the developers are working on fixing it.

Graphics/ Sound

Featuring gorgeous pixel art, Moonscars has a dark and melancholic atmosphere made even more immersive with its haunting music. The voice acting at the very beginning, during the introduction, is just alright though. A part of the intonation seems a bit “off” and it’s jarring enough to be noticeable.

Conclusion

Moonscars is a solid 2D Souls-like platformer with Metroidvania elements that seems to be able to walk that fine line between being too easy for the hardcore Souls-like fans and being too difficult for players who are new to the genre. Combat feels satisfying here, especially once you’ve mastered the use of Witchery, the handful of special weapons, and both, the dash and parry combo. The atmosphere is also very well done, though the story could have been better; less confusing.

So, overall, if you’re looking for some good souls-like combat in a dark fantasy-themed 2D platformer with lots of secrets to find, Moonscars might just be the game you should go to!

New Game Added: Moonscars

by Aethyna Oct 4, 2022

Play as Grey Irma, the leader of the group of elite warriors, the Pristines, as she tries to piece together what happened to her and her team after they embarked on a quest tasked by their master, the Sculptor, to rid the world of the maddened Clayborns. Help her find some answers in this dark fantasy-themed 2D Souls-like Metroidvania!