GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon Reviews
Many of the avoidable snags found in GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon were solved by genre predecessors long before this game was announced. There is no doubt that in a few patches time this could be a fantastic game - but that's if Konami, which hasn't been in many gamer's good books for a long time, actually grants the development team the time and the funding to work on it. As it stands the game could end up being something special, the trouble is other similar Switch titles already are.
Less a reboot of a forgotten NES game and more a sub-par clone of Dead Cells, where the gorgeous visuals cannot hide the mediocre gameplay.
The protagonist, Fuma, is a skilled warrior with very plastic movements. With all this fascinating ambience of the ancient Japan, not only thanks to the visual but also the soundtrack, seeing all the plasticity of a good hit with a sword is an important part of the game for immersion. To help visualization, movement is slow. However, this is still an action game, and having the gameplay suffer with slow movements isn't exactly ideal. This example sums what GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon is: an action game with beautiful visuals. However, its visual refinement sometimes goes beyond what can be functional. It's a title that tries to incorporate features from successful modern roguelikes. However, what inspired it didn't serve to give it prominence and personality sometimes. It's a game with potential to be extraordinary but loses itself in the mundane.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
So have Konami completely redeemed themselves through the revival of GetsuFumaDen in this brand new roguelike? Not quite – the game is far from perfect – but there is a lot to enjoy for fans of roguelikes and games influenced by Japanese culture. While the gameplay itself may be simple and particularly punishing for new players, the stylish traditional art and impressive soundtrack should be enough to keep the majority of players dying time and time again. For those Japan fans out there reading this review, I highly recommend you GetSomeFumaDen.