The original Moonlighter was a fantastic take on the roguelike that asked “but what if also capitalism?” and then did its utmost to make that fun. Fun capitalism is a nice change of pace for a lot of us, and the fact that it was all built around a lovely-looking action roguelike with a solid story was all part of the package. And what could be more capitalist than meeting market demands with the supply of a sequel? So here’s Moonlighter 2 opening up its stall in Early Access this week.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is a pretty drastic change in a lot of ways, and yet remains very familiar in others. In terms of familiarity, you’re still going to be going adventuring during the night to collect relics to sell, while also trying to progress through dungeons, and you’ll still be setting up shop during the day and trying to find the perfect price for moving as much product as possible. That’s all still good stuff, and in terms of the general loop, it’s unchanged.
What has changed though, is basically everything else. Combat feels a little more intense now, with you being able to equip a few different weapon types which you can upgrade and unlock as you go along. Each weapon has normal attack and a light attack, and often a special property or two as well. You can also dodge, as you’d expect, but also knock enemies away with your bag, and even pull out a gun and just shoot stuff. That’s all quite fun, but it does feel a little clunky at times.
That’s usually because of the scenery. Some aspects of the maps you’ll be journeying around feel like they’re bigger than they look. This results in times where you’ll find yourself caught between different environmental parts, but it doesn’t look like you should be. This extends into anywhere you end up walking, and as you will be doing a fair bit of that, that’s kind of an issue. I came across some other little glitches as well, like people being invisible in my shop and enemies just stopping randomly for no reason. These weren’t game-breaking, but they were immersion-tearing. These didn’t happen often, but they did happen.
There’s a lot more to Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault. Your main quest is to earn a bunch of money to satisfy a space cube and unlock new features, but you’ve also got a constant slew of side quests to undertake and complete that can help you get to grips with the game or unlock new features. This is still an Early Access release, but there’s plenty to sink your teeth into. You can also upgrade yourself by using materials, build new weapons after finding recipes in the dungeons, and unlock new bits for your shop too. That all uses the same general materials, and often a lot of money, so you get lots of fun decisions to make.
I don’t love the new visual style, sadly. It’s something I’ve seen a number of roguelite sequels go through, including the likes of Wizard of Legend 2, where the successor insists on going a bit bigger and more ambitious with the graphics. I don’t think it’s all that necessary in Moonlighter 2’s case, as it jumps from pixel art style to 3D. The older art style was really charming, and while this game does look nice, it feels a little more sterile comparatively.
On the whole, I’m enjoying Moonlighter 2’s Early Access release. It’s a decent mechanical upgrade over the original game in the majority of areas, but it’s also fair to say that it’s losing a little something in the transition, and I find it a bit less whimsical. If you want more stuff to do and love a meta-grind though, then this game should satisfy that nicely.
