Recent reviews by sparrowtimes

After finishing Moonlighter, I think it's worth playing if you enjoy the following:
- repetitious combat that varies somewhat with enemies being introduced over the course of four dungeons
- crisp and interesting sprite work
- a gameplay loop that's reminiscent of Recettear, without the individuality of that game's townsfolk
- a complete absence of motivation to progress beyond seeing numbers go up

It's a cute game, and I won't deny that I found it fun for most of my time with it. That said, there are some pretty significant negatives -- if you don't find the core gameplay loop interesting, it won't hold your attention for very long. Additionally, you'll definitely quickly hit a point where it feels like there's nothing new... until you unlock the next dungeon, which will move the ceiling up a bit.

The recent patch added some minibosses which add some needed tension to the progression, along with cute companions. It also added some "lore", but to be entirely honest I found those additions unnecessary, if not kind of obnoxious -- in a game pretty much entirely devoid of narrative beyond "meet interesting new monsters and kill them for loot", it was extremely eyeroll inducing to now see Old Man telling Silent Protagonist about the latter's dead parents.

Overall, Moonlighter is a game which attempts to be Recettear and comes short of that goal. I enjoyed my time with it, but I also won't be returning to it any time soon -- complete it once, and you're never going to need to return unless they add a lot of new content or you're achievement hunting.

NOTE: my timer of probably includes at least ten hours of idle time, as I leave my games running in the background pretty regularly; assuming you're dedicated and able to grasp the mechanics of the game quickly enough, I doubt you'll get more than twenty hours from Moonlighter.

When I was gifted Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan~ for Christmas, my immediate reaction was "oh jeeze did I never take that off my wishlist", followed by "well I guess it'll be interesting research material". My ~4 hours of playtime represents a complete 100%-ing of the game - there's no cheevos to obtain, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Here are some thoughts on the game and its content:

- The game is a pretty simple visual novel, in that there aren't really any branching trees - your choices across the game (of which there are three "big" ones, being your sight-seeing for the first three days) will culminate in one of four endings, each of which represents one of two outcomes with your waifu of choice. The waifus, while limited in number, are fun enough, but I have to question their general decision making capabilities considering they are two young adult women who welcomed a weeb from the internet into their home, and after a few days together fall in love with him.
- The protagonist, while not given a specific country of origin (you enter your own currency to better immerse yourself), is a pale blonde dude with no eyes, which I guess is meant to reflect the generic Japanese dude with no eyes in most VNs??? He is also a dude who can apparently speak pretty high-level Japanese but has never heard of/experienced: convenience stores, yukata, ramen, and many other things that any good weeb is well-versed in.
- While I like that the game simultaneously displays Japanese and another language, this system is troubled by the lack of furigana (complicating any language-learning that could take place), and a narrative weirdness involving one sister not speaking Japanese - there is never any indication (from what I could see) of when the characters are speaking Japanese or English, though both are referenced. Sometimes one of the sisters speaks in phonetic English (rendered in katakana), so there's clearly meant to be a differentiation, but it's a weird thing to not have in there.
- There is no onsen scene, which would normally be an automatic 'no' review, but you do peep on one of the waifus after taking a bath, so it scrapes by on the anime cliche checklist.
- The emotive animations for the waifus are pretty neat, and I would likely play more VNs that include such a system.

Overall: I recommend this game if you want to experience a VN that puts you in the perspective of the simultaneously best-educated and most oblivious gaijin weeb possible. It's a quick ride, but fun for what it is.

It's pretty good I guess, I've only played it a little.