Johnny Boy: Red Moon's Kiss - Episode 1 Reviews

No chance I can defeat that man.

Game feels very good with an intriguing story! Great job developer I cant wait to see more! https://youtu.be/05DTQ434znk

It saddens me to say I cannot recommend Johnny Boy Red Moon's Kiss (JBRMK). JBRMK totes the line almost perfectly for my patience. The game wasn't too enjoyable at the end but things were moving along at a pace that kept me playing. JBRMK leaves more to be desired and with the planned DLC 1, 2, & 3; their powers combined, coupled with more polished mechanics will create an even stronger JBRMK. With the slated DLCs in the works the story is incomplete and confusing at this point. The player is left on a cliffhanger at the end of episode 1, which was kind of expected. The recurring bit where almost all dialogue trees lead to hand to hand combat was humourous and I enjoyed that very much. A little upgrade to the combat system would be appreciated if it's going to continue to be a recurring feature. Could be a dodge, dash, counterpunch, etc. just something to spice it up. The VO work is exactly what I was looking for with JBRMK, definitely came in second behind the post dialogue combat. For the future episodes I'd like to see player choice have more of a role. It appeared like there was a system in place to judge my choices ("That annoyed Jimmy", "Sarah didn't appreciate that"), but all paths seemed to lead to the same conclusion. I look forward to the future of JBRMK and commend Solocub Entertainment for creating their first Steam release.

You telling me 1 guy wrote, animated, edited, and collected all the voice actors/art content himself? And this was his first game? Impressive. I enjoyed the story and will play the future episodes. It was a fresh breath of air being able to watch a movie and play it at the same time since I enjoyed those Telltale Games so much. Keep them updates coming, makes me want to create something too.

Simple gameplay mechanics. Although, the story is quite interesting. Few games portray werewolves correctly, if any, imho. This one is paced, and feels like it's moving in the right direction. It's still too early to tell, since this is only Episode 1. Is he a werewolf? His constant nightmares tells the story. The characters, especially halfway through, seem very unique and believable, and are well voice acted. The story so far seems more complex than a man looking at the moon, before running around eating people. I like it. Looking forward to future episodes.

[h1] An intriguing first offering from a new indie developer [/h1] This review is based on the first two hours of the game. At this point, I think I can tell what I like and what I dislike and I feel like I can recommend the game with a few caveats. I'm not going to go into the plot and story; in two hours most of the story is still a mystery, and considering that this is only Episode One it seems likely that this entire episode will act as a foundation for the rest and that few of the mysteries will be revealed. Which is fine, the story that is here is fine, it is competently written and reasonably well voice acted. Right off the bat it was refreshing to see a proper options menu with actual graphics options, appropriate sound settings, and out of the box controller support. These things are not a given at this price point. Unfortunately, the game lacks an invert y axis option, though hopefully this will be added later. The title's strong point is its cinematic direction. The developer has an excellent grasp of camera direction, scene establishment and scene transition, a better grasp, I would say, than many of the cutscene directors in AAA gaming. Considering the tools he is working with and the game's budget, it is actually quite astounding and represents what I am sure is a monumental effort on his part. Well directed scenes with competent 3d model actors don't just happen and I can't imagine how long it took to get these things just right. The graphics are an interesting high resolution lo-fi mashup, kind of like playing an emulated PS2 game at 1080 resolution. It's a little ugly, a little garish, but it works with this subject matter and the otherworldly ambiance. The main character's face is surprisingly emotive and I was surprised to see that the characters are actually lip synched to the dialog. The usage of lighting is particularly well done. Following these high points is the voice acting, which ranges from pretty good to not terrible. The main character's voice actor is fortunately the best of them (at least that I've heard), and seems to be doing a running James McCaffrey/Max Payne impression, a feeling that is further supported by the character's monologues. It seems to be a deliberate homage though it does border on parody here and there, but whatever. The music is, well, music is always subjective. While I don't necessarily care for any of the in-game music, none of it is objectively terrible. And by music, I mean actual musical tracks by actual musical artists, not just background music. The composition reminds me a bit of David Lynch's middle years, circa Wild At Heart. Hearing a distorted version of the music during action scenes can get a bit annoying, but that's the worst thing I can say about the music. It's those action scenes, however, that make this recommendation a little difficult. For much of the game you are walking around in the third or first person, clicking on points of interest that are conveniently highlighted, having conversations, making decisions a la Telltale adventure games. This is all fine. There is no inventory management but whatever, it works as a walking sim with dialog options with (presumably) consequences. However, the game periodically throws combat at you. Actually, it throws combat at you pretty regularly, and the combat is... not what I came for and not the best. Combat is in the third person and consists of a light attack, a heavy attack and a block. You have health and stamina that go down like you'd expect. The problem is that the combat is actually a bit involved and tricky in what is advertised as a 'casual' game. The first combat encounter is pretty simple, but the second one is significantly more difficult, and then the third encounter throws three combatants at you at once, and then the fourth involves a large enemy with a wide hit radius in a tight alleyway. To the designer's credit, this last enemy changes up its attacks as it loses health, and if I wanted to play a third person brawler I guess I would appreciate that, but I came for the story and adventurey gaming stuff and expected the advertised 'casual' gameplay to be actually casual. Instead, the fourth enemy kicked my ass like six times in a row. This particular encounter was made more frustrating by the tight quarters as well as some of the enemy's attacks having a stagger effect and suddenly I was having flashbacks to the first boss of Dark Souls 3 that I ragequit on. There's also a lock-on feature that makes the fighting a little bit easier but it forces an awkward low camera angle which is exactly the opposite of what I want from a lock-on, similar to that from the recent Baldur's Gate remake disaster. Ultimately, I just didn't have fun with the combat, your options are simply too limited, the engine is too limited, and the enemies take too many hits. I am optimistic that the developer adds an option to turn off the combat and just enjoy the story, because I'm honestly interested, mostly from the truly excellent production values (made so much more impressive by the game's humble origins) but also from some of story's implications. At one point the main character opens a door and sees something extremely disturbing, and there are some creepy sound effects, and the camera zooms on your facial expression and you don't get to actually see what's behind that door and dammit, I'm actually curious. And that's good. More than I can say for any moment in some AAA games like Anthem or Far Cry 5 or the last Amnesia game or any of the Dark Pictures Anthology titles. The other major criticism I have is a prevalence of invisible walls. I hate invisible walls. I know that it can be awkward to guide a player to the areas they need to go, and invisible walls are definitely preferable to endless empty corridors and city streets, but they are infuriating in their own way. Some level design tweaks could probably resolve this, though. In the end, this is a five dollar game that is extremely ambitious and provides most of what it promises but the combat doesn't feel casual enough to allow truly casual players to progress nor hardcore enough to attract the souls-like crowd (who, presumably, are not the target audience). The game succeeds as a cinematic adventure game at a budget price, and I applaud the developer for all their hard work and I genuinely hope this game gets an audience because it's something special. Imperfect, but special. I mean, it's the price of a gas station cheeseburger. So I recommend it. Oh yeah, there is also full frontal nudity. So if you were curious, yep, penis. tl;dr THE GOOD Surprisingly excellent cutscene direction, decent voice acting, interesting musical choices, a definite deliberate vision THE NOT SO GOOD Frustrating combat (for an adventure game), invisible walls, no damn invert y-axis option My Let's Play video of the first 20 minutes or so https://youtu.be/_BqlWZkVZhs