I love me some rogue-likes but Moon Hunters goes a step farther than most. Many procedurally generated games focus primarily on gameplay variation. Moon Hunters however actually offers a narrative that adapts differently every time you play. This top-down action rpg will still see you battling your way through varied stages as well. The story and characters you meet along the way will give you purpose and insight as your tale unfolds each play through. It is a neat concept from a talented team of developers but it does quite live up to its promise.
As the title references the game starts out as the moon disappears. It is up to a small band of heroes to go out and investigate what has happened. Along the way you'll have several different encounters with various people, spirits, and animals. How you handle yourself in those encounters will grant you different traits. Making a smart decision may label you "wise" while a poor choice my label you "foolish". You'll need these traits to complete random challenges; for example only a "brave" character is daring enough to reach into a mysterious pond. Talking to many of the NPCs and completing these mini-quests will be vital to getting good endings. Every story told will unlock another constellation of stars which helps track your progress across multiple play throughs.
For me the better part of the experience rests in the gameplay. You start with four characters to choose from and quickly unlock two others. Each character basically has three different moves; an attack, a dodge, and a special. Some characters let you hold down the buttons for a variation while others let you combine inputs. This helps keeps the gameplay simple but eventually you can buy some upgrades. As you progress enemies and obstacles will drop opals with can be spent at shops to unlock abilities and traits that will enhance your moves. Opals don't carry over between runs so you might as well spend them for if you die you'll lose all the opals you acquired on that day.
See the thing is you only have five in game days to figure out what happened to the moon. Each level you visit, besides the towns, will count towards a single day. This means most play-throughs will only be about an hour's length at most. Exploring the stages thoroughly is key to getting both a lot of opals, changing your traits, and progressing the story-line. Every night when you camp you'll get to choose one of several actions; such as standing watch, resting, and hunting. Each of these actions will enhance different stats for your characters. Also there is a random chance of an encounter which gives that character a chance to make their own decisions. Normally everyone playing in multiplayer gets to vote for the choices they prefer which is a really neat feature.
Moon Hunters is a fine game but its lacking in the area of a clear progression path. I like the different characters and all their own little twists on the simple combat system. Its just I have no idea what is necessary to make progress towards the story and finding the moon. Many times you just find an encounter that requires a specific trait and I'm not sure if the game is trying to make me go back to old stages after I find the trait, especially with the days ticking down. The one time I got a big hint me and my partner accidentally ruined the puzzle and didn't have a chance to reset it. If only the game helped you keep track of who and where needed different traits based on previous runs the experience could have been much smoother and more enjoyable.