Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, developed by Digital Sun and published by 11 bit studios, is a direct sequel to the first Moonlighter game and is available now on Steam in Early Access. The full release date is still to be determined.
The sequel picks up the story shortly after where the first game left off. Things aren’t looking too great though, as Rynoka has been taken over, forcing everyone to flee and settle somewhere new. Now, their main goal is getting their hometown back. Conveniently, a mysterious, floating vault has appeared in the town square promising to grant wishes, but only if you manage to earn a massive amount of gold. So, it looks like Will is going to have to set up shop once more!
Moonlighter 2: Endless Boogaloo?
I absolutely love the first Moonlighter game, so I was over the moon when I first saw the trailer for the sequel! While the new art direction certainly is a choice, the game looked really fun from what they have shown! But does the actual game hold up to the high expectations set by its prequel? Let’s get into it!
Gameplay
The overall gameplay loop is exactly the same as in the first game: risk your skin in the dungeons; collect as much loot as you can carry; return to town to sell it in your shop; repeat! Simple! Well, on paper at least. The sequel adds a whole lot of new content, including buffs, minor gameplay changes, and more, that shakes things up a bit and makes every run feel even more unique!
Gear
Of course, before you jump into a dungeon, you gotta gear up. You can’t exactly fight monsters with your bare hands after all. You get to choose from four main weapon types that you may already be familiar with from the first game: the sword; the large sword; the spear; and the gauntlets (that used to be called “gloves” back in the day).
But! No more bow. That thing just up and vanished. Instead, the game just straight up gives you a gun that you carry with you at all times. It works as a sort of secondary weapon that recharges itself as you hit enemies, however that’s supposed to work. All the weapon types are pretty balanced, so choosing one is really up to your personal preference. Speaking of gear, the armor system has gotten a lot simpler. Instead of having separate pieces for each body part, and different sets for each playstyle, you just get full sets that provide specific buffs instead.
Upgrades
They’ve also changed how potions work. Instead of being able to buy however many you want like before, you start each dungeon with a set amount. You can upgrade how many you can carry, how much HP they restore, and even your overall maximum health! It is nice to no longer blow all of my cash on potions, but it also means I can’t just spam them whenever I feel like it.
At least they give you other things to spend all your money on, like (you guessed it) even more upgrades! You can boost the rarity of the overall loot you find, buy more storage for your backpack, and even get some new patches to sew onto it. These patches offer various buffs, such as regenerating a few HP whenever you enter a new room, or just reducing the damage you take altogether. With all of these upgrades, I’m sure you will be absolutely OP in no time!
Dungeons
Currently, Moonlighter 2 features three different dungeons, each one having two unique areas that you can enter, so you will be facing a total of six different bosses so far! The developers have stated that there will be more dungeons added down the line as the game progresses through Early Access, though they have not said just how many there will be. The way that you progress through dungeons has undergone major changes. You no longer walk from one room to the next, with backtracking and multiple doors. Instead, you get to pick your path from a linear web-style map. You still need to defeat all enemies in a room in order to get your treasure and progress.
Not every room is filled with loot though! There are some special rooms that can grant you powerful buffs to help you with your run. They can add cool effects to your weapon or gun, like Ignite, which lights enemies on fire for damage over time, Foam, which sticks to opponents and explodes after a few seconds, or Thunder, which casts a room-wide shock attack when fully charged! Of course, there are many more buffs to discover, so I won’t spoil them all today. All these different options really do make every single run feel at least a little bit unique. What’s nice is that the map clearly shows you the type of rooms that are coming up, so you can decide if you want to aim for more loot or grab some extra buffs to help you take down the boss at the end.
Enemies
As you could expect, there is a mini-boss waiting for you halfway through the dungeon. It’s usually a monster type that you are already familiar with, but incredibly buffed and powerful! Every dungeon is packed with tons of different enemy types that all have unique attack patterns, so mastering the art of dodging is a must! Seriously, the dodge button is your best friend.
Another newly added feature is the “ruptured” state that specific enemies can enter. Some enter it just by hitting 50% health, while others require you to counter one of their attacks, or to shoot them with your gun at just the right moment to make them vulnerable. That is your cue to whack them with your backpack as hard as you can to send them flying into other enemies, walls, traps, or even just straight off a cliff. Either way, it is sure to deal some nice damage, so go out there and get ’em!
Loot
The loot that you can find in dungeon chests comes with various different rarity and quality levels. A neat feature that is returning from the first game is that certain items can have “curses” applied to them. Most of them are positive, letting you buff up different pieces of treasure, while others may simply burn whatever is placed next to them. Though there are some interesting items that actually thrive on that destruction, getting buffed whenever you burn or destroy another item, for example.
Higher quality items sell for more money, but be careful! If you get a bit too greedy, and you end up dying in the dungeons, you will be teleported straight back to the city and your items will lose a ton of their quality! At least you get to keep them though. You can also return to the town at any time with no penalty, so you can play it safe if you want to.
Shop
Selling your dungeon loot in the shop works almost the same as it did in the last game. You put your items on pedestals and freely set the price. You can tell whether the price is right by the customers’ reactions. A happy face with money eyes means it’s too cheap; a normal smiling face means the price is perfect; an annoyed face means it’s a bit on the pricey side, but they are still going to buy it; and an angry face means it’s too expensive, and the customer will walk away. Happy customers will also leave you tips, so try to price your wares right!
One of the big shop additions is the new bot, K33P3R, who gives you a shop buff for the day for every set number of purchases, such as higher tips or better sales prices. Like in the last game, you can deck out your shop with furniture and decorations that provide passive buffs, like increasing gold earned from selling common relics, boosting the value of area-specific items, or making rare customers more likely to appear. Overall, the whole shop experience feels almost exactly the same as it did in the first game.
Graphics & Audio
The shift in graphic styles is pretty dramatic compared to the first game, and it’s something that has a lot of people divided, myself included. It uses a very stylized and somewhat adorable cartoony 3D approach that feels pretty bubbly. Though I do have to admit, I seriously miss the pixel graphics of the original Moonlighter. I guess that’s just personal preference. On an even less fun note, I’ve found that the game does start to lag quite a bit over time, so you have to restart it rather frequently at the moment, which is very annoying.
Moving onto audio, the soundtrack features some very mysterious, magical-sounding music, which sets a great tone. It also makes for good background music for writing game reviews apparently! On the action side of things, the combat sounds are super fun and engaging, in my opinion. Every hit feels satisfying and like it really has some impact.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Moonlighter 2 is not a bad game at all so far! The core gameplay loop is solid, every run through the dungeons feels a bit different and rewarding, and the whole experience is genuinely fun to play. It really feels like a proper sequel so far, and I am very excited to see the content they add down the line.
That said, right now, the game feels very, very buggy, which you can kind of expect in Early Access. It’s definitely playable, but I have found myself in multiple situations where I had to leave the dungeon or even restart the whole game because I got stuck, whether I was floating in the air and could not progress, one of the bosses being literally invincible, or me dying to projectiles that another boss has fired while I am unable to move and stuck in the cutscene of that boss dying. My advice would be to maybe wait a little bit longer before jumping in. The game gets updated very frequently at the moment, so if you are interested, maybe keep up with the patch notes.
Once again and bugs aside, the game is really fun to play and absolutely worth picking up if you enjoyed the previous title.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
If you enjoyed this review, why not check out my previous article about Whiskerwood?
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