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My first video yay

I’m really glad Moon: Remix RPG Adventure exists

Background

So Moon, originally released on Playstation in Japanese in 1997 and later localized into English on Switch in 2020. It was made by Love-De-Lic, a small independent Japanese game developer made up of former Squaresoft employees. They worked on highly influential games like Chrono Trigger, Live a Live, and Mario RPG and continued to make groundbreaking games. It is not an exaggeration when I say the collective force behind Moon helped shape the RPG canon as we know it.

Despite this influence on the path of RPGs, Moon wasn’t localized into english for 23 years! For 23 years only people that knew Japanese or brute forced their way through it, using Parrotshake’s guide on gamefaqs. This reached peak absurdity in 2017 when Toby Fox tweeted out how Moon was a major inspiration in his game Undertale despite never having played it.

This game inspired a lot. I want to look at it’s legacy and how it informed the developers’ later games as well as the design of games of all styles and genres. There really wasn’t much like Moon at the time of release? Like it is satire of Dragon Quest and the unquestioning violence of it but it’s almost the inverse of Earthbound. It really uses some non-traditional very context driven adventure game puzzles to do everything.

The subtitle, “remix rpg adventure,” succinctly describes the setting and mechanics and non-traditional innovator that it is. Moon has dozens of unique characters, a soundtrack with over 30 independent artists contributing including an isolated rivertribe in the Amazon, it has beautiful sprite work and pre-rendered backgrounds, and everyone has these adorably unique chopped up voices. I’d say that it’s larger than the sum of all its parts but honestly it’s about equal to the sum of all its parts but in a positive way since they’re all so individually good. So let’s boot it up right?

Fake moon

So there is a whole section, affectionately called Fake Moon in the guide, that is basically an RPG maker game or a missing Live-a-Live section. It’s just an affectionate parody of Dragon Quest with the simple visual style, basic dialog and anime caricatures. It is a hyper condensed telling of Moon, the Hero is enlisted by the king and the people to go and kill the dragon that is off being a dragon. The village people cheer him on, and give him legendary armor to brave the challenges ahead. He slays monsters with the most innovative combat system ever seen in video games.

There are all these unique dialog windows for all these mundane actions that set the tone. This repetitive Slime fight and the Hero’s impatience is really funny especially considering its peers. The hero is also just a total jerk that sees the adorable Tao as a mangy mutt that he hits, handling the subject 100x better than current industry behemoths.

This section builds up teasing the many sights of the world through a very different perspective. It’s really cool and feels like a thesis or roadmap for the rest of the game. Riding the “mode 7” ship (lol) to the Dragon’s Castle to slay him we get the final battle at maximum level is cute and fleshes out the combat in a super deep and complex way when-

“Hey! Stop playing that game! And go to bed!”

Real moon

So friend, as I called him in my playthrough, falls into Moon-world alone and invisible. The world is different from how he last saw it, more detailed, and distinctly different than before. The Hero is this big brooding, silent beast of a person that stops everyone’s whispers with his very presence. Because they don’t have to hype up jock boy hero friend actually learns about the townspeople. There’s the shady entrepreneur Curio, the kinda depressed Baker(his name and profession), this angry homeless guy named Shambles, and the very boring under developed cute girl Flora who likes flowers.

My personal favorites from the castletown is the guards though, Fred and Bilby. Bilby is the real highlight with his weird downer energy going to the bar like every night I want to get drunk with this half naked divorced husk of a man. There are plenty of interesting characters and getting to know them all is the main draw of the game. I don’t want to go too deep into anyone but I want to analyze the Hero and his relationship with our protagonist, friend.

Hero/invisible boy analysises

So the first thing friend has to do in the game is go to this old lady, Gramby’s home for some clothes and a place to sleep. She will also give you fresh baked cookies each day. Her grandson has gone missing and most people think he is dead, but she mistakes you for him and takes care of you all the same.

Now this grandson has the inverse of the name chosen by the player at the start of Fake Moon, mine being, “friend(heart)” and the dead grandson being, “FRIEND(spades).” You don’t directly learn much about her grandson but if you’ll indulge me in some spoiler research I’d like to tell you about it.

If you follow Gramby’s dog Tao to his secret hiding place digging hole in the woods you can find a White Feathered Arrow which is a sort of general phrase in japanese that the gamefaqs guide talks about, quote “

General phrase explanations first: Shira-ha-no-ya (white feathered arrow) is used in a set phrase in Japanese. It is said originally that arrow is used to show who was chosen for a "sacrifice"...The chosen one's house would be stuck by the arrow. Today the word is still used for chosen ones, but this time not so dangerous. We can use it when a president chose someone for a project leader. The important thing is: chosen from "above" for a special task.”

If you present this arrow(or the hero’s bromide) to Bilby the guard at the bar, he’ll tell you some real sad shit that is only alluded to in other places. That Gramby’s grandson was chosen through some divine right, most likely administered by the King’s minister, to kill the dragon that ate the moon. But the armor he is wearing is ancient and cursed. Whoever wears it filling with the fury of battle destined to fight until he dies of old age inside it.

This has the immediate effect of making the Hero as interesting and complex as most other characters in Moon. They all have some melancholic subtext if it isn’t downright explicit. There is some kind of grand idea behind the tragic framing of it all. A child playing Fake Moon, toying with the Hero’s life and free will. Forcing the Hero to hurt his own dog, kill the monsters of the world and lose his humanity. Only for some cosmic irony to be forced to experience the toll of this violence first hand. It is a hauntingly poetic set up for their relationship. A horrible tragedy condemning the very nature of violent video games.

I want to also look at their designs with a gender critical lens. I’m glad the kid isn’t a girl if only to not see an unnecessary bow and eyelashes on such a perfect design. Moreso a girl might’ve played into stereotypes of women being more nurturing and caring than men, and I think it’s important that everyone be nurturing and caring! But I’m also not wholly convinced the invisible kid is a boy.

The fact is that their mother doesn’t refer to them by any name or gender identifier. Their hair and clothing are very unisex, and kids don’t really have a solid understanding of gender identity anyway. They come into moon world invisible and are kinda forced to assume the grandson’s identity and clothing to stay with Gramby. It’s primarily used to establish this ambiguous, supernatural stranger in a strange land. But it can also be easily read as a young child thrown into a world as someone besides them. It could even be an affirming thing, with the kid being a girl and wanting to be a boy like in their video games, after all they do choose the name they are referred to!

Thematically and visually though the Hero and invisible kid are very different. The hero’s intimidating masculine armor contrasting with the invisible kid’s vulnerable androgynous clothes. These wonderfully portray their contrasting viewpoints which is central to the game. Reenacting all of the scenes from both perspectives. I think it’s great that it shows how similar they are while being so dissimilar. I love their designs and all the small interactions they have. I just wish it wasn’t so adamant about characters referring to an invisible proxy for all players as a boy. I won’t get into any spoilers but I would’ve liked to have seen the Hero more sympathetically or more deeply in any of the main game instead of relegating it to this side content.

Engaging on it’s terms

The majority of Moon is collecting Love and boosting your Love level(abbreviated LV). Friend gains love by helping people, and almost every character has some subplot to gain their love that is unique to their character. They range from going to the store to get Gramby some bread to helping people with their work or just uh stalking them. The other way to get love is to catch the souls of monsters that the hero has slain. These are similarly unique little puzzles custom fit to each monster. The monsters each have a little description and different behaviors and locations and while the main goal is to physically catch them, the bounds of that are really pushed with some of them. Each of these little subplots is adorable and the main draw, seeing what quests are hinted at in dialog and item descriptions and hints throughout. Some play off others, needing you to do other character’s subplots first or only occurring on certain days.

These schedules play out on a real time clock lasting about 20 minutes. This little clock in the corner shows the current time and day. There are also fictional names for each day including, Solar-day, Crescenday, Blazeday, Tearsday, Leavesday, Coinsday, and Echoday. vities can be narrowed down to the day and quadrant but some get even more specific. One event in the main quest needing you go to a specific location, randomized between a few places on the same screen, within a 3 second window. It’s a little obtuse at times with the specificity of when and where events will happen and really requires a keen eye to notice everything. That attention to detail is really admirable! Some subplots require you visit the same character on the same day multiple times taking place over an in game month. Almost every subplot uses the schedule in some kind of different way thoroughly fleshing out the concept.

Not all puzzles simply require you to talk to someone on certain days. There are a few obtuse solutions specifically in the Mushroom Forest and fireworks factory that I would not belittle anyone for using a guide. There are a few hint givers in game that add a lot of flavor while being very helpful. Author insert Yoshida, will give you descriptions and hints on whatever item you show him. Adder will give even more specific advice for a small price after you solve his puzzle. There are tablets found throughout that give hints or straight up solutions to certain puzzles, but can only be read at a certain location that can be accessed in a few different ways. It gives the game an interesting progression where the player might get saddled with plenty of unhelpful rocks only to find the translator and finally solve a dozen puzzles.

Most puzzles do just involve going somewhere and talking to someone though which the writing more than makes up for. There are some subplots that don’t require schedule based puzzle solving. A few miscellaneous rhythm, action, and memorization mini games that make this game really feel like a big Final Fantasy or JRPG. These range from fiddly frustrating simple arcade games to fiddly random simple arcade games. So about as good as most Final Fantasy minigames. They break up the flow well enough and don’t have too big of rewards to further incentivize the well written subplots.

The various ideas and interesting designs were what really led me through everything. Each area is very visually distinct with plenty of environmental puzzles to boot. It’s also a pretty big world? There’s a world map in your home with each area blotted out that helps give you a sense of scope. As I said before there’s a lot of walking, talking, and stalking characters and very few things to break that up, besides the excellent writing. But if you forget to save you might even need to repeat large sections leading to some frustration.

This might seem boring and it kinda is but Moon also has Moondiscs. There are a few spread through some side quests, but they are mostly acquired through Burrn’s shop. With them you can program playlists to play in the background while you vibe with the world. The music is also obviously incredible, they got an absurd number of independent artists to contribute and any Japanese CD soundtrack that is being scalped on amazon for $800 has to be good.

What was a boring walk through areas without music is just part of a really nice in game daily commute. The act of just existing in this world with independent characters going about their day regardless of what you do was what I loved most. Where fake moon (and most games by extension) are a straight progression of set piece to set piece, the real Moon just let me live in this world and be a part of it.

These super chill vibes is kinda what drew me so much to Moon, just existing in this world sitting and listening to its music that I liked so much. These chill fucking vibes is integral. I think that’s one of the most powerful things about video games, is making a setting and systems that you just enjoy existing in.

Ending shenanigans

There is a main quest and an ending, which I won’t really get into because I don’t really want to get into the bigger spoilers. It’s relatively straightforward and I think it handles, “the point,” well and I’m glad there was a definite end point so I concretely knew when to stop. Moon ends thematically consistent with tying in with the end of Fake Moon in a nice way. Message received and appreciated for how kind the sentiment is I implore you to experience it yourself. I’m also a sucker for games that thank me for playing.

I can’t help but feel that having a main quest with set progression blocks and goals weakens what I most vibed with. There are sign posts throughout that tell you about the Hero’s progression in his quest that parallels your progression. Having the two directly correspond feels antithetical to the relaxing, and care free tone I felt.

That carefree tone is not felt in the very specific set of things that must be required to finish the game. I won’t say what and it’s incredible how spread out and varied each required task was. They were all enjoyable in their own right but requiring so many specific things and a few of them repeated in ways I didn’t like. Again I still loved it and am purposefully not spoiling anything cause some of it was my favorite stuff. It puts an emphasis on the journey not the destination but I still don’t like tollboothes. I guess the best spin I can put on it is that its about the friend you passed the aux cord to, not the destination.

A Couple Whines, if you’ d allow me

In line with that, it is undeniably good to have that ending destination but the toll booths might make it a bit less enjoyable. Things like the sleeping, levelling, and activity bar felt like hindrances to an otherwise perfect game. I don’t want to read into intent much but they were most likely added to give some sort of progression and make sure players were saving regularly. This was a playstation one game after all and that memory card needed to be used.

Sleeping saves the game, as well as automatically levelling you up. The disembodied floating head is great, recapping your day in a pleasant way. Feels like Mr. Rogers in a comfortable sensation of serenity. It’s also cute cause it doesn’t just go to the next morning, no no, friend here has to get his full 10 minutes of sleep, making the clock move 180 degrees. Day and night are only different because of the events that happen after all. Hypothetically you can then skip to a certain time if you know when it takes place but you’d also be missing out on the opportunity to do other things. It turns the act of sleeping that could grind this game to a halt into a bit of an interesting choice and a respite with a nice character.

Sleeping doesn’t just skip a helpful amount of time and save. It will also level you up if you have enough points. Leveling up increases your action limit telling you how much time you have to move before passing out. If you pass out then you get a game over and lose all your progress since last sleeping. I feel I don’t need to explain how strange it is to have a game over in a game as carefree as this.

This action limit is increased, adding to a long term progression that empowers the player. I feel empowering the player is also maybe a bit antithetical to the whole questioning of player empowerment in games. The though of friend just staying awake for several days is conceptually hilarious at least. This exponentially decreasing annoyance makes the beginning slow and frustrating and the end infrequently tedious. You either go out of your way to save progress often or you don’t save as much and risk losing progress. In a game so focused on relaxing vibes and little structure it just stands out.

And since we are in whine time I’d like to warn anyone about the SJW cringe in the game. I’m not gonna lie, this game has aged poorly. Almost every woman is either underdeveloped, robbed of agency, or in the most egregious cases harassed at work and abused at home. Both instances are just a passing “gag” that feel extraordinarily out of place 23 years later. It isn’t especially mean spirited but the casual racist depictions, and bad faith misinterpretations of social and environmental activism had me wince a few times. It is emblematic of its time but it aged like a carton of rotten milk.

Flora barely has a subplot which is bullshit ! She only says how she wants to fill Castle Town with flowers but the only subplots that involve her are one where this annoying feminist character berating you for watching her in her sleep and another where you give the white haired Shambles’ love letter to her despite him bullying her to tears at the start which is uh… yikes

Techno Gal is one of my favorite characters despite being horribly shallow and horribly treated. There’s a document you can find on the mayor’s desk that has 2 complaints, one by techno gal towards the re-men for sexual harassment and one by the re-men towards techno gal for slander. The mayor decides to laterally moves the re-men from one division to another of similar standing. Which is kind of interesting commentary on how systems protect abusers and ignore victims. You can then talk to these abusers to find out her backstory which similarly puts her as a victim unlike almost any other character which is uh… yikes.

There’s an optional dialogue between the fireworks maker and his wife where he hits her in anger over his work. He apologizes but not before she apologizes first and tells him that she will always stay by his side which is uh… yikes

There is a single black person who lives alone on an island with some monkeys and cannot for his life play the gyamlam with them. The player then has to show this tone deaf fool how to play on the beat which is uh… yikes!

There is the eco-club, a group of shrill annoying siblings dedicated to environmental and social justice. They berate the player for watching a young girl asleep in her bed, condone marking initials in trees, and are against pollution and overfishing. They even have a whole rant about how if you want to join their group you just have to find a cause to focus on and they’ll praise you for how cool that cause is all of which is seriously one step removed from nerds on forums complaining about SJWs and politics in video games which is uh yikes !!!

Final Thoughts

The developers of Moon went on to make plenty of other wonderful games. 2 more interesting games were made by Love-De-Lic before disbanding and forming several unrelated studios. Moon and Love-De-Lic’s legacy is felt throughout. Systemizing a real world, populating them with lively and interesting characters, and above all promoting an ideology of love and happiness. This came around full circle with the forming of Onion games, a new studio making new games as well as finally localizing Moon. If this game has at all peaked your interest I’d implore you to look into any of these games.

Moon’s legacy and design ethos can be felt in all these games its team worked on and is more far reaching. The impact is invaluable and It wasn’t the very first in almost any aspect but it was one of the first. The fact that it’s legacy can be traced through other modern studios shows a weird sense of retroactive recognition to legitimize it.

Moon is a wonderful game that pushed the medium forward in new and interesting ways. It inspired a lot of developers being at the forefront of interesting ideas. Unfortunately non-Japanese speaking audiences were unable to play such a wonderful game for almost a quarter of a century. The biggest lesson that I would impart on people is that corporations don’t care about preservation of important art.

Moon is a cautionary tale of what can happen, and how so many games are so easily lost. The scope of legacy games preservation is too large for anything I can cover. I can recommend the work of Frank Cifaldi, at The Video Game History Foundation, as well as his 2 GDC talks on the subject. It is important to celebrate whatever preservation efforts happen. The limited PS2 titles available on the PS4, Microsoft’s inspiring dedication to being able to play older xbox games on modern consoles, and whatever the fuck Nintendo is doing.

Part of why I am so enthusiastic is because the original developers and artists that worked on it then formed the new publisher, Onion Games. I ask of you then, to support them. Get their wonderful games as well as whatever other artists you love. Buy strange stuff on itch, subscribe to a monthly zine, get interesting cassette tapes on bandcamp. Just make sure artists get paid for their work and that it’s memory and impact is preserved for future generations globally.

Some other links on the topic!