by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
  
• Developer: Bomb Service
  
• Publisher: Dangen Entertainment
  
• Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC
  

The Momodora Diaries are a chronicle through Momodora Under the Moonlight.

BAD END. 

I finished the final boss only to be greeted with this. It turns out that I needed to obtain two items in order to be able to properly purify the final boss and lift the curse on this blighted city. 

So I trekked back, realized that an item I had found basically useless after I found it was really the key for unlocking the final item, in a place I’d long forgotten I had to unlock. 

I’m so glad I’m playing this game long after the FAQs have been written for it. 

Given how lost I’d gotten previously, I know I’d never have found this solution on my own. An obtuse item for an obtuse mechanism. It seems obvious in hindsight but doing things like having an item that exists for one single use isn’t very interesting to me. Anyhow, I spun a tiny windmill around, crawling into the gap as a cat and dipped my holy leaf into a pool to give it a purifying essence. 

Which means it’s time to reveal the true final boss. 

The queen of the accursed city explodes into a distorted, unholy creature, raining spells upon me. Her attacks force me into a small safe area right in the middle, and then she begins to teleport above and on top of me. These attacks do serious amounts of damage, and keep her out of range for long periods. Thankfully, they also give me enough time to charge my bow to full, letting me pelt her with a barrage of poison arrows. 

Weird thought, but this fight sort of reminds me of fighting Cyber Peacock in Mega Man X4? Not only in the bird-like qualities of the queen, but the teleporting and area of denial moveset. It’s a cool fight in any case, and while there’s serious danger, at this point I’m highly equipped and have enough resources to cover myself when I get myself into a bad spot. 

And so I reach the inevitable conclusion. 

The queen finally lays defeated, and in a tragic (if somewhat foreshadowed) turn, the priestess you play has to sacrifice her life to truly rid the land of its curse, saving both this kingdom’s residents and her home beyond. 

Emotionally, it left me in a strange place. The story is mostly hinted at here, in short dialogues and vague, moody bits of legend. So I found myself mostly detached from its world, unable to connect to the few characters there, and disinterested without a real sense of how this curse had affected those living under it. 

At the same time, it’s hard to see it ending another way. Doom hangs over so much of Momodora’s world that the reveal that it’s all been a death march doesn’t feel out of the place. It’s a difficult, miserable journey to a horrible end. 

In retrospect it’s easy to see the places it draws from. The Dark Souls influence is clear not only in its considered, lethal combat, but in its moody tale of a kingdom long past its glory days, surviving only as a living artifact. I feel like I missed the boat on this one. Maybe this would resonated better 3 years ago, when these stories hadn’t quite lost their luster and I could appreciate its approach better. 

Aesthetically, it’s tremendous, with the art, music and animation all being wonderful. Cute, but somber and spooky, a powerful combination. The combat, for all my caveats about it, does genuinely feel great and kept me playing the game during my frustrations. The basic moveset never moves beyond its very limited attacks, but the boss designs are all interesting and there isn’t a single bad one. 

Navigation is where Momodora is at its worst, providing plenty of interesting locales but not connecting in too many interesting ways, with the few traversal abilities leading to very basic changes that don’t fundamentally change any of the spaces. Mostly, it’s readable and navigable, but doesn’t take advantage of the non-linear structure. Still, it’s very briskly paced and never outstays its welcome. 

Had Momodora been just a few hours longer, I would have easily gotten sick of it. But in every moment it leaves just enough to suggest something greater, without giving into the impulse to turn into something grander. There’s a world and history to the spaces of Momodora, but it knows that it doesn’t need to fill in every blank. It’s an intimate adventure. A tragic one. 

I’m not sure if it delivers on everything it sets out to, but what’s there is strong and leaves me curious for more. It’s greatest success then, is drawing attention to the rest of the series. See, Reverie Under the Moonlight is the fourth of the series, and conveniently a prequel to the rest of them, positioning me in the ideal place to begin exploring the rest of the games. Maybe one day I’ll come full circle, and return to Reverie Under the Moonlight with a greater understanding and appreciation. 

Until then, it’s time to close the book on these moonlight diaries.