Momodora: Moonlit Farewell review

thesixthaxis.com:

My introduction to the Momodora series came all the way back in 2016, with the fourth entry in the series – Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight. Despite jumping in at game number four, I didn’t feel lost at all – in fact, the lack of context made my journey with the game and its world even more impactful. In the time since that game, there’s been a parallel entry in the series named Minoria, but no direct sequel until now. With Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, plot threads I’m very familiar with, and ones I’ve never even experienced, all come together in a conclusion to the series that isn’t just a culmination of the biggest narrative moments, but also a delightful culmination of the best ideas and mechanics of the five games that came prior.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell sees you playing as Momo, a priestess warrior from Kaho village who sets out with her fellow priestess Cereza to investigate a sudden demon resurgence in the surrounding area. This entry has a noticeably larger focus on lore and exposition than Reverie Under The Moonlight, making the opening hours just a bit harder to parse if you haven’t played the other games. You’re provided some notes in your inventory that outline the major beats of previous games if you need some help getting filled in, and there were a few early moments that had me feeling like I was watching Avengers: Endgame as my first Marvel movie. Quickly enough, though, the stakes of your current adventure are made clear, the key characters are introduced, and it becomes a lot more thrilling to unravel the mystery that Momo has found herself thrust into.

Similarly, gameplay takes a while to get off the ground. At first, Momo has pretty limited and sluggish movement – you feel less like like a swift warrior and more like a struggling survivor, lost in unfamiliar territory. Traversal takes a long time, and backtracking takes even longer, but combat is a delight from the jump. Your melee combo is swift and reliable, and your ranged arrow attack