As a fan of both roguelikes and immersive sim games, 2018’s Moonlighter seemed like it was made just for me. An action roguelike game about delving into dungeons for loot that you can then bring back to your village to sell for a profit? And you can use those profits to upgrade your store and buy other aesthetically pleasing things? This game was clearly grown in a lab for me. Now, Digital Sun has returned with Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault. For the most part, it brings back everything I loved from the first game, but with some pretty major changes.
Right off the bat, you’ll notice that Moonlighter 2‘s graphical style is a rather big departure from its predecessor. Whereas the first game adopted a 2D pixel art look, Moonlighter 2 has now brought the series into a 3D space. You’ll still be observing the action from the top-down perspective, but protagonist Will now moves around in a more 3D-looking environment, and Digital Sun has opted to sand off the jagged edges of its original pixels for a smoother, rounder look. I’ll be real. I’m not a fan of the new look, though it’s certainly starting to grow on me after several hours of play.
It’s good, then, that nearly everything else about Moonlighter 2 is just as enjoyable and compelling as I remember it to be. The game once again puts you in the shoes of Will, a young shopkeeper who’s been transported to another realm. The setting may be different, but your task remains the same: explore dungeons, get loot, turn them for a profit, rinse and repeat.
Moonlighter 2 is set in the village of Tresna. After getting transported here, Will finds himself indebted to a rather fierce landlady who forces him to run her shop and make some cash in return for letting him stay there. The village also happens to be home to a dimensional gate, which transports Will to various dangerous realms where you can battle enemies, open treasure chests, and obtain relics which can then be sold back at the village.
From there, you’ll quickly fall into Moonlighter 2‘s compelling gameplay loop. As far as action games go, Moonlighter 2 is more than serviceable. Genre veterans will be familiar with what’s on offer here: you’ve got a dodge, a light attack, a heavy attack, and a ranged attack. Will gets a variety of weapon types to choose at the start, but I decided to start off simple with a basic sword. His light and heavy attacks can be chained together to form a combo, and hitting enemies also reloads bullets for your ranged attacks, which are very useful for taking out enemies with aerial moves.
For the most part, Moonlighter 2‘s combat is enjoyable, though Will’s movements could feel a little clunky at times, especially when you’re trying to roll out of harm’s way. Most enemy moves are properly telegraphed, though I did always feel like I had to roll out just a split-second earlier than expected in order to avoid damage completely. It threw me off for the first couple hours or so, but it does eventually become something you’ll get used to.
That being said, I appreciated that Digital Sun has endeavored to make combat feel more in-depth this time around. This is where the leap to 3D graphics has really worked in its favor, especially when you’re dealing with flying enemies. Aerial moves help to make combat feel more dynamic and frenetic, and the inclusion of a heavy backpack item allows you to straight up throw stunned enemies off the map, Smash Bros style.
In-between levels, you’ll get upgrades that augment Will’s moves, such as Foam, which causes enemies to explode and take damage after a few seconds. After clearing a level, you’ll get a quick look at the procedurally dungeon map and you can pick your next room if there are branching paths, leading you to new boons, treasures, or bosses. You’ll fight bosses and open plenty of treasure chests that contain relics, which are your bread and butter. Just like in the first game, relics come with all sorts of properties and it’s important for you to pay attention to how you place them in your backpack.
Some relics can burn adjacent ones in your backpack, destroying them completely, but this usually comes with a perk like enhancing the quality of other relics in the same column or row. Other relics can apply an armor effect to another relic next to it, which would then negate the burn effect, so there are plenty of ways to work around the negative effects. The simple act of arranging your relics in your backpack is a puzzle in and of itself, and oftentimes I found myself looking forward more to doing my relic management than engaging in the actual combat.
And once you get back to Tresna, well that’s when the fun really starts. You get your own little store with cute little stands where you can put all your loot on display. Once you open your shop, customers start milling in and, depending on how you’ve priced your items, they may even buy what you’ve got on sale.
Just like its predecessor, you can price things however you want in Moonlighter 2, but keep in mind that the shopkeeping aspect of this game is all about reading your customers and finding the maximum amount they’re willing to pay for what you’ve got. For instance, a customer might refuse to pay 100 coins for a relic, but would be more than happy to shell out 60 coins. However, it’s possible to squeeze just a little bit more out of them; if you choose to price the item at 70, for example, the customer might grumble a little but ultimately still pay up. The key, then, isn’t to keep your customers happy, but to bleed them as much as possible.
Whenever a customer inspects an item, an icon shows up above their head, indicating whether you’ve priced something too cheap, just right, a little bit too expensive, or way too expensive. There’s still some guessing involved, but the icons help tremendously in narrowing down the right price range for each item. It never gets monotonous, and being able to change prices on the fly certainly helps to cut out a lot of tedium and repetition from the first game.
When you first start out, you can expect to get fleeced by your customers especially when it comes to the high value items. A valuable relic that you might’ve gotten with very little effort could be worth almost 1,000 coins, but you wouldn’t know that without trying to price it a few times and letting your customers take advantage of you for a while. Still, the thrill comes from pricing an item just right and knowing that you got the maximum number of coins from that one transaction.
As you play and rack up more coins, you’ll be able to purchase even fancier stands and furniture for your store. Most of these are just for aesthetic purposes, but there are also items that can help boost the attractiveness of your items, making it easier to rake in even more money. While this is still just the early access build, I could totally see myself spending hours saving up for the best furniture to make my store look as cozy as possible.
Then, there are all the other usual upgrades you can expect from your typical roguelike game. There are weapons to craft and upgrade, potions to craft and upgrade, along with backpack expansions that you can purchase with coins. Moonlighter 2 will likely slap you around at first, but just keep at it and keep saving for upgrades, and the game will get easier as you go.
So far, Moonlighter 2 hasn’t really deviated too much from the formula of the first game, but it doesn’t really need to. The original Moonlighter had so much going for it, though it often stumbled with some repetition and tedium which The Endless Vault has completely cut out. Aside from just iterating on the original formula and streamlining it, Moonlighter 2 also offers up a lot more depth and customization in both the combat and shopkeeping aspects. While I’ll always miss the 2D pixel look of the original game, I’m already finding it hard to go back to it after enjoying the quality-of-life improvements that Moonlighter 2 offers me. This is certainly one I’ll be keeping an eye on from now till its full launch.
A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. You can check out our review policy here.
