To the Moon will win you with its beautiful score and touching story.
GRAPHICS:
This game looks like a Super Nintendo game, with an extremely crisp 16-bit look. It especialy reminds me of Chrono Trigger, which is a good thing. The levels you traverse on are nicely detailed, and the character sprites, while could have used more animation, are still well done. You still feel their emotion through speech bubbles that contain certain icons for feelings, which is a nice touch. All in all, a pleasent game to look at. 4/5
SOUND:
Oh my God, the music. This game's soundtrack is one of its best aspects, being very delicate and pretty, mostly being composed of piano pieces. They are amazing tracks, not only creating a beautiful atmosphere but also just being joyous to listen to. 5/5
STORY:
The story of To the Moon resolve around two doctor, dr. Watts and dr. Eva, members of a group whose purpose is to fulfill the wishes of near-death patientes. In this case, they have to get their client, Johnny, to the Moon.
I do not want to spoil much more, because the story is by far the best aspect of the game. Not only is the premise unique, but the way it unfolds, by going through his memories to understand why he wants to go there, is just incredible. As the game progresses and more details about Johnny and the people he lived with are revealed, you really get connect with these characters. Not only that, but the fame this game has for making people cry is not un-true, as it is an emotional tale, full of plot-twist that will chock you and make your heart warmer as the story progresses.
It is mainly a love story in its core, but it is done right. It avoids mundane cliches for an original relationship between the characters, and as you go deeper in his memories, things just keep getting better. It is definitely a tale worth experiencing. 5/5
GAMEPLAY:
The game is mostly an adventure game. You control the two doctors as they go through Johnny's memories to uncover his past and motivations.
Once you enter his memories, you have to find five meaningfull objects on that time period, so you can advance further past. It never is too hard, although it boils down to just clicking everything on sight most of the time. Often, the game gets quite creative with how you have to find the five "balls" required to open the memento to go more in the past, and each memory is never too long or frustrating that you will want to quit due to frustration.
After finding the five "balls of memory", you have to do a flip the tile puzzle to open the memento. And I have to say, even I, someone who sucks at that kind of puzzle, didn't have too much trouble. In fact, the game keeps a counter of how many moves you made, and the fewest amount of moves possible, and it is quite satisfying to get it quickly.
And that is pretty much it for gameplay. Sure, there are some more elements latter in the game, but I won't spoil since they are tied to the story. In fact, that is what the game is mostly comprise of, text. I almost feels like a visual novel with the amount of text, but since the story is the main reason you are playing in the first place, it isn't too much a problem. It won't take that long to beat the game, around 4-6 hours, and it has virtually no replay value, since you have already experienced the story once, and there isn't any incentive to play again, unless you missed something or just want to experience this heart-felt tale once more. 3.5/5
OVERALL:
This is a game that was made with the story in mind. And, thankfully, the simple gameplay is more that compensated by an amazing story. To the Moon is one of the most beautiful tales you will every experience in a game. Definitely worth playing to experience its uniqueness.
The good:
-Looks quite solid
-Simply amazing soundtrack
-Story is wonderfull
-Charcters really grown on you
The bad:
-Gameplay is quite basic
-Rather short, and no replay value