Ok I will admit everything:
I never played Earthbound.
I never played Space Funeral.
But I liked Lisa (the Painful and derivates). Shiba, the protagonist of this game somewhat reminded to me the style of Lisa, maybe it's because here too there are fish-men involved, or because the setting is rather strange. Graphics is in fact the first thing that attracted me, but let's start with the review.


Hey, nice view from here, Mr. Salmon!

The Good
The story is about a normal guy, Shiba the salaryman (that is a sort of silent protagonist, because if I remember well he never says a word), who falls asleep one morning while taking the train to work, and ends up stuck on the mysterious Tatentai Island. Like a sort of Alice in Wonderland (or Dorothy, if you prefer), he meets strange creatures, some hostile monsters, and later also different factions. There are other humans too, but as Shiba, they are strangers in a strange land, and as you can guess, the final objective is going back home!

I love the style of this game: graphics are pretty, full of colours, well detailed, and they are also custom! Clearly much effort has been put into this, and he result it's impressive: the different locations are different, full of small details, strange and familiar at the same time.
I found mapping to be adequate, and I liked the choice of music, especially during some boss fights (like the first two combats against Toragu). There's also a clever use of sounds to rapresent the arrival to a destination after travelling, this is realized with the sound of the train brakes, and later with the countdown for the rocket to the moon!

I mentioned combat, because there's lot of it, despite being a game in which we have no party or equipment management and shops where it is possible to buy consumables. To tell the truth most combat encounters are avoidable, but these are usually quite easy and Shiba can level up very quickly. Despite this he never learns new skills, but he already starts with a couple of nice special attacks (yes, one of these attacks is done with the cellphone!) and the ability to recharge the energy spent using them. Healing items are found scattered on the various maps, and they are in a sufficient quantity, in my opinion.
It's worth stressing that there are not one, not two, but three different difficulty levels, and the hardest one removes some benefits like the strongest special skill. I played on medium difficulty level and I found the game to be enjoyable and not difficult at all, I died only once because I underestimated an apparently easy opponent.

Oh and a last thing: you cannot save anywhere but only when you find a clock. Luckily there are many of them scattered around, but pay attention because some difficult combat encounters happens far from them.


No, there isn't a giant mobile phone on the battlefield, this is a special move, Shiba's strongest attack!

The Bad
Unfortunately this game has also a couple of little flaws, for example:
Typos: writen, foregin, agressive... these three are the ones I remember well because they are repeated more times.
Another problem is that, despite the richness of details the maps, there is little interactivity: usually, in most Rmk2003 games, you get even just a short message when you to open or activate some item that has no relevance with the plot. Here it seldom happens, and it's a pity, since last four maps are just huge empty locations that you have to explore to get the needed items. The final part is in fact a bit lengthy, but only because you have to walk a lot, not because there's much to do!

Final Verdict
Three difficulty levels, two different endings, one weird adventure: this is Where The Moon Goes At Night, a nice little game with a lot of style. It's also a short, easy and enjoyable experience that left me wishing for more adventures on Tatentai Island (the story of the setting can be understood only near the end of the game).
This gets a 4/5 from me! Good job!