M A S T E R P I E C E

Great atmosphere, fun retro visual style with overall solid combat. I love the music and the way it shows who composed what. The visual filters are fun too.

I've never played a King's Field game but I've seen one streamed (King's Field 2, the first one released in the west) and when I saw that series' name tossed around a lot in the context of this game, I was curious. I'm not generally a fan of the way FromSoft design their games, but I thought maybe a game that's *influenced* by that school of design, without actually mimicking it, might work for me.

Lunacid, then, is a first-person action-heavy RPG set inside an underground complex of sorts. It's relatively slow-paced and methodical, especially by 2020s standards, though it's actually still a lot brisker than the King's Fields.

The game has a very engrossing atmosphere of gloom - an almost dreamlike unsettling ominousness. It can be a bit of a slog at first, or was for me at least, but once you find your feet in how you want to approach it, it turns into an absorbing and satisfying game.

Without spoiling anything I will say there's a sharp difficulty spike late in the game, which gave me no small amount of trouble for a good while, but otherwise the progression of challenge seems pretty well worked out. For a large part of the game you have a certain amount of freedom - it's not an open world, but there are usually at least a couple of places you could go and check out, and often no indication as to which one is the 'right' way to go at the moment. Just enjoy the exploration and see what you find.

I suspect that Lunacid would probably aggravate some people with the pace and slight awkwardness of its gameplay, but I really enjoyed it. I think if its Majora's-Mask-having-a-goth-phase vibe works for you, it'll do a lot to buoy the rest of the game.

Interesting setting, cool atmosphere, generally solid gameplay. It's a good one.