Hi my name is Will.

I own my own shop.

I sell things like tree branches, iron bars, and sometimes weapons.

Every night I go down into the dungeons and fight monsters.

Moonlighter is an amazing game, especially when you play it on the Switch. I randomly saw it one day and was very curious and decided to give it a try. I was not disappointed in the least. Normally I don't like these kinds of pixelated games but this one was the exception. Imagine the old Legend of Zelda games mixed with a tycoon simulator, that's basically what Moonlighter is like.

GRAPHICS: 8/10

The graphics of Moonlighter are simple and cute. It doesn't look like a standard pixelated retro game, the graphics are a bit smoother and the animations are actually pretty nice. No dungeon looks the same, each one has it's own design and layout and each monster and character has a unique design and style. The town is also full of color and makes you want to keep exploring.

SOUND: 8/10

the sound and music of the game is pretty nice. I've entered the first dungeon dozens of times already and by now I have the main music for when you first enter etched into my brain. The music and sounds are simple but they get the job done. It sounds nice and takes you back to a simpler time and allows the game to feel more immersive.

ADDIVTIVENESS: 10/10

When you think of a normal dungeon crawling game, you just go into a dungeon and clear it out. Once you do that, you're done. Move on to the next dungeon. Some games don't even give you a reason to do the same dungeon again. The chests and items wouldn't appear and sometimes the monsters wouldn't be there anymore. That's not what happens in Moonlighter. Every time you leave a dungeon, it changes and resets. The layout and rooms all change. The monsters and all the items reset.

You can defeat all the monsters and collect all the items and then once you leave, you're free to go back in for a whole other experience. It never gets old because you'll never get the same dungeon twice and the dungeon hunting is just the too of the iceberg because you also have the shop managing part of the game. All the items that you find in the dungeons you get to sell in your shop. You put your items out for display, you set the prices for everything, and you make money. Enter the dungeons hundreds of times and make lots and lots of money, it never gets old.

STORY: 8/10

The story is about a merchant named Will. He owns a family shop. He wants to follow in the footsteps of this guy named Pete who was venturing through the dungeons for answers. He wanted to know why the dungeons do what they do and he was also searching for a way to open a 5th dungeon, which lots of people in the town think is just a dungeon, but not Will. That's really all there is about the story, the bulk of the game is just dungeon crawling, shopkeeping, and managing the town.

DEPTH: 10/10

Just the fact that the dungeons reset alone should be enough for a perfect score. There's only a few different dungeons but since they all reset and change their layouts, it quickly becomes a million dungeons. There's lots of monsters to fight and lots of weapons to find, craft, use, and sell. The shopping aspect is just as big. You get to sell every item that you find in the dungeons and there's hundreds of them. Not only do you sell them but you get to set the prices, choose how many to sell, and even monitor supply and demand as well as the happiness of the customers.

DIFFICULTY: 8

The game is actually super difficult. In fact during my first two hours of playing, I probably died more than 20 times. If you don't have heal potions or use healing pools the right way, you're going to die a lot. Sometimes the monsters will be too strong for you or there will be too many. Odds are, before the first time you upgrade your weapon, you're going to die a bunch of times before even clearing the first level of a dungeon. Just keep collecting items, and then going back to town and selling them and then soon enough you can take on a few more monsters. Just don't expect to survive.

OVERALL: 9/10

Overall this is a very fun game. So far it's already one of the 5 best Switch games that I've played. If you like Zelda, this game is for you. If you like making money in games, this is for you. If you want to keep collecting and selling until you can afford the really expensive stuff, you're going to be playing for a very long time and having a blast with the cute designs. Overall this is a great game and even better if you can get the cheaper version from the eshop. My overall grade for Moonlighter is going to be a great 9 out of 10.

Nice review. Even though I've never played this game and didn't even know it existed until now, you've given me a pretty vivid picture of this game and what it's like to play. I've played a lot of other games with randomly-generated dungeons, but having you run a shop and sell whatever items you get while in the dungeon is a fresh new spin on it...although I typically do that anyway if the game lets me take items out of the dungeon and sell them. It's also nice to hear that it's got a nice level of difficulty that a lot of games tend to lack.

NovemberJoy : Well this version is still very new. The Switch one came out in November and the game in general is less than a year old.

I wanted the game but the PS4 copy was like $10 cheaper but then I found that the Amazon eshop version was much cheaper so I got it. I've already been playing for a few hours a day, lots of fun, even when you die and lose everything.