Moonrise Fall

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

.

Review:

Moonrise Fall is a Graphic Adventure released on PC in 2019, coming to Nintendo Switch in 2022, and then ported to Xbox One in 2023. In this game, players take the role of a young boy who lost his parents in a car crash and finds himself whisked away somehow to a fantasy realm, where he needs to take photographs of creatures and gather energy, I guess? Yeah, this game had me scratching my head.

The presentation here has some strong elements, particularly the sound, which builds a dark, brooding atmosphere with its moody music and creepy sound effects like an irritating fly sound. This sound backs 2D pixel art visuals that do a decent job of maintaining that moody atmosphere, though I can’t say I care for it all that much.

I dunno, maybe this is one of those games where you either “get it” or you don’t, but I found this game’s puzzles to be far too nebulous and the game overall far too directionless to be enjoyable. Early on, you get the ability to take photos and to adjust the time of day, and each of these skills must be used on occasion to open pathways and solve puzzles, but aside from a few brief moments early on, the game doesn’t really make it clear when you’re meant to use these, nor are you told what your goal is. All you have is a journal full of what amounts to hints for how to find the creatures you’re trying to photograph, though there’s no indication if this is your main goal or some sort of side-activity.

It doesn’t help that this game’s walk speed is terribly slow, that you’re not really given any real insight or introduction to the character you’re playing, that the game doesn’t seem to give any indication why you should keep putting up with its tedious frustrations.

Yeah, I didn’t like Moonrise Fall. While the game does a good job building a mood, it’s terrible at indicating what the player is meant to do and why, and its slow pace tried whatever patience I had left. A game doesn’t need to hand-hold or spell out its story to be enjoyable, but I’d appreciate at least some indication of what the heck I’m meant to do and some indication why I’m doing it. This game provides neither, and certainly not enough to justify putting up with its frustrations.

tl;dr – Moonrise Fall is a Graphic Adventure that has you taking the role of a young boy who finds himself whisked away to a fantasy realm where he needs to take photographs of creatures… or something. This game is pretty terrible at indicating what it wants you to do, terrible at instructing you how to do it, and terrible at indicating why you should care, particularly why you should even bother with this game’s frustratingly slow walking speed. While the game builds a good atmosphere, I can’t recommend it.

Grade: D+

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