Moonchild (PC) Review

Have you played a JRPG? Then you've played Moonchild. This is the very first issue with this: it's a formulaic example of the genre, without any speck of character. You control a team of adventurers, go from A to B, deal with any enemies that appear along the way via turn-based combat, gather equipment, level up your crew, explore dungeons, visit towns, and so on and forth. It goes without saying that this isn't necessarily a problem. An RPG can be formulaic and "generic" in its structure, and still manage to be enjoyable.

How? Well, the biggest asset of role-playing game has always been its world, its characters, its plot, and its presentation. Take Final Fantasy VII, for instance. While the gameplay is good, it's not what turned it into such a phenomenon. Long story short, all these elements are nowhere to be found in here. This is as dull as they come. A boring series of forests, caverns, and fortresses, with main characters that are forgettable even by NPC standards, and the writing… oh, god, the writing!

In all honesty, the events and the characters involved are beyond forgettable, to the point that the "Talk to Party" skill of the heroine, which basically recaps the mission objective, is an absolute blessing, as it makes it easier to skip every single conversation - but that's certainly not a good thing to say about an RPG, is it?

The best example is the opening scene. The premise here definitely had potential. Some people have abducted the child of the main heroine, the queen of… whatever, yet you, the player, won't feel anything. It's the most basic of cut-scenes, with the most basic of character interaction, and the most basic of tropes, as the first breadcrumb this queen will rely on, is a captured enemy who has amnesia. As for the writing… taken a look at online fantasy fan-fic lately?

Honestly, it's not even that good of a game. The map design is atrocious, full of corridors that lead to dead ends or some minor treasure like a healing object. There are no random encounters, which on one hands is a good thing, but on the other one you'll spend lots of time walking around. As for the battles themselves, there's nothing special to say about them, other than the fact that they have terrible balance, with the party going around slaying enormous beasts and demi-gods by the dozen, only to get massacred by a simple enemy that uses status effects.