by Momodora was in no way a bad game. It maintained its extremely high level of sprite detail throughout the entire game. The mood and setting never let up and there was a plethora of minor details in the background and gameplay that hinted at a deeper lore. Broken shrines, untended graves, haunting pictures–even the NPCs have several little nuances that imply or even present a darker image of death and possibly in one case, suicide. And yes… you can turn into a cat.
All of these pluses continued as well–fun and distinct bosses, a giant map to explore, a generous quantity of skills and items to equip as well as dozens of secrets. In fact, I’m a bit confused as to why, but in my gaming heart of hearts, after finishing this game, I must place it in Tier 2. I struggle to think why exactly that is, but the truth is that I simply wouldn’t want to play this game again. I openly admit, I couldn’t even begin to develop an indie game as polished and detailed (visually) as this one. I could not come close to setting the kind of mood this game sets. And in spite of being an indie game, this is probably the best “Castlevania” game I’ve played since Konami stopped making theirs. But even so… something holds me back.
Mechanically speaking, the game lacks complexity. All bosses are generally slain using the exact same strategy–jump slash, jump slash (or stand slash x3) then roll out of the way at the last second of their attack. To be fair, many bosses in Castlevania are dispatched using similar means, but that’s why Castlevania often put combat’s focus on other things, such as a wide variety uniquely used weapons, abilities obtained from souls, swapping partners mid-combat, spells etc. Because of this simplicity, I never felt challenged by an opponent in the game, even though this game has a lot of bosses that looked awesome.
Likewise, none of the implied lore really went anywhere. For example, there is a knightess that you encounter on several occasions that by the end is sitting in a pool of her own blood, asking for death. There is an optional boss, “Archpriestess Choir” whom accuses you of slaying her sister. There is a skeleton with a cough who travels around. There is a couple who sit at a table and talk of death and other macabre topics. That last one, I thought was perhaps the parents of the Fallen Queen (the last boss), but after skimming through several forum posts, I found the developer’s own comments saying that they were simply a random couple. And that’s kind of the problem–none of the rather interesting characters and human bosses in the game really add up to anything at the end. In some ways, this lets the player sort of tell their own story in their head in a Dark-Souls-esque sort of way, but even Dark Souls had *some* connected and concrete pieces of a story. Momodora just feels like the developer put a lot of things in here simply because they thought it would be cool, but didn’t really build a story around it.
After beating the game, there are a few interesting challenges to overcome, such as a pacifist run where you don’t kill anything. Even so, I just didn’t feel that motivated to go through again. I was a little disappointed that this wonderful world didn’t have some kind of real story. I was sad that we would never get to discover who all of these numerous NPCs really were or what the conclusion of their story was, or exactly how they tied into things. A little mystery and ambiguity is fine and can actually be healthy, but at the end of the day, Momodora felt a bit too empty. That being said, it comes heavily recommended, based on all the previously discussed positives. I’m just not sure if I’ll be chomping at the bit to play it again.