Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is a relatively short side-scrolling action-platformer by Bombservice. It is the fourth installment of the Momodora series, and features beautiful pixel graphic and interesting boss fights.

What I enjoy most: slick movement and fluid change between melee & ranged attack

 
 
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setting

You play as Kaho, a Priestess who travels from her village to the castle to ask the Queen for help. On the way to see the queen, Kaho meets some friendly people and some not so friendly, as well as monsters, witches, and skeletons -- all pointing to the fact that the Queen might be at the centre of the problem.

 

Map, Exploration & Movement

The game features a non-linear map with a few bottlenecks (e.g. needing 4 key items to get into the castle-proper). Although the map is not very large (about 450 screens-worth of rooms), there are shortcuts and hidden passages to make exploration more satisfying.

You start with a double-jump - which is more like a 1-and-a-half-jump -- but can later learn air dash, as well as an ability to allow to down small passages. There is some platforming in this game, but it is mostly combat-focus.

 

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Combat

In terms of combat, you always have a melee attack and a ranged attack. Each of them is bound to a key, and there is no need to manually switch from one to the other. Both of them can also be upgraded and/or buffed by using items. Similar to how Estus flask works in the Dark Souls series, items, once acquired, has charges that automatically refill at save points.

Another feature similar to Dark Souls is the dodge roll with invincibility frames. This allows Kaho to roll pass normal enemies (which hits very hard) as well as bosses. Compare to Symphony of the Night, this game's small boss arena and lack of magic attack mean that rolling through attacks and enemies are often preferable to dodging away.

 

Conclusion

I think this game is as metroidvania as it gets (without being a Castlevania or a Bloodstained) and is very enjoyable. The game is short (maybe around 4 hours?) but very charming, with beautiful pixel arts and interesting boss fights. There are also new game plus, different difficult levels and secrets to find.

(2018/7/20)

 
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List of metroidvania elements

  • Basic information

    • Name of game: Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

    • Developer / Publisher: Bombservice / Playism

    • System: PC, PS4, XBox One

    • Year of publication: 2016

  • Mechanics

    • Style of combat: Melee + Ranged

    • Use of magic: No

    • Combat-focus versus Platform-focus: Combat-focus

    • Death mechanics: Last saved game

    • (Fall damage): No

  • Progression

    • Levelling / Farming for XP: No

    • Farming for Gold / Item: Yes for Gold

    • Skill pick-up: Yes

    • (Skill-tree): No

    • (Stats allocation): No

    • (Crafting): No

  • Exploration

    • Free-roaming: Yes

      • Gated by movement abilities: Yes

      • Gated by bosses: Yes

    • Type of world map: Single map

    • World generation: Fixed map

    • Auto-map: Yes

  • Other elements