Lunacid

Hidden Gem

lore slop

A must play in the Kingsfields-like genre, excellent soundtrack, great depth to exploration and secrets to uncover, a geniune sense of passion and a game that doesnt take itself too serious aswell as still wanting to be more than just an assortment of jokes and references, this screams of truly inspired passion-work. It's created an itch that will be really hard to scratch with another game.

Game has an incredible style, an amazing soundtrack, and an intriguing story, but the retro touch is unfortunately too heavy handed on the gameplay side. That there is no map is not a problem (one can just sketch one's own in meatspace if pressed) but due to a lack of movement abilities the game ends up feeling like a backtracking walking sim at times, particularly if you need to head back to a place where you died or if, heaven forbid, you get a little lost. This makes the warp point distribution feel a little thin, especially at first before you can craft the warp item. The map layouts are interesting and have fun things to find but the retro textures and enemies are not particularly varied, which makes it easier to get lost. Combat is simplistic and bosses are damage sponges. The game is focused around exploration so this isn't the biggest issue, but in combination with the backtracking it can make things feel a little tedious. The puzzles are clever, though there are one or two that can be frustratingly unintuitive, and due to the repetitive textures and the somewhat sluggish display of the "?" indicator, hidden walls can be, well, quite well hidden indeed. Ultimately though the frustrations piled up faster than the style - which is good, don't get me wrong - could keep up with.

Lunacid ha sido una experiencia realmente única y una grata sorpresa, hacía mucho tiempo que no me adentraba en un dungeon crawler profundo de corte clásico en todos sus aspectos, bañado en un mundo de fantasía oscura increíble, con un estilo gráfico cogiendo el legado de King's Field y llevándolo más allá. Tanto su banda sonora como efectos de sonidos ya sean de enemigos como de ambientación dan lugar a una atmósfera muy opresiva e inquietante. Toda una joya muy asequible que no te puede faltar.

I've never played a King's Field game but I've seen one streamed (King's Field 2, the first one released in the west) and when I saw that series' name tossed around a lot in the context of this game, I was curious. I'm not generally a fan of the way FromSoft design their games, but I thought maybe a game that's *influenced* by that school of design, without actually mimicking it, might work for me. Lunacid, then, is a first-person action-heavy RPG set inside an underground complex of sorts. It's relatively slow-paced and methodical, especially by 2020s standards, though it's actually still a lot brisker than the King's Fields. The game has a very engrossing atmosphere of gloom - an almost dreamlike unsettling ominousness. It can be a bit of a slog at first, or was for me at least, but once you find your feet in how you want to approach it, it turns into an absorbing and satisfying game. Without spoiling anything I will say there's a sharp difficulty spike late in the game, which gave me no small amount of trouble for a good while, but otherwise the progression of challenge seems pretty well worked out. For a large part of the game you have a certain amount of freedom - it's not an open world, but there are usually at least a couple of places you could go and check out, and often no indication as to which one is the 'right' way to go at the moment. Just enjoy the exploration and see what you find. I suspect that Lunacid would probably aggravate some people with the pace and slight awkwardness of its gameplay, but I really enjoyed it. I think if its Majora's-Mask-having-a-goth-phase vibe works for you, it'll do a lot to buoy the rest of the game. Interesting setting, cool atmosphere, generally solid gameplay. It's a good one.

Man, I really wanted to love this game, but there are too many issues. - Hallways look all the same, making exploration frustrating - Ranged build is heavily discouraged, there there like 5 ranged weapons and 50 melee ones and 50 spells. No way to respec either. - Tower of Abyss is just bad, you will get stuck when using Summons (door doesn't open, known bug) and you have to reset the game if you don't have to way to teleport back (wtf) - Weapon EXP system is immature, as the most efficient way to upgrade your weapons is to break 1000 crates and urns (why risk dying in a run when you can get a weapon that's twice as strong?). Same with farming money (which is required to get a specific weapon in the end game). - There's that one boss who is basically impossible to beat on a day with a full moon, and I was unlucky enough to encounter them at that day. Thinking "This boss is way too tough, I only dealt like 5% of their health. Let's backtrack.", not knowing they blocked the only way forward. If you can stand the jank you'll have a great experience, otherwise stay away. Music and enemy design is great tho. Combat becomes fun during the latter half with more movement speed, spells and weapons (unless you go for ranged build like me lol).

super boring