A mixture of genres, especially among indie games, are metroidvania with souls-like elements (or vice versa). Among the main examples, we can mention “Salt and Sanctuary”, which is well pulled to the traditional gameplay of the souls genre, “Hollow Knight”, which has the traditional footprint of metroidvania with great challenges and “Blasphemous”, having a high difficulty and an excellent construction of lore, mainly through the description of items and quests given by NPCs along your journey.

These games have built a large fan base and are also hits in streams all over the internet, inspiring the creation of other titles, like “Moonscars”.

Moonscars: the good and the bad

“Moonscars” seems to be mainly inspired by “Blasphemous”, for the aesthetic part, and tries to be mysterious in its setting and character and world building, which makes it interesting in its beginning. All dialogs with NPCs, from the beginning, are a bit confusing, but not necessarily uninteresting, especially for those who are interested in world building.

The gameplay and combat, on the other hand, is built in an interesting way, but leaves you very confused at the beginning of the game. The main difficulty lies in how the combat is introduced and how to unravel the pattern of enemies and how to face several enemies at the same time, just like a soulslike, especially in the beginning. This is not necessarily a problem, but the game does not necessarily give you a breathing space for learning and may frustrate less experienced players.

The exploration of the game, for a metroidvania, is very linear and has no great construction or elaboration, focusing mainly on combat, but compared to other metroidvanias and even those mentioned above in this text, this makes this game not a great highlight. It generates curiosity to people who are looking for games with this theme and can be an attraction in streams, but it is not a game that sustains itself for so long.

The focus for a live stream

In more detail, I feel that this game, for a live stream, would be overshadowed since the game itself would not be the big focus.

Despite the theme, it is not attractive enough on its own to captivate an entire audience, it can only interest the specific niche that was mentioned during the article: those who like soulslike metroidvania games.

I feel that a way to engage more about the game would be to try to dig deeper into the story, as confusing as it is, or even play it if your audience is interested in games of this same genre, which I would say is the most interesting strategy. In terms of performance, the game runs very well on any computer and can be easily streamed as well, since it is not a game that requires high technical specifications.

“Moonscars” is playable with Xbox Game Pass.

Moonscars

PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch (2022)

Performance

Streamability

Audience Engagement

Replayability

Summary

Moonscars is a game with beautiful pixel art, interesting combat, mysterious and curious universe construction, but it doesn’t seem to hold up in its repetition and application of its concepts. The game tries to be metroidvania, but is very linear, and tries to be soulslike, but does not differ from other existing titles, being just a common game for the genre. For a livestream, I feel the game might get overshadowed, which would be a negative for the game but not necessarily for the stream, but it is good to consider that perhaps the game itself would not be a big highlight, only for fans of a specific niche of games, and so it is a game suitable for those more enthusiastic about metroidvanias and soulslikes.

3.5

Ludovicoluka

I have 25 years, I produce content to internet for 4 years and I like retro games, indies and I’m an enthusiast for new launches. I have as my favorite games Donkey Kong Country 2, Super Mario World, Hollow Knight and Red Dead Redemption II, per example. I like to experiment everything and the more, the better, but I never get sick of my comfort games!