Moo Lander Reviews

Moolander advertises itself having metroidvania elements, which while true is a bit misleading as the game is nearly 100% linear. It's also rather long for a linear game and i found myself a bit bored after a while. Reason being is that platforming gameplay functionally does not exist given the fact that you control a UFO. I'm not too big on twin stick shooters for this reason and moolander did not bring enough creative ideas to the table to make it interesting. You could argue that the quirky setting/humor make up for this but for me it was quite the opposite. I bought this game fully knowing the ridiculous setting but as i gazed upon the beautiful landscapes i wished they would have gone for a more serious setting. These lush environments would've been perfect for a fantasy platformer the likes of Ori, they have incredible depth and feel ripe for on foot exploration. But that's not what moolander is so i shouldn't review it wishing as such. Moolander did have a few fun mechanics for a twin stick shooter 'floating' MV. Especially the sword slash you can do around you was fun as it was less shooter and more hack & slash. The boss fights were appropriately themed vs cows but they all felt random instead of deliberate. They were kinda clunky and as a result not that fun to me personally. The music was decent but nothing too memorable while the sound effects felt milky? Didn't know i'd ever describe SFX that way but here we are i guess. Voice acting is over the top as one would expect from a setting such as this and story is equally crazy. In the end i'm gonna thumbs down this game for the misleading metroidvania elements, and because the 95% rating is too high for this one but it's worth playing if you like twin sticks.

Had a lot of fun with Moo Lander. This is a different kind of game than what I'm used to. I play a lot of Metroidvanias, and while this has elements of that genre, I wouldn't categorize it as one. It's more linear, with occasional offshoots, many of which are unfortunately missable. Go in one direction looking for a secret, and you could get locked into the next section of the main track before you know it, so just forge ahead and enjoy the experience. And that's totally fine! My FOMO faded quickly after this happened a couple times. You'll still get plenty of upgrade points, fun weapons, and encounter interesting and bizarre physics puzzles. The bosses were fun challenges. While there was a fair amount of similarity between some boss battles, a couple in particular have unique mechanics that made them really stand out. The final boss was an absolute blast. The sound design and visual style fit well and create a unique atmosphere consisting of several different biomes with unique mechanics, but you won't be backtracking through them like in a Metroidvania. The story was fine. A little silly, with mostly consistently-paced plot developments to move you along. Many actual Metroidvania games are pretty light on plot, so it was nice to have one in place in Moo Lander, and having it be a self-aware plot lent a sense of levity that makes the experience unique from your run-of-the-mill Metroidvania where the world has been corrupted or infected and everything is dark and depressing. Not so in Moo Lander. While it wasn't as cheerful as Yoku's Island Express or Islets, it's definitely not a dark, harrowing experience overall, and won't drain your emotional energy. This game was made by a small Bulgarian developer, and I'd like more people to play it to see the creativity on offer here. It's worth your money at the full price which is less than $20 USD, and does go on sale from time to time. Support small studios and play something completely unique! I look forward to The Sixth Hammer's next title.

The game is fun at first but due to extremely clunky controls and unpolished design, it is progressively more and more frustrating to the point where I just gave up halfway through. What is good about the game is the art style and the music. The story is kind of meh and the rest is just bad. The controls feel like it was designed by someone who never held a controller in their life. It is truly atrocious. It tries to be a twin-stick shooter but somehow fails miserably and the controls just feel extremely bad. I got the laser as fast as I could so I would not have to spam R2 for each and every shot because hold-to-shoot is apparently too cool for the devs. It legit made my fingers hurt. Once you get the dash ability, you immediately realize how bad the camera is. It constantly fails to follow at reasonable pace, making me constantly dash into thorns cos I can't see where I'm going. It truly shines in chase scenes where you just smash into things. The constant zoom-in in narrow places is also annoying as hell. Once you get the splitter thingy, you also realize another design flaw. When aiming it, it constantly snaps to the ship itself which renders it completely unusable. So you have to keep constantly repositioning it until you get a lucky angle that somehow works. Why? What's the point of this useless snap "feature"? Why do I have to fight the game in order to play it? Can it be disabled? Of course not... Changing camouflage of the ship to get different bonuses is nice until the game forces you to constantly switch in order to progress. It becomes just another annoyance at that point. The cow fights are just as frustrating and extremely boring. It basically consists of just spamming L2 and moving left to right until your fingers fall off. But where the game really took a dump on me was when you encounter the jumping hogs or whatever. The game locks your controls and zooms into a "cutscene" where you see the hogs spawn and start zooming around with lightning speed while the camera sloooooowly oh so slowly, taking it sweet sweet time, zooms back to your ship while all your controls are still locked. Once you finally regain control of your ship, you have about 0.000001 seconds before you're obliterated. So no, I would definitely not recommend this game to anyone. When you need to fight the game in order to play it, that's when you know to stay away.