The Moonstone Equation Reviews

I am very glad that I picked up this game and played through most of it. However, It has some major game design flaws and oversights that results in very unfortunate outcomes. [h1]The Good[/h1] [h3]Exploration[/h3] The game has nice pixel art landscapes and vistas. Environmental storytelling is great. Locations are interesting and puzzles and points of interest are adequately hidden. The ancient language present on walls is a great curiosity driver. [h3]Music[/h3] Great tunes that create great atmosphere, and each location has its own fitting vibe. [h3]Puzzles[/h3] Enjoyable mechanics that are satisfying to complete [b]for the first time[/b]. [h3]Ancient Language[/h3] There is an ancient language throughout the game that is very well thought out. [h1]The Bad[/h1] [h3]Backtracking and Repetition[/h3] The game requires you to walk a lot through already explored locations. In addition, you will have to solve the same puzzle multiple times (more that 2), as a result of oversight in progression system. Progression - [spoiler]You have to collect 12 trigger stones, combine 12 data cubes and place them both in 12 locations accordingly. [/spoiler] The problem is that almost each location has a puzzle that needs to be repeated each time you access it when bringing in other stuff. Nobody wants to solve the same puzzle twice or more. [h3]The translation system[/h3] While the language itself its very nice and well thought out, the implementation and lack of auto-translator has a big negative impact on game-play. Your translator can show only three words at a time from a list of hundreds. Look at how big and unused the screen is! I don't want to rewrite hours of translations into my notebook just because the display in-game is so small. If the translator would pick up words that it has and show the translations automatically, the small screen would not be an issue. The second issue is the endgame itself. As I understand it, you are at least [spoiler]partially required to understand the language[/spoiler] to complete the game, and from this stems the biggest game design flaw of the game: No [spoiler]language translation[/spoiler] knowledge checks along the way. If you would build your understanding gradually, and would be required to solve few artifacts or challenges this way, then the ending would not be this insurmountable wall that leads to quitting the game or very time consuming backtracking combined with [spoiler]tons of hand translations[/spoiler]. [h1]Final thoughts[/h1] Overall I have enjoyed my playthrough. I liked where the game lead me but was very disappointed on how it did so, a I arrived very lacking in knowledge at the end.