Prelude
Experience: There comes a time when a game wants to recreate the original concept of Harvest Moon. There is a level of expectation of being able to develop relationships with other people, fishing, farming crops, mining ore in dungeons, and decorating your house. Stardew Valley is perhaps the pinnacle of this genre by expanding on the original game every year with new concepts and places to explore without charging extra for its new content. There is no way that Moonstone Island could recreate the full experience but it certainly tries to add something new to the formula. They have added a card system attached to spirits you battle and capture out in the world. This certainly causes something peculiar enough worth trying out.
Development: Unfortunately, the whole project just doesn't have a lot going right now
in its initial release. The game is so fresh and obscure that it is
hard to find any information on
when it began development, started in early access, or what content is currently available. A lot of problems I encountered in my experience were adjusted
in its first major patch after release. You can now repopulate resources, close mines, tame any spirit instead of one that is at least level 5 or higher, have a bigger greenhouse, adjust how long a day lasts, stacks can be transferred over with a single button press, and there is an option to buy a skill reset potion. I wouldn't go purchasing the added
delightful or
spooky packs. Though, I will admit that the
little plushie they sponsored was kind of cute.
Spirit Maintenance
Capture Spirits: My initial impressions of the game were pretty terrible. I thought it would be as easy to capture and maintain your collection of monsters as the original Pokemon games on the Game Boy. Unfortunately, it was much more difficult. I was bombarded by a number of hard lessons that cost me dearly through my experience. The first one had to be how your medallion can only hold up to three spirits at a time. This means that any you try to catch beyond that will automatically be let go. The second problem, to which the developer has patched, is that you need to capture a level 5 spirit to advance the questline. Since you couldn't level one up that high, this meant you had to let one of your spirits go before you could tame another one. This prevented me from obtaining a red holo fluffy fox. While there's still a chance of not successfully capturing a spirit (using food with tame on it) during battle, the third problem is that you are limited to what level spirits you can capture. You must earn the right to capture higher levels by increasing your traits. This prevented me from obtaining a purple electric creature, the only other holo spirit I encountered in the whole game.
Feed Spirits: Once you complete some objectives, my fourth problem with spirits was how you needed a spirit farm
with feeders in place before you could properly capture more. In conjunction with that, the fifth issue is that you need to place food (any type) into the feeders each day or
the spirits will run away. There is a trait you can earn to delay this by one day but you will need to use moonstones to craft an automatic feeder for
each spirit. Thankfully,
one of the first patches had moonstones sometime respawn between seasons. Once you complete all four temples and defeat the special boss (he's honestly really easy), you will be able to craft your own Moonstone dispensers. Though, the benefit of feeding your pets is to collect the various
elemental resources. Many of these will be required to create things like potions and decorations. The rainbow ones that are dropped by the psychic spirits can sell as much as an iron bar.
Spirit Types
Spirit Behavior: In the beginning, I was kind of disappointed
to see that there were just over 60 spirits in the game. The developer
does slowly add a few more between patches. Some of these are clearly
homages to classic pokemon. While this doesn't compare to the original
150 or additional 100 pocket monsters in the second Pokemon game, there is
quite a bit of personality built into each one of them. They all have
carefully handled animations when they move about or sit idly by. There
are holo-versions of each one. They can follow behind you or the
characters in the village. Bigger versions signify bosses that are
somewhat stronger than the others. Each boss inside the temples is unique and usually
offers one new spirit to spawn outside once defeated. Make sure to open each temple with the crops that grow right outside according to their season. While the islands do not show their level on the map,
you can eventually obtain upgrades to see the threat level and markers
to show what level the spirits are when in range. The further out they are from
Moonstone Island, the bigger the level. A cool trick I didn't know until
much later after reading one of the hints that scrolled at the bottom
of the screen is that you can lure or distract spirits by dropping food on the ground.
Spirits in general are very easy to avoid and outrun, especially with a trait that causes any lower levels to run away, a boomerang to stun them, and a spirit that decreases detection.
Spirit Elements: There are six types covered by each of the islands: earth, water, electric,
fire, poison, and dark. Since psychics only appear on one island each day, it might be good to use the potion
that locates which one specifically. There are only three ice
spirits and they appear over frozen water during the winter. Each spirit type has a primary and secondary weakness
that can
break armor and deal additional damage. While the primary is always
consistent on the type of the spirit, the second one is randomly
assigned. This can cause some wild changes in your build as you trek
across the islands. A circle with a broken armor icon will appear over
an enemy spirit when a card with their weakness is highlighted. Pretty
much every spirit will have the same type of cards that will deal consecutive damage, allows you to draw additional cards, or break armor in
addition to your standard attacks. However, each type will also have
personality cards like earth reduces energy cost of tackle to 0, psychic
increases energy, water regenerates health, poison can prevent the use
of skill cards from the enemy, and electric can melt armor down to 1.
Spirit Perks: Each spirit is catered with their own
individual perk.
Some of these are hardly noticeable like how Hopstraw increases 10%
chance to flee. Some are very subtle like how Pappus can reduce the wind
resistance while flying. Some can be quite beneficial like how feeding
Coolslime doesn't cost you energy. Then there are ones that you could
build an entire deck around like how Ribbite causes any poison on a
fallen enemy to transfer to another. Make sure to be aware of some of
the language as some bonuses only happen if the spirit is physically
following behind you. This can be turned on and off while you are
visiting them inside the medallion.
Gameplay
Tier System: For almost every aspect of the game, there are two or three levels of advancement. Mining copper and iron is rather easy since they both are self-contained in random mines that spawn after you hammer away some big rocks. There are about three that can be found on the main island with at least one mine on every other island. They help craft and upgrade almost everything from hammers to charms that ward away the elements. Moonstones, on the other hand, are much rarer as only one of them can be found on each island. You will need them to craft structures and advance your flying. Finding them can be rather difficult since they tend to hide within the grass. You can use your scythe to cut the grass in search for them but it is much easier to find them when they glow after sundown. One spirit will increase this glow and you'll eventually obtain a device that alerts you when one is nearby. You'll have to cut down any bright electric trees if you want to make those islands darker. There are traits that provide you a low chance of obtaining a moonstone while you fish or collect chests, but they are generally not worth the trouble unless you have spare points to spend.
Building Cards: Each spirit will come with their own set of cards. As they increase in level, you will choose which of four stats
to increase: armor, speed
(who attacks first and increases bash damage), vitality, and power
(increases damage on cards). Then you will be offered the chance of
picking one of three cards (you can skip the process). There are three talismans
that can compliment this process: cleanse removes a card, meditate
upgrades a card (with a plus sign), and study forces you to pick one of
three cards. One of these can be obtained through any of the gateways found throughout the game. You can gain another talisman from each gateway every season.
In addition, the Magic Man will offer 8 cards and one random talisman
that can be bought from his humble abode. He can occasionally scare you
as he tramples across an island to your location or eventually make camp
on Moonstone Island after you complete certain restrictions. Any cards earned are locked to the spirit they are assigned.
Penalties: For all of its anxieties, "losing" is not one of them.
The game is very generous by having you simply "pass out" whenever you
do not rest before 2am or get defeated during battle. This simply means
that you will
oversleep and wake up at 9am instead of 6am the
next morning. You can increase the very low chance of fleeing battle
through traits or the use of the named card up to 100%. Your
health
is pooled with your stamina bar and there is no limit on the number of
times you can eat food to restore it for you or your spirits. Almost
everything - hazards, spitting plants, falling down gaps between
islands, touching spikes - reduce at the most 20 energy. Each dungeon
you complete (there are 30 of them) will increase your maximum by 10
points (
or more through the trait). While the spa on the main island
might increase your energy very slowly, other pools of water found on
the islands have a "battery power" of 150 energy.
Mechanics
Dungeons: Dungeons are little passages with falling platforms,
spitting plants, roaming spirits, spirit bosses, chests, and a guardian.
Each dungeon will reflect the type and level of spirits on the island.
You must have the balloon equipped to use it to cross gaps. There can
occasionally be teleportation pads that take you to other parts of the
dungeon. Small markers on the floor will indicate hidden secrets in
walls or sequences that open doors. There is nothing that makes one
guardian distinct from another; they all gain armor and can be mitigated
through the use of personal traits. Defeating the guardian will clear
the dungeon of all spirits if you wish to enter it again in search of
missing chests. Each dungeon will reward you a missing shard that can be
turned into the Magic Man.
Plants: Within my personal experience, collecting plants that repopulate across all the islands each season appeared to be much easier than trying to grow my own. Unfortunately, I soon realized that it would have been beneficial to grab that 50% chance of gaining a seed upon picking up each plant. Traits in this category are only earned if you harvest seeds, not by collecting plants or cutting grass. Selling seeds will, in turn, allow you to buy that type of seed from the store. Watching the plants grow in size can be quite amusing and crafting sprinklers is as easy as collecting one copper bar and one iron bar. Each crop will provide you a list of positive perks and/or negative perks (that can be "fed" to any spirits). In addition to the four standard stats: stamina is strictly for your benefit, healing can be used to increase the spirit's health, and tame is designed to capture spirits. There are different types of crops: some that can only be planted in water, some that will continue to grow again after harvested, and some that will drop more than one item at a time. Some plants can even be used to craft decorations. You can earn a staff that will expend stamina to speed-up the process or use different types of fertilizers that are only available by unlocking each one first through the trait system and then crafting them. You can only plant crops during their season unless placed in a greenhouse and they will all die once the season changes. Winter prevents you from fishing (other than lava) and planting anything outside.
Relationships:
There are a set number of characters that reside on Moonstone Island.
You have chances everyday to chat, joke, flirt, or gift them an item to
change your relationship, but there isn't a display of their likes and dislikes. When the time comes to provide them their own spirit, you will
be
rewarded for your efforts. Beyond that, the system feels more like a detriment to the core loop. You can
go on a date
with any one of them and setup where you want to meet, but you will
always need to meet them at 20:00 on the island and immediately call it
an evening after the meeting. You will be presented with a small amount of
dialogue with
a single question that can lessen, gain, or
greatly advance your relationship depending on your answer. Once your
relationship extends past a certain point, you will be able to visit
their room. You can choose to pair-up with someone (and sleep in their
bed) or break it off once you obtain the bracelet recipes through the
trait system. That's about it. Honestly, it was much more rewarding to
have another four hours adventuring on the other islands when you could
craft, carry, and plant duplicates of your buildings from your
inventory.
Cosmetics: Almost every chest found, whether it be in dungeons or
mines, will always supply you with a random decoration recipe. If you
find yourself flooded with currency, you can buy a random recipe or
actual decorations from the merchants. There are also a few cosmetic overlays for
your house that can be crafted. One major decision of the game is not to have resources respawn.
While you cannot modify anything directly within the village,
everything else from rocks, grass, and trees do not grow back anywhere
in the world. The developer has chosen to offer the chance to plant
these sources with the most recent patch. Recipes for specific trees can
be earned and crafted with 5 wood. You can change the color of the
chests while placing them down, but you cannot modify or move the chests while things are inside. Furthermore, you cannot name spirits, decorations, or chests. Beacons only trigger an icon on the map and sigil chalk is cut content.
There is no way to change or customize your features through new
clothes or colors. While you cannot change the color of the floors or
walls of your house, you can customize your own pixelated wallpaper and
floor items. While there are a wide-range of decorations to discover, it
can be very difficult to move things around when some items won't stay
on top of a table and rugs have to be manually placed first before anything else. There is a time dilation
potion that freezes the clock while you are inside the house, but it
does require a dark essence (unless you obtain one randomly).
Summary
Review: Moonstone Island has a strong foundation covering all the things you expect from this genre. However, there is a disparity in how much development time was spent for each of the systems. Outside a few necessary objectives, there is very little reward in entertaining any of them considering how the goal of almost everything is to provide you more currency. One can grow their own crops or simply harvest all the ones that spawn each season across the islands. The only thing you can do with the fish you collect is to eat them for stamina or sell them for profit. Establishing relationships with the village is more for role-play purposes as very little is expressed outside casual conversations. Watching the fireworks at the end of the year is the only event and there is a total of 14 characters in the whole game. While your options might be limited, you can still modify a few things like the difficulty and spawn rate of spirits. The music might be lovely but the minute songs play only maybe three times a day. What's very nice is the long list of tools at your disposal like a whistle that can be used to return to the island once a day or some flippers you can use to swim up waterfalls. You can carry and enter in duplicates of your home, barn, and greenhouse wherever you want. With so many ways to get the upper hand, it is possible for a team of level 25s to defeat a level 50. I'd suggest giving this game a little more time to polish things out and work on the story before giving it a try.