Moonlite Shadows

"Moonlite Shadows" is an unfinished RPG that was being developed by Pink that was meant to be a very difficult game. Unfortunately if the beta build is anything to go by this game would have been difficult for all of the wrong reasons. In a difficult, but good game the challenge comes from the player needing to analyze the situation and use the right tools in their toolkit to win. This can range from applying the right stat debuffs to inflicting the right status conditions. It can even include the player swapping between various pieces of equipment in order to nerf the effectiveness of an enemy's skill set.

In contrast the difficulty in "Moonlite Shadows" comes from giving the player as few options as possible. For starters you start out with zero skills and gain them as you level up. Admittedly this is pretty standard. The twist is that you need to earn over 3,000 experience points to reach level two. And the hordes of early enemies you'll fight only give around 120 experience points. So getting to level two is a nightmare and the leveling curve doesn't get any better with the player needing to earn over 8,500 experience points in order to reach level 3. In fact, it took me around two hours to earn the 15,000 plus points needed to reach level 4. And that had netted me two skills in the form of a basic fire spell and a basic healing spell that was outdone by a group heal I could buy in a store shortly after gaining my healing ability.

Another way the developer tried to ramp up the difficulty was by building maze like dungeons with constant random encounters. These random encounters are also impossible to run away from so you'll be forced to deal with well over a hundred random fights to clear the game's second dungeon. To make matters worse the maze like dungeons force the player to explore every nook and cranny of the area for keys and ways to press buttons. So you'll be stuck running through an area where you'll be constantly jumped by enemies that you can only deal with by pummeling them to death with regular attacks for the most part since your MP pool in this game is tiny. In fact, you need to reach level 4 just to be able to cast your spells five times before depleting your reserve. And since you'll be getting into a lot of fights you'll want to try and hold off on using your MP restoring items as much as possible since you can't buy any of these items until you reach the game's second town.

And while these fights are difficult if you leave the game on active-mode. As previously mentioned they are hard for the wrong reasons so I advice switching over to wait-mode which removes a lot of the difficulty and just makes the fights super tedious as your forced to deal with waves of trash enemies as you try to get anywhere. And these routine battles also kill any sense of pacing the game has. Seriously, I was two hours into this one and the only story relevant information I had learned is that monsters are appearing in places they shouldn't and that an evil organization is out to ruin the world. And I had to get 90 minutes into the game to get that second part.

And while I could go on about the graphics and how the game is mostly comprised of assets from the RTP and a few edits. I'd argue the graphical and sound aspects of this game don't really matter since the gameplay is so bad you'll want to drop this one well before you complete it. After all, that's what I did and I've definitely forced myself through a lot of bad games over the years, but the sheer tedium of having to whip and bash opponent's into submission eventually became too much for me to handle and I called it quits at the entrance to the third dungeon. So my advice when it comes to this game is to never play it since it's a boring chore of a game that will drive even the most dedicated of players into giving up.