GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon review – rebooting Konami
Konami return to one of their forgotten classics, with a new roguelike platformer that owes a considerable debt to Dead Cells.
It would be fascinating to know whether Konami fully understands how much people resent its withdrawal from the video games industry. Over the last few years many have come to view the company as a sort of pantomime villain, reviled for abandoning so many classic franchises and for the fact that it only seems willing to engage with its illustrious history when it thinks it can make some easy money from it, such as its recent NFT offerings.
Ever since the debacle of Hideo Kojima’s forced exit, Konami’s name has been mud and they’ve barely seemed to care – not least because they’ve released so few games in the last few years, especially in the West. Nevertheless, there has been the odd flicker of interest from them, and not just the constant rumours about a new Castlevania or Silent Hill game. A couple of years ago they dabbled with being an indie publisher, with the relatively good Skelattack, and last year they put a reboot of obscure NES title Getsu Fūma Den into early access on PC.
Getsu Fūma Den is a game only hardcore retro fans will be familiar with, but it was originally released solely in Japan and is often seen as a sister title to Castlevania. It certainly has similar Metroidvania elements but there are also elements reminiscent of the oddball Zelda 2: The Adventure Of Link and even an attempt at 3D visuals for some sections. There are no such peculiarities in Undying Moon though, which presents itself as a more straightforward 2D roguelike that inspires immediate comparison with Dead Cells.
The name Getsu Fūma Den roughly translates as Legend of Fūma Getsu, in reference to the main
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