"Moonring" Game Review
A very successful homage to the Ultima series with its own set of charms and quirks.
As a love letter to the Ultima series, I knew from the start that Moonring would be something I'd very much enjoy. It did not disappoint.
The sense of joy in discovery, exploration, and putting the pieces of disparate clues together defines Ultima in great part, and it's all here in spades. Modern QoL features like automated note-taking, mapping, fast paced bump combat, and a text parser with auto-complete and word memory are not unwelcome and make the experience smoother without completely holding your hand. In fact, these features may just take the edge off for people stepping into this sort of experience for the first time. Further, Moonring sets itself apart from its forebears with an unique progression system based around devotional feats to the various in-game gods.
The hand-crafted elements on display here are fantastic, but I'm less enthused about the procedurally generated components. A good portion of your game time will be spent in the many dungeons and ruins that populate the world of Caldera. Once you've seen a couple of these, you've essentially seen them all. The random nature of the dungeons deprive them of any real identity beyond the different creatures that populate them, and the exploration process quickly becomes a formulaic matter of matching X key with Y chest. Considering the game was developed by a single developer and released for free, I understand if certain shortcuts had to be made. Yet the rationale here seems to be replayability, which doesn't jive with the hand-crafted overworld and clues that lend themselves to a strong one-time experience.
Even with the lackluster dungeons in mind, Moonring is a triumph. The core of the experience is gripping and well thought-out, complimented by a strong sense of style, world building, and a charming dungeon synth score. A reasonable runtime and a price tag of zero make this an easy recommend for both veterans and newcomers. I can only hope that in the incoming sequel and beyond, Fluttermind leans further into the strengths here and either sharpens their proc-gen toolset, or uses less of it overall.
4/5
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