Moonscars — The Scars of Difficulty, More Like…

Nobody warned me how hard this game is

Sometimes, your friends tell you that there’s a really good game out there, and they say that because all the reviewers give the game an average score of 87%; not necessarily because they constructed that opinion by themselves. Anyways, you check it out and it seems weird that the experience doesn’t match all those A+ reviews. I’m not saying that the game is bad by any means, because if it has good scores then it has to be based on something. But just because a game is “good” doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it. This happened to me last week, and it’s a game that goes by the name of Moonscars.

Now, I initially assumed that Moonscars was some kind of dark/gothic Metroidvania, something like Blasphemous, a game that I have written about, once. Apparently, I had too many expectations because this game is not what I thought it was, mainly in how hard this game is. I mean, were games always this hard? People say that the Dark Souls series is among the hardest, so I wonder how hard Moonscars can get. Unfortunately, I will never find out because the game is too hard for me to continue playing it any further. These kinds of games, like Dark Souls games don’t really do it to me.

But while I played it, I would love to describe just how hard this experience was, and while I struggle to describe the sheer difficulty of this game, here’s what it was like…

I died a dozen times just to get through the first boss

So first off, it is important to know that the story is vague, especially in the beginning. I don’t know if anything was clarified later because I never got far in the game. Still, the voice acting is somehow good. .But as the cutscene continues, you get to a point where several characters appear to tell you something, and you have no context who these people are and what the hell is going on. This is a usual vague opening to create an enigmatic atmosphere, and that’s ok, but then you start to play. The colours are desaturated, probably to give the game a melancholic feeling, something that I could not identify because the vagueness of the story (something about a moon?) kind of made it not-so-interesting to pay attention to.

I run around to wherever the game leads me, and at some point, I encounter enemies, nothing too out of the ordinary. Much like the Souls, the enemies in this game require that you pay attention to their behaviour because if you do, you will be able to defeat these enemies. However, pulling off a counter requires precise attention, and I just found it more convenient to dodge their attacks because counters are too hard and not because they’re made of mahogany. Aside from that silly pun just now, the enemies just got more challenging, and even though most people won’t consider this point, the game wasn’t very flashy (the way I like it). With the increasing difficulty of the enemies combined with dull gameplay, I eventually realised that Soulslike is not for me, but I’m not at that point yet.

So I continue playing, hoping that maybe there is something worth discovering in this game. However, everything is partially grey, and I still don’t know what the story is about, besides having a giant cat following me around, condescending to me where I go. The cat, Etalag, is very conspicuous and just a good character overall. But as snarky as this cat can get, this game is hard. After finally defeating the boss (it wasn’t a very spectacular fight), I continued playing the game for another 2 hours or so, still struggling with the various mechanics. The difficulty and dullness eventually did their thing, as I said to myself, “I am done with this pretentious feline that keeps reminding me how bad I am at this game” I get it already. Frankly, I was so tired of playing this game at this point that I couldn’t say what the last straw was for me.

Nevertheless, I finished playing the game at that spot and moved on to other things. What were those things? Frankly, not even I am sure, but it probably wasn’t a hard game, that’s for sure.

Was Moonscars hard for you too?

Because it clearly was to me, as I am in no position or state today to play stressful games, I’d rather have a chill experience or at least one where the enemies don’t give too much shit. Do you like Soulslikes? It’s really not my thing, but if you wanna explain to me why people love them so much, then I’d be more than happy to hear your story. As usual, this is the place to share it.

In Conclusion…

So Moonscars is apparently a good game, not that I’m aware of it. The story was vague and the mechanics were just too difficult. Sorry but Souslikes are not for me… Or at the very least Moonscars isn’t.

I’m gonna have scars from this game, that’s for sure.