Moonlighter Reviews

Moonlighter is ranked in the 86th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
Stevivor
Top Critic
9 / 10.0
May 29, 2018

Moonlighter is a wonderful combination of Zelda and Animal Crossing that easily commands your constant attention. It looks beautiful with a lovely, pixelated style; music from the shop and the dungeons will be stuck in your head for days. The only fault I could find with Moonlighter it's relatively short — I wanted more dungeons, more enemies to topple, more items to sell.

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8 / 10.0
May 28, 2018

Moonlighter's loop of combat, exploration, and sales is an engrossing one, with steps taken to keep players invested in every part of the game.

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3.5 / 5.0
May 29, 2018

For as much as I complained about Moonlighter, it's actually a lot of fun, it just has a lot of bad parts between the fun bits. If the bugs get hammered out, upgrading becomes practical and the progression arc is reduced in the future or at least on the Switch version I can see it being a hit, but the current form needs a lot of work. Glitches and errors aside, the idea of constantly having to collect and sell loot to purchase marginally better gear is daunting, leaving an experience that is pretty bland. Combine this with the fact the experience is more static than varied and you have an interesting adventure that does almost everything in its power to squander what good it has. Hopefully it will improve in the future and those willing to take the chance on it won't have a terrible time, it just has a lot of room to improve.

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10 / 10.0
May 28, 2018

Moonlighter is a true pixel art gem. It is quite challenging, but also extremely satisfying.

Review in Polish | Read full review

8 / 10
May 28, 2018

The two very different gameplay elements in Moonlighter compliment each other beautifully. Running a successful shop means you need to become a top-notch hero and collect enough items to sell. Becoming a trustworthy hero requires you to be a prosperous shopkeeper to earn enough gold to craft new things and to enchant your gear. While I do have some issues with the combat, namely how you lunge forward with each attack, I thoroughly enjoyed the boss encounters tied to each of the game's dungeons.

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4 / 5.0
Nov 14, 2018

Moonlighter is a fun, unique mashup of 2D dungeon crawler meets small business simulator.

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Evan Norris
Top Critic
7 / 10
Nov 6, 2018

Moonlighter's combat, art, quality-of-life fixtures, and addictive gameplay loop make for an easy recommendation.

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GameSpace
Wolfy
Top Critic
9 / 10.0
Jun 13, 2018

Moonlighter is an overall brilliant sum of its parts with the kind of things roguelike fans, action RPG fans or even lifestyle sim fans can find engaging. It's an addicting piece of grinding RPG gaming that comes highly recommended on any platform you choose.

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8.5 / 10.0
Jun 7, 2018

Overall the two halves of the game fit together very well and combine to make an interesting game. Clearing out the dungeons can occasionally feel a bit grindy because I often had to do part of it over and over before I was able to get all the way through it. There's even a bit of a town management aspect as well. Additionally, there is even a bit of a story about these dungeons which is uncovered as you explore more of them and find various items. The story for the most part is sort of to the side and not the main thing, but it is interesting.

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8 / 10.0
Jun 4, 2018

Selling piles of magical loot is just as fun as fighting for it in this hybrid shop sim and dungeon crawler that is let down only by some annoying bugs

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9 / 10.0
Jun 1, 2018

Choose the prices, choose the gear, choose your upgrades, choose the dungeon, and choose the loot to sell.

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7.5 / 10.0
May 28, 2018

Moonlighter is a good idea made game, and as such it entertained us for all the time we spent with it. It's by no means perfect, but Digital Sun's first effort is a quirky little game recommended to all the people who loves roguelites and hack'n'slash rpgs.

Review in Italian | Read full review

GameSkinny
Top Critic
Jun 4, 2018

Moonlighter is an exciting dungeon crawler that offers a change of pace as you run the town's shop by day, making for an impressive adventure.

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7.2 / 10.0
Jun 7, 2018

Players who pick up Moonlighter had best love both dungeon grinding and shop-based mini games. Ignoring the shop will only result in having to do so to progress and ignoring the dungeons will result in a lack of things to sell.

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6.5 / 10.0
Nov 13, 2018

Moonlighter is Zelda with a shopkeeper twist. Balancing beautiful animations and soothing tunes against an underwhelming plot, a thing combat system, and plenty of grinding, there's plenty to like and dislike.

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7 / 10
May 28, 2018

With slick store simulation and solid — albeit somewhat flawed — combat, Moonlighter is a game worth checking out if you're in the mood for something different. It's not perfect, but there's hours of enjoyment to be had leading the double life of a storekeeper and adventurer in the village of Rynoka.

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8.8 / 10.0
Nov 20, 2018

Moonlighter creates an excellent dungeon-crawling experience for fans of the genre. It combines rogue-lite elements with procedurally generated dungeons to create an adventure that's packed with surprises. Collecting loot to sell in the store adds a new side to dungeon-crawling experience that we don't often see. Selling in the store is multi-dimensional, as we must take supply and demand into consideration. Sometimes by trial and error, we learn the true value of things to assist us in our progression. Progression can be slow due to clunky combat that causes us to die frequently, and a lot of grinding is required to achieve better upgrades. Moonlighter does an excellent job of getting the player to want to delve deeper into the dungeons, since venturing further yields greater rewards. Intricate details and visuals give Moonlighter a memorable style. Enemy designs provide an ample challenge for the risky adventurer, but the story falls short because the narrative isn't memorable.

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Renan Fontes
Top Critic
9 / 10
Dec 26, 2018

In spite of an ending that arrives too soon, Moonlighter manages to offer an engaging balance of commerce and action up to the very end. There is a natural rhythm to opening the titular shop during the day only to dungeon crawl once night falls. Progression is constant, emphasizing a design philosophy that prioritizes a lack of wasted time above all else. From enhancing weapons to upgrading Rynoka, every piece of gold Will spends is in benefit to not only the player, but also the flow of it all. With surprisingly tight combat and an economy influenced exclusively by the protagonist himself, this is one of the most endearingly creative takes on action-RPGs this generation.

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8.5 / 10.0
Feb 5, 2019

Will is adventurous shopkeeper and he is skilfull in his shop and inside dungeon as well.

Review in Slovak | Read full review

3.5 / 5.0
Nov 13, 2018

Even with it's own flaws, Moonlighter is an enjoyable ride that successfully mixed between two different gameplays

Review in Arabic | Read full review