Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is Bombservice's latest installment to the Momodora action platformer series. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Review Overview
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Awesome Boss Battles Exploration Has A Dynamic Experience Incredibly Challenging, Incredibly Rewarding |
Objectives Barely Guide You Other Very Minor Problems |
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Overall Score - 86/100
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is an amazing Metroidvania that purposely limits itself to focus on its strengths. It has done an extremely excellent job at it, as its restricted arsenal is all but unnoticeable due to the remarkable customization options available to its players. The story and visuals are nothing to scoff at either, as the former does well to tie up the loose ends of the series, and the latter is nothing short of pleasant and immersive. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell really does feel like the culmination of the developer’s experience with the series.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Story - 8/10
In many ways, it’s easy to determine that Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is driven by its story. Obviously, having entire areas locked out from you until you progress through the plot is one good sign. Fortunately for its players, it delivers a lovely story that wraps up everything the series had offered over the course of its run. While it’s not incredibly memorable or remarkable, it has excellent delivery, depth, and style.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Gameplay - 9/10
With only a few minor problems, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell’s gameplay is excellence born from simplicity. It knows what it wants to achieve and focuses on it rather than adding unnecessary and possibly distracting elements to complicate matters. The design is further complemented by its tight, responsive controls and a range of movement options that can be used for everything from combat to general exploration.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Visuals - 9/10
If there’s one thing that Momodora: Moonlit Farewell’s level design excels in, it’s setting the mood. It displays a fantastic aesthetic sense that considers both the story and the environment, creating an engaging experience for players as they explore and fight through its enemy-ridden paths. Of course, its sprite work and character design are excellent as well.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Audio - 7/10
The game’s audio is par for the course with similar games in the genre. Your attacks have a decent enough punch to them that it doesn’t feel like you’re listening to the wind, and the background music is nice enough to compliment the aesthetics of each level.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Value for Money - 10/10
At a cent short of $17.00, you’re guaranteed to get your money’s worth by buying this game. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is the culmination of the developers’ years of experience in creating the series, and it shows in its excellent gameplay, level design, story, and cohesion.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Review: Lots Of Deaths, Lots Of Fun
Just a year ago, I wasn’t a big fan of platformers. However, after a while of working with them, I eventually found myself addicted to the genre (Astlibra DLC when?)
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell was the latest one to catch my eye. And thank god it did. A few hours into playing it, I knew I found myself a gem. The game is incredibly well-made, with many layers of depth in its gameplay and a very appealing sense of style to boot. And although its audio isn’t as good, it’s not bad by any means, either.
The great thing about Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is its simplicity. Unlike other games of similar nature, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell purposely limits its customization options. But instead of being an obstacle to its success, the game compensates by ensuring its limited arsenal can be customized well enough that its lack of variety becomes insignificant.
Its incredible customizability is all thanks to its Sigil System. These are upgrades that you can collect and function by adding different properties to your moveset. The variety is quite impressive and ranges from offensive Sigils that boost your overall damage, defensive Sigils that increase your survivability, and an array of Sigils that focus on utility.
This level of control allows you to finely tune your strategies to match the challenge you’re presented with.
Other than that, the game also offers many leisure activities, such as petting animals and fishing. Those features instantly make any game outstanding, and Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is no exception.
Unfortunately, it does have its own share of problems. For one, it relies almost entirely on its story to point you in the right direction. There are also many quality-of-life issues that it could benefit from addressing.
But the most egregious of all is that there are enemies in the game that can steal your money. That’s the stuff of nightmares, right there.
Pros of Momodora: Moonlit Farewell
| Things Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Got Right |
|---|
|
Awesome Boss Battles Exploration Has A Dynamic Experience Incredibly Challenging, Incredibly Rewarding |
Awesome Boss Battles
The biggest reason for my recent addiction to the genre is due to the genre’s fantastic boss fights. Usually, at least. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell’s bosses justify my continuous need to play them, as each boss is a blast to duel.
Every fight is unique and, more importantly, difficult, necessitating you to carefully plan your moves and Sigils. Since Momo isn’t the tankiest lass on the land, and healing is both scarce and precious, you’ll really feel the consequences of your actions whenever you slip up and get damaged. This is especially true for bosses with attacks that are setups for an even bigger one.
The variety of major enemies only adds to the excitement of each battle. You’ll encounter anything from giant monsters that are easy to hit but difficult to kite, to enemies that are more of your size and are appropriately more challenging to target. Of course, each enemy has different gimmicks that make their fights unique and also present an opportunity to change your sigils to adapt.
There are even some hidden, non-obligatory boss fights that can be discovered here and there.
Exploration Has A Dynamic Experience
Since checkpoints are quite sparse, you’ll often run around the map to go from one place to another. Depending on where you decide to start, you’ll often go through the same area multiple times but from entirely different directions. Usually, that just means dealing with the same trouble each time. But for Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, that may not be the case.
Another remarkable aspect of the game’s level design is its thoughtful enemy placement. In certain areas, these mobs are placed so that they become more trouble than usual when you’re passing through that area from a different direction. For example, some mobs can actually camp the shaft you drop from if you enter that specific area from above, which often means you’ll take some damage. However, if you’re entering from the side intending to climb up, those same enemies will pose little trouble since you can just deal with them however you wish.
Additionally, since enemies rely on their field of vision, you can sneak up on them from behind and easily dispatch them before they can react. But due to their wide field of vision, this is only possible if you enter their area from the opposite direction of their vigil.
Depending on your remaining health, the direction where you enter an area might mean the difference between passing through in one piece or restarting at the last checkpoint you accessed. And that’s amazing.
Incredibly Challenging, Incredibly Rewarding
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell has two difficulties: three if you’re being very nitpicky. You can choose between Normal Difficulty, which is basically the vanilla experience, or Light Difficulty, where damage taken is reduced, invulnerability periods are extended, etc. The Light Difficulty is further divided into whether or not you decide to have Adaptive Difficulty, which basically changes the game's difficulty depending on your performance.
Since I wanted to get punished for my insolence and ego, I chose the Normal Difficulty.
Anyway, at the start, the game isn’t really something special regarding its challenge. For example, since your primary source of healing is a bell that uses your mana as a resource, you definitely won’t run into problems during the first stretch of the game. However, once you start using Sigils that utilize your mana, you’ll start encountering issues with your health. And since Momo isn’t exactly built to solo a raid in World of Warcraft, you’ll have to be even more careful with your movements as you take more of these kinds of Sigils.
But it’s all worth it. Offensive Sigil upgrades are quite amazing in that they can even modify the behavior of your attacks. For example, you could set your arrows on fire and burn an enemy on contact for not-insignificant damage. That’s quite an important upgrade considering Momo would obviously want to finish every fight as quickly as possible. You can also balance your loss of healing potential for defensive Sigils, though at the cost of your Sigil slots.
Depending on the boss or area, your choice of Sigils will determine whether you can get through them relatively unscathed or be repeatedly sent to your last checkpoint. I myself have died more times than I want to recount. Either way, experimentation with your loadout makes playing the game incredibly fun despite how threatening each stage can be.
Cons of Momodora: Moonlit Farewell
| Things That Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Can Improve |
|---|
|
Objectives Barely Guide You Other Very Minor Problems |
Objectives Barely Guide You
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell relies almost exclusively on its story to guide you to your goal. There are no markers on your map to show you where to go, so you’ll have to keep guessing. This encourages you to explore the map, which often leads to surprise boss encounters that could leave you either wanting for health or, well, dead.
More often than not, though, this does cause more than its fair share of problems. For example, you may be led to believe that your objective is at the area directly following where you received your last cutscene, only to feel like punching yourself for later discovering that it was actually at the village where you started the game.
This issue is further compounded by checkpoints being few and far between. So, due to the game’s relative difficulty, you’ll more often than not find yourself running through the same area repeatedly, even though your objective isn’t actually there.
Some areas are even designed so you can access them using a recently-acquired addition to your maneuvering repertoire, only to find yourself walled again by an obstacle that needs an entirely different and later-acquired upgrade within the same stretch of corridor.
Other Very Minor Problems
Besides the game's lack of direction, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell also suffers from a few other, albeit minor, problems. For example, Fast Travel is unlocked quite late into the first stretch of the game, requiring you to repeatedly backtrack through the same dangerous paths to progress. Depending on your resources, direction, and, most importantly, patience, this can be an irritatingly time-consuming process that can lead to more than a few deaths here and there.
Another issue is that Momodora: Moonlit Farewell doesn’t have the greatest menu. Sigil selection, in particular, is a minor yet admittedly annoying aspect of the game. See, your equipped Sigils on its dedicated menu are shown on the left side of the screen. To your right are all the sigils you have collected. Being able to access the left side to directly unequip Sigils is a great quality-of-life feature, but unfortunately, the game doesn’t support that. Instead, you’ll have to scroll through your Sigils to unequip them.
Your inventory is also an annoying thing to browse. Instead of using a grid view like how the Sigils are displayed, it instead shows your items as a list with icons. Now, it’s not much trouble at the start since you begin the game with just four items. But after a while, your items will expand by quite a bit. By then, you’ll have to suffer scrolling through your entire list of particulars just to view them.
Is Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Worth It?
Whether You’re New Or Old To The Series, Yes
If you’ve played the previous Momodora games, you will definitely want Momodora: Moonlit Farewell in your library. It’s basically the conclusion of the series unless the developers decide to continue with an entirely different set of characters or scenarios. Otherwise, platformer enthusiasts will still want this game, considering just how well it’s done.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
 Steam |
$16.99 |
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Overview & Premise
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell recounts the tale of the greatest calamity to ever befall Koho Village. One day, as the village was minding its everyday routine, an ominous toll of a bell was heard throughout the streets. Soon after, a demon invasion was set upon them.
The village matriarch sends Momo Reinol, their most accomplished priestess, to investigate the bell and find the bellringer who is summoning demons. In addition to securing the village's safety and, most importantly, the holy Lun Tree—which provides Koho with life and healing—they hope to apprehend the culprit.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell FAQ
Is Momodora: Moonlit Farewell a Metroidvania?
Yes, the game is a Metroidvania.
Does Momodora: Moonlit Farewell have save points?
The game uses auto-saves to mark your progress. There is no place to manually save your progress, but it does record where you exit the game through the menu.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Product Information
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| Title | MOMODORA: MOONLIT FAREWELL |
|---|---|
| Release Date | January 11, 2024 |
| Developer | Bombservice |
| Publisher | PLAYISM |
| Supported Platforms | PC |
| Genre | Platformer |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | Teen |
| Official Website | Momodora: Moonlit Farewell Website |
