Recent reviews by DocTurtle

when i say i got that dog in me this is what i mean

I don't even know where to begin with how fantastic this game is. There's all sorts of nods and inspiration from popular video games that LunarLux brings a unique take on. The gameplay is very simple and fun and rewarding to master, and it's full of so much love in many aspects.

This game does a great job in it's pacing with how certain mechanics and new attacks or Active Skills are made accessible to you so that you never feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again which i highly admire from an RPG. It is very satisfying to learn how to use new Active Skills as most of them involve a quick mini game to get their most damage output and they're fun to learn. The addition of Support Skills and your ability to upgrade them allows for some extra diversity and strategy to your attacks so you can land absurdly powerful attacks or take a turn to set up your shields or special meters or what have you. The ability to dodge enemy attacks during their turn is very well executed feeling like another mini game with excellent response times and enemy patterns, as well as there being different types of these mini games for certain attacks, really keeping you on your toes to learn enemy behaviors to minimize the damage you take and get better loot.

The story of this game was the most pleasantly surprising thing to me. It starts out with a simple enough premise but there is a natural flow of events that allows the plot to get it's characters where they need to be physically and emotionally. I have had my expectations subverted several times throughout this adventure and there are some smaller details that were sprinkled throughout that allowed me to piece certain things together before a proper reveal. LunarLux also expresses tons of comedy through it's flavor text and object/NPC interaction, every new area I went to I immediately sought to interact with my surroundings before progressing with the main quest because I loved discovering new items and seeing what jokes or silly shenanigans I would encounter. I have never played a game that's made me want to interact with every square inch the same way LunarLux has. Character development is pretty much limited to only the front and center main characters, but that's honestly fine because that's the story this game is trying to tell. Not every single character has to undergo some dramatic change but I very much like what was done with the side cast.

The music is an absolute delight to listen to, the tone of several tracks make me feel nostalgic for the game which is insane considering how recently it came out even having played the Demo! (I'm listening to Regolithia's theme as I write this review actually!) The sprite work is nothing short of astounding and the character portraits are gorgeous and include several emotions ranging from funny faces to serious tones, it's a very nice addition for characters to be able to express themselves like that.

I can't really think of anything negative to say about LunarLux outside of a few minor inconveniences such as the CRITICAL HIT! message staying in the center of the screen for the full duration of an attack, which obscures vision of button inputs for certain Active Skills. I am blown away by this labor of love and highly recommend it to fans of RPGs who also love the kind of collection encouraged gameplay of Mega Man Battle Network and Star Force. I've been following this project for years and am overjoyed at the product we received, I am proud to have helped back this game! HUUUUUGE love to Nobab and the team for putting this phenomenal game together, genuinely one of the best Indie games I have ever played and I am looking forward to updates and future projects with great enthusiasm!

Very fun RPG with an engaging combat system that keeps me focused on battles and allows me a chance to protect myself during enemy turns similar to the Mario RPGs. I really wish there were more battles in the demo so I could play around with the mechanics some more but what few battles there are are very enjoyable. Lots of charm in NPC and object interactions and I was gushing a lot with the Mega Man references in particular! Loving the demo, gonna keep replaying it some more! I hope to see replayable battles in some form to get more experience in game and mentally but I can understand that not making much sense given our protagonist's views on fighting. I am looking forward to the complete game and encourage others to try this demo out!