Momodora: Moonlit Farewell

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Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to close the book on the Momodora series of games, with Momodora: Moonlit Farewell. After spanning 5 games and almost 15 years, developer Guilherme Melo Martins aka rdein has decided to conclude the story with this latest entry. It’s not often that I pick up a game at the end of a series without having played previous games, but in this case, Moonlit Farewell looked too good for me to pass up.

Farewell, Momodora, I Hardly Knew Ye

The Black Bell tolls ominously 13 times, beckoning death and darkness. Momo Reinol, high priestess of the village Koho, must track down the bellringer to stop the onslaught of demons. Can she find the malevolent culprit and secure safety for her village and for the precious Lun Tree?

Gameplay

A screenshot from Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, showing a nighttime scene in Momo's village, Koho. Momo is stood on a small, wooden bridge over a shallow stream. A large moon, with a smaller moon beside it, hang in the dark, cloudy, sky, basked in a reddish light. — Moonlit Farewell is filled with gorgeous pixel art scenes.

The Basics

A small tutorial section introduces us to the core mechanics of Momodora: Moonlit Farewell. One of the first things I like to do in new games is to get a good feel for how the character handles; how quick can they walk and run? How high can they jump? Are they floaty? Momo’s movement feels great. I also like to check for fall damage for future reference. Thankfully there is none.

In terms of initial abilities, Momo has an adjustable jump and a dodge-roll when on the ground. Notably, there’s no aerial dash or dodge. For combat, she has a melee combo, which includes a short range projectile, and a bow for long range attacks. Finally, Momo can heal a portion of her health with her healing bell. As with any good Metroidvania, these abilities will be expanded upon as the game progresses.

Momo has three important resource gauges to keep an eye on during combat; health, magic, and stamina. Healing using the bell will cost 10 magic, and heals about 40% of health. Your magic gauge can be refilled by finding magic crystals. Dodging will cost stamina, roughly 25% of your initial bar, but this refills over time.

Combat is very satisfying from the very start. Momo’s ability to interrupt most enemy actions means dodging incoming attacks and getting up-close-and-personal is beneficial. Doing so nets you some beautiful audiovisual feedback that scratches part of my brain in just the right way. I loved the bright, red swipes of Momo’s leaf and the flurry of damage numbers.

Momo fighting Viper Archdemon Sorrelia. Sorrelia is a giant half snake, half humanoid monster that is easily 5 times as tall as Momo. Damage numbers can be seen popping up in white, with critical hits showing as golden text with exclamation marks. A red glyph has appeared where Momo is standing, indicating an incoming attack from the enemy. — Wailing on bosses is fun, but be ready to avoid attacks too.

Bosses and Combat

While many bosses will test your combat prowess, as is to be expected, there were a few curveballs that I really appreciated. Without spoiling too much, there are a couple of bosses towards the end of the game that resist direct damage, causing you to have to rethink your strategy and approach. The overall difficulty of boss fights was well-balanced, if not on the easier side of the scale. I did move onto Moonlit Farewell after playing Tails of Iron 2 though, so my standards might not have been base lined very well.

Another aspect that added variation and challenge to combat and exploration, were status changes. Momo can be afflicted by statuses such as bleeding, or vulnerable, which affect her in negative ways. Bleeding will gradually deplete HP over time, whereas being vulnerable will increase damage taken. There are a couple of enemies in the later areas of the game that inflict the vulnerable status and attack so quickly that I was getting killed before I could figure out what was going on. This difficulty spike definitely came at a time when I’d started to become complacent with fighting, so acted as a good wake-up call.

Exploration

Moonlit Farewell reinvigorated, or at least reminded me of, my love for the Metroidvania genre. The world was so fun to explore. A lot of this was thanks to the map. It’s designed in such a way that if I was ever feeling like I was lost, or had missed something, brining up the map and studying it closer would usually get me on track. Each room, and indeed subsection of rooms, displays important information at a glance. This includes whether it connects to any other rooms, even if you’ve not found or used those connections yet, and if there’s a bell, NPC, or secret in the room. The map also indicates if a secret is undiscovered in a room by marking it with a ‘?’. As a completionist, this feature was greatly appreciated and stopped me from worrying too much about what I might have missed.

Momo meets a new character in a darkened room. This new NPC is a cat, almost as big a Momo herself. The cat is wearing a pointy hat and a red apron, and is sat slightly slumped on the floor. Momo says “Whoa… Such a large cat!” — Momo! That’s rude.

As with any Metroidvania, there is backtracking in the game. Once you’ve acquired a new ability, it’s likely you can travel back to some previously uncollected secrets or unexplored paths and make further progress. Moonlit Farewell perhaps under utilises this slightly; I would have liked more reasons to revisit previous areas. One element of retracing your steps I did enjoy in this game, though, was the gradual addition of more enemies in earlier areas. This kept me on my toes when making my way back through the world.

Collectables

The collectables you are backtracking, and generally searching, for come in many forms. Some provide direct improvements to your stats, such as Dotted Berries (for HP), Lun Berries (for MP) and Heavenly Lilies (for attack power). Others provide different combat benefits, such as Companions and Sigils. There are several other collectables on top of this too, and not every secret is indicated. Bombservice certainly packed a lot into Moonlit Farewell.

As you explore and defeat enemies around the world, you’ll be collecting an in-game currency known as Lunar Crystals. At first, these can be used to buy some Sigils from Cereza, one of your fellow Priestesses of Koho. However, once you’ve bought all the Sigils she sells, there is no use for the currency, which seemed strange as by the end of the game I had collected thousands.

Sigils are perhaps the most interesting collectable. They are equippable items, in the form of cards, that provide certain benefits to Momo. An example of a Sigil that I found very useful gave the ability to resist status changes. Others include increasing damage, granting health or magic regeneration, or making arrows explode on impact. There are 32 in total, and you can eventually equip up to 5 of them, so there’s a lot of freedom granted in upgrading or adapting your play style.

Another collectable with varying usages are companions. These have 3 categories, and you’ll find a few variations of designs for each category, including mini Dora and Kaho ones, which are very cute. Brave companions will attack enemies, explorer companions will find Lunar Crystals and healer companions will drop magic replenishing crystals, allowing you to heal more. All of these effects happen at a low frequency by default.

Momo meets a small creature at the roots of the Lun Tree. The small creature shouts at Momo, “Filthy human! Stay away!”. The shouting is indicated by the text being in all capitals and the speech bubbles edges being sharply jagged. — Wow. Okay. Calm down, little dude.

Graphics & Audio

Bombservice have demonstratably honed their craft with each instalment of the Momodora series. Comments from the developers, found in-game after completion, indicate that this game contains the biggest animated sprites to-date in the series. As you can see from a screenshot above showing Viper Archdemon Sorrelia, some bosses get almost as big as the whole screen. The team did a great job with these animations. Environments are also beautifully detailed and distinct. My screenshots in this article don’t do real justice to the world of Moonlit Farewell, it’s better for you to explore it for yourself to make those discoveries.

The soundtrack does a superb job at matching the vibes of each area. An instant example of this is the start of the tutorial stage. As we’re dropped into the world without a lot of introduction, Momodora exclaims that she needs to find the bellringer. The music playing at this point is dramatic and urgent, giving us a sense of the high stakes facing our heroine. Equally, there are some lovely, whimsical tracks, and eerie, spooky ones where the visual elements of the area lend themselves to that theme. If you do enjoy the soundtrack, it’s available for purchase on Steam.

Longevity

Moonlit Farewell was an ideal length for me. I spent about 13 hours completing a save file to 111% on Normal difficulty. Once a play through is complete, 2 more modes are unlocked; Arranger and Hardcore. Arranger mode flips the rooms and adds other surprises, while Hardcore mode is a permadeath version of the game with tougher enemies. Given these additional ways of playing, and a couple of other activities that unlock on completion of the story, there’s plenty to get you to come back for more.

Momo fighting a boss called 'Black Cat'. As Momo takes a swing at the boss, we can see an attack powering up above her. This screenshot shows the enemy in 3 places at once. She is in her human form where Momo is attacking, but also appears twice in the air above Momo, with a pair of glowing, green orbs. This choice of animation is used to indicate how quickly the boss is moving and teleporting around the area. — Some bosses are much speedier and dangerous than others.

Final Thoughts

Moonlit Farewell was a game I was eager to get back to every time I had to stop playing. I couldn’t wait to find the next secret, or boss, and figure out what else lay ahead on the adventure. I’m really sad that’s it no longer an ongoing series. Hopefully, Bombservice use everything they learned while making the Momodora games and apply that to a new Metroidvania series. The team clearly have a great understanding of how to build an interesting, interconnected world that feels fun to explore, and contains exciting combat. The only things I’d really want improved are the difficulty and a few more reasons to backtrack through the world. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell receives a Thumb Culture Gold Award.

Limited Run are currently taking pre-orders for a standard and collector’s edition of this beautiful game on Switch and PS5, so check it out if you’re a fan of physical media. Pre-orders are open until 2nd March 2025.