Great story brilliantly executed as a game.
As each and every review of the game must have already mentioned, "To the Moon" is first and foremost about story. It revolves around old man Johnny's life and his desire to go to the Moon. This desire is so strong that Johnny has had to hire Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts to manipulate his memories with a special machine so he would believe he had indeed been there.
As the game starts you are presented with a mystery: why does Johnny want to go to the Moon in the first place? He himself cannot answer this question. Another mystery is his relationship with his wife and her strange behavior.
Doctors Watts and Rosalene then start to traverse Johnny's memories backwards in an attempt to reach his earliest memories and change them so that his desire would be fulfilled.
I won't go into any more detail so as not to spoil anything. Suffice it to say that after a dramatic twist everything will become clear, every piece of the puzzle falling neatly into its place.
Usually when such feats are attempted in any media (books, movies, games, etc) in retrospect there are some glaring plot holes or mismatching detail. Not in this case, though. When you think back about it, every little detail that seemed strange in the beginning makes perfect sense after the ending. And that's indicative of just how good the story is.
As I finish speaking about the story, I must say that this is a good science fiction, too. This memory traversal technology is well worked over and tied nicely into gameplay. It's fun to explore memories which work differently from physical reality in a number of ways.
Another thing that makes this game stand out is its ability to evoke emotions. First, it is often funny. This is largely achieved through a lot of witty dialogue going between the main two characters throughout the game (although this is not the only way that this game can be funny).
Then it is also quite good at communicating fear and tension, happiness or sadness. It is likely to make you cry, and maybe even more than once.
The game's excellent sound track should be credited for this to a large degree. Each of the musical pieces fits the current scene perfectly.
One could say that graphically "To the Moon" is a simple 2D tile-based game. Only it's not that simple. It has body and facial animations (sort of) for characters which, too, help to convey their emotions.
The pixel art is good, there are some beautiful and detailed scenes to explore, and also some nice animated sequences.
Overall graphics are nothing outstanding, of course, but they work for this game.
TIP: press Alt-Enter to switch the game to fullscreen. It is possible to miss this (as I initially did) as this option is not in the interface.
As for the gameplay, it is there mainly to let you interact with the story, so you can feel a part of it. There are light puzzles and a few action sequences but none of them are very challenging.
To anyone who has read this far it should be obvious that there is a lot to like in this game. Now I'll tell what I didn't quite like.
First I dislike the main plot device itself. Personally I don't like the idea of faking memories to make someone happy. Actually this must be the reason why I haven't played "To the Moon" sooner. Try contrasting the memory finale and the real life finale after you finish the game and see how it makes you feel.
This didn't keep me from enjoying the game though. I guess I played it from a perspective "Okay, I can't really approve of this, but my characters have been hired to do it, so let's do it".
Also, "To the Moon" is a lot like certain kind of anime designed to squeeze as many tears out of you as possible. This is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, I guess. What I don't quite like though is that it shares the same idealistic/dream message (or moral) of such anime. Which just feels somewhat false and removed from reality to me.
This is not to say that I think this game has no value. (And by value for such a story driven game I mean its ability to enrich you in some way.) It has a lot to say about memory (obviously), about the way subconscious works, about human relationships.
Summary:
This game will entertain you with its witty dialogue, it will keep you glued to your seat with its mystery, it will make you laugh, and it will make you cry (probably), and maybe it will even make you think.
Even if you cannot agree with its initial premise or its ultimate morals, there are still a whole lot of reasons to play it.