Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is a fine metroidvania that does little to stand out

The Momodora games are ones that often go under the radar, having never quite seen the success of better known metroidvanias. Personally, while I’d never consider any of them bad, they’re also somewhat plain when compared to the competition.

With Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, I was hoping that things would change. It aims to wrap up the current era of the franchise, so you’d think that it’d go all out. Instead, Moonlit Farewell is just another alright game, one that doesn’t feel like it learned much from the previous entries.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell takes place a few years after Momodora III, with the village of Koho now beset by a new disaster. The Black Bell has been stolen from the fairies, with its ringing bringing demons into the world. Momo Reinol sets out to retrieve the bell, fixing the issues caused by the arriving demons along the way.

Most games in the series have had little focus on story — you get access to notes early on in
Moonlit Farewell that summarise the events of each game within a few paragraphs — and it’s not much different here. While I expected a greater focus on story and characters due to Koho being full of NPCs to talk to, you rarely have a reason to return there after the first hour.

In general, the story comes across as something that was originally intended to be longer before being cut down at some point. From the small cast of characters to the main villain, everything is threadbare. Momo herself is a bland protagonist, having little of interest to say at any point.

Like story, the Momodora series has generally been quite simple when it comes to gameplay. This hasn’t changed much in Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, as Momo’s moveset and the general world design is on the plainer side for metroidvanias. To start with, you only have access to a basic melee combo, a bow (mostly just used to hit far away collectables), and a floaty jump.

By default, Momo moves at a snails pace. This, combined with an unnecessary number of longer corridors and the lack of fast travel until near the end, and exploration becomes rather tedious. You do unlock the option to sprint later on, but this is tied to the stamina system and ends up being a little clunky.

Otherwise, that’s about all you get. There’s a double jump (almost a staple in modern metroidvanias), wall jumps, and a powered up mode that lets you spam attacks faster, but none of these make traversal especially interesting.

I mentioned earlier that many areas are just long corridors, but this is part of a greater issue with map design Momodora: Moonlit Farewell has. There are often few shortcuts, leading to backtracking between old areas constantly. You’ll also make it a few rooms through a new area, before finding out you can’t even progress due to missing an ability.

In fact, Moonlit Farewell has the odd paradox of being both too big and too small. The overall map is actually quite slim, with full completion taking easily under 10 hours. But the empty room design and lack of interconnectivity stretch out what could be a lean experience into something that takes twice as long.

In general, there’s a lack of any real hook. Exploration is serviceable but tedious, combat works but there’s no challenge — this is especially true for bosses, which you can mostly just mash through without issue — and the story is mostly just there without fanfare. Everything works. Everything’s fine. But there was a never a point where I felt truly engaged with what was happening.

The only high point would be presentation. The Momodora games have always looked quite nice, and Momodora: Moonlit Farewell continues this trend. Perhaps the switch to widescreen is the reason behind some of the game’s map design woes (stretching out areas so that they fit the larger aspect ratio), though it does at least lead to some nice vistas.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Review – Final Thoughts

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell ends a five game arc with a whimper rather than a bang. It’s far from terrible, just underwhelming (perhaps a worse fate than being awful but memorable.) Hopefully whatever comes next from this developer manages to bring something more exciting to the table.

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