MYSTIC'S CAVE

Reviews

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure

(1997, Playstation)

4/10/21

ムーンリミックスRPGアドベンチャー
Moon Remix RPG Screenshot 1 Moon Remix RPG Screenshot 2 Moon Remix RPG Screenshot 3 Moon Remix RPG Screenshot 4

Moon was an RPG released only in Japan, up until recently. The game is getting english releases both on Steam and the Switch. I don't use either of those platforms, so I played a translation that was pulled when the official releases were announced. You can still get it ofc, things like that don't just disappear. Here are my thoughts on the game.

The concept behind moon is quite unique. Now a lot of pages on the internet refer to it as an "anti RPG" but I don't think that's true, it's basically an RPG, it encourages you to be inside playing an RPG by nature, but it's true that it has a message about playing games instead of experiencing life and love. Love is central to the game. In Moon you do not play as the hero. You progress through the game by collecting "love points" from different characters, helping them in various ways, and from rescuing animals. It's a nice change from chopping things up.

If you do play this game, do play it with a guide. You can play it without one for a little while, but there are many events that are just too easy to miss. Just to give you an example, there is one event that only occurs if you walk past an area at a specific time of day. If you don't normally play using guides - trust me, it's not too bad. I normally don't like to do that myself, but in this case it still felt like a natural experience. Do take your time with the game though, there's plenty to see and enjoy.

The graphics in Moon are an interesting mix. Pre-rendered 3D backgrounds, hand-drawn (but not animated) sprites, and claymation creatures somehow work together so well that it isn't jarring at all. This is one of those rare games where you can be tempted to just loiter about in an area. Speaking of which, the game world is not too large, but even though the world is smaller than most RPG's it's more detailed than a lot of them. No empty NPC dialogue here, just about every interaction is at least a little interesting. You'll find yourself revisiting places often throughout a playthrough. There are lots of little optional things, like how you can show different characters items from your inventory, and they will sometimes comment on them. There's also custom music tracks you can collect, and can listen to pretty much everywhere. My personal favourite is "face", I think it was number 28? It has a penguin-like bird on the cover. Actually I should mention that the music player doesn't work too well in the emulator I was using (some retroarch core I can't remember), but you can fix it by pausing or changing areas. The translation won't work on actual hardware by the way, and that includes the PSP/Vita (I tried).

Moon is really a great game, a masterpiece even. It's full of charm and amusement, you can't go wrong giving this a go. If it clicks with you, it's sure to become a favourite.