Moonscars - Gorgeous Gothic Action Platformer

[cyborgboy95]

Spoiler

Under grim moonlight, the fierce clayborne warrior Grey Irma battles, driven by a lonesome purpose: Find the Sculptor, and unravel the mystery of her existence.

Push the limits of your combat skills, and master new abilities to progress through an unforgiving nonlinear 2D world. Face off against the relentless darkness that seeks to destroy you. In Moonscars, every death is a lesson learnt—and as you overcome each challenge, new truths will be revealed.

Before you rise, you first must fall. Mold yourself into a master warrior through a cycle of trial and triumph.

Explore the shadows and secrets concealed in the moonlight of a painterly nonlinear 2D realm marred by desperation and despair.

Sharpen your skills and reflexes in challenging, action-packed combat. Slash and parry with your sword, wield unique special weapons, and command powerful Witchery.

Unearth a strange, dark fantasy tale filled with twists and intricate worldbuilding. Seek the truth of your creation and be rewarded.

Bear witness to tales and memories of betrayal, suffering, and revenge as Grey Irma and her fellow beings of flesh and clay seek truth and purpose.

—---world marred by despair and desperation—---

 

[Eisen]

Probably somewhat inspired by Dork Souls

 

[Fedora Master]

2D side scrolling "Souls Like" action platformers are a dime a dozen.

 

[cyborgboy95]

Demo out now

 

[wishbonetail]

I'm starting to lose track of all these action-dark-fantasy-metroidvania-soul-like-platformer games.

 

[cyborgboy95]

Demo playthrough

 

[rusty_shackleford]

this doesn't look like gothic at all, I don't get it

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[notpl]

Looks very muddy and indistinct, I don't find anything about the visuals praiseworthy whatsoever. In particular the enemies are totally illegible, which is presumably why the devs felt the need to add an obtrusive glowing red "INCOMING" marker before all their attacks.

 

[Ivan]

This is up on gamepass so I gave it a spin. As a big lover of metroidvanias, I'm finding this hard to put down. The art is nice, if a bit muddy. The gameplay and combat is what has me hooked. Great difficulty with punishing enemies and thus far simple platforming. More Castlevania than Metroid in level design, the combat is the star here. There's a skill tree that unlocks powers that are assigned to the shoulder buttons that function off a mana pool that is also used for healing (kind of like Hollow Knight if memory serves right). Yeah, thus far having a great time with this. Better than "solid" I'd say.

 

[Ivan]

update thoughts: encounter design remains strong, it's amazing how that alone can carry a game. this reminds me of Blasphemous with a lesser emphasis on world exploration/platforming. Highly recommended.

thus far a more-than-solid (esp if you enjoy games w/tough combat)

 

[Ivan]

Have experienced more bugs toward the endgame, particularly with gates blocking progression, forcing reloading to checkpoints. The more I play, the more I'm reminded of Sekiro's combat, at least when it comes to the lethality. You can get rekt quite fast, but you can also destroy fools if you nail the parry windows.

Rolled credits. Great combat experience. Not much else. Some tedious level progression bugs here and there. Some odd design decisions (namely that you can't pick your preferred special move/and I couldn't get why I wasn't able to unlock checkpoints toward the end, forcing longer treks toward the finale).

 

[ADL]

If you're a humble choice subscriber you got this for free (on their client).
https://www.humblebundle.com/membership/collection