Introduction to Moonless Moon
Moonless Moon is a text adventure created by Kazuhide Oka and the team at KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO. With moody ambiance and a visual novel-style gameplay, it invites us to experience the struggles of an adolescent girl in a unique situation.
A Unique Concept and Storyline
Yomichi is a normal girl who is going through the process of growing up. All around her, reality seems much more complicated than it did when she was a kid. Coming to grips with this truth is a hard pill to swallow, and she often ends up in a depressed state.
However, there’s something in her situation that’s actually unique: during the night, she goes to other worlds. For some years now, she has been transported regularly to places where things aren’t quite like reality as she knows it during the day.
The melancholy tone is nailed in a unique manner, using cold colors and calming tracks to evoke a nostalgic feeling.
For instance, in one of them, she enjoys the company of another girl on the surface of the moon. There is no issue about not having air, and they can communicate normally. She doesn’t choose when or where to go, but it has become a regular part of her routine.
Moonless Moon showcases its contact with three specific other worlds and how she tries to make sense of everything. Is this fiction she made up? Are these actual people? Is she the only one who can travel around? These questions consume her thoughts.
The actual concept behind everything is an interesting, thought-provoking plot point. Beyond her search for a sense of belonging, Yomichi’s journey finds both concrete and metaphysical explanations to her predicament.
Gameplay Mechanics and Riddle System
Gameplay-wise, Moonless Moon is strictly a visual novel with a linear structure except for the ending. During three special moments in the story, animated videos play out. They are accompanied by pop songs created by the team at ANMC, a group created to give life to Kazuhide Oka’s world.
While these videos colorfully depict the characters’ feelings, it’s a shame that they don’t provide subtitles with the song lyrics. Especially for audiences who do not speak Japanese, this feels like an important part of the experience is missing.
Animated Videos and Music
Another aspect of the experience is a riddle system. At some points, we have to fill in the blanks before proceeding through the story beats. It all begins when a sentence shows up missing certain keywords, so it’s up to us to search the text and get them.
One interesting part about this system is that some words may lead to additional conversations where we can look for the ones that fit the sentence. In the end, it works like a puzzle with a single solution. Only the epilogue portion of the game offers more malleability with four keyword options, each leading to a different ending.
The riddle system adds an engaging layer to the gameplay, even if it feels like a missed opportunity for deeper exploration.
On one side, the whole experience is simple and should be easy to understand and play through without issue. The right words are very obvious, and players don’t need to find all of them before advancing unless they want to achieve a specific achievement.
Exploration of Themes and Endings
On the other hand, Moonless Moon could have gone deeper. Giving alternate options at other points besides the ending would be one way to do it, for instance. It ends up feeling like a missed opportunity for a fresh text adventure experience, as few games have tackled it, such as the classic Flash game Today I Die.
The same can be said about the narrative. While it does offer a unique concept, it feels like it ends before it properly explores its implications of it. More than the open ending being a problem, it’s the feeling that the experience doesn’t dive deep into the issue, nor does it hit the emotional climaxes it wants.
While the narrative offers a unique concept, it feels like it ends before fully exploring the implications, leaving an aftertaste of untapped potential.
It took me around 7 hours to play through everything in Moonless Moon, including going back to previous riddles where I had missed optional keywords. I also rewatched the videos in the game gallery, which unlocks after the animation ends. It also allows players to explore previous story episodes, check out the epilogue illustrations, and play the background music again.
Despite everything, however, there’s no denying that the game nails its melancholy tone in a unique manner. While it does use cold colors and angles that generally make things feel alien, it’s the few tracks of the ambient soundtrack and their tendency to calm that carry what the game wants: a feeling that’s like nostalgia for something you’ve never lived but empathize with.
Conclusion: A Solid but Imperfect Experience
Moonless Moon is a thought-provoking, moody experience about growing up. It has compelling concepts that may resonate with some players, but it could have used a bolder approach to both its narrative and gameplay aspects. The end result is solid but left me with an aftertaste that the developers can and should do something even more interesting.
Moonless Moon (PC)
Moonless Moon is a visual novel that thrives in a melancholy feeling and has an interesting concept. However, it never gets quite as deep in emotional or narrative exploration to become a must-play of its genre. Even so, the moody adolescence experience is likely to resonate with some players.
The Good
- Immersive Atmosphere - A moody coming-of-age experience about self-searching, belonging, and more human feelings.
- Accessible Simplicity - The gameplay is easy to understand and execute, making it a relaxed experience.
The Bad
- Shallow Experience - Unfortunately, the story is short enough it barely explores its concept and never quite packs the emotional punch it wants to.
- Missed Gameplay Opportunity - The concept of exploring keywords and using them to progress the story is fantastic but used here only as a very basic puzzle.
