RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Do me a favor and don't let Lunarium get lost in the sea of game releases on Steam. Tons of action RPGs show up in my inbox and it's sometimes hard to differentiate which one is which. Lunarium stood out mostly because of its art style, which sort of looks like it would fit on the cover of a Nier or Final Fantasy game.
And then I played it and discovered one of the best action RPGs of the year.
The last thing I want is for a game with such an evocative, hand-drawn style to get swallowed up by the tidal wave of Steam games that try to fake it with generative AI . Lunarium's crumbling ruins and overgrown forests are like a Nier: Automata level squished down into an isometric 2D perspective. It's a sad game with a world painted in muted colors, as if the dark monsters you encounter are draining the life out of it.
Lunarium sort of plays like a soulslike, but it's much closer to Sekiro than Dark Souls in terms of pacing. Dying will respawn all the enemies, but you can dispatch them (or skip them entirely) to get back to where you were in no time. Main character Ave starts off a little sluggish—the first boss fight took me a few tries as I adjusted to the range of her dashes—but she quickly becomes way more agile than a typical soulslike hero as you collect upgrades.
(Image credit: Tyler C. / Lunarium Game Studio)
At first I thought Lune would be my FromSoft-style level-up girl, but she's actually a ruthless combatant in some of the game's most intense encounters.
Ave is actually just one of two characters you play. After a brief intro sequence, she meets Lune, a mysterious floating archer who can help Ave in battle. At first I thought Lune would be my FromSoft-style level-up girl, but she's actually a ruthless combatant in some of the game's most intense encounters.
As Ave, you focus on handling enemy attacks with dodges or parries to set them up for Lune. The parry system works just like Sekiro where timing it perfectly builds up a stagger meter on enemies. Raise it high enough and you can command Lune to break their posture with an arrow so Ave can carve them up.
Even though you only directly control Ave, you still have to think about them both tactically. I picked up a skill early on that let Lune buff Ave's final swing in a combo and I found that the tiny delay it added to her swings forced me to decide if it was worth using it or not. Certain monsters are too fast to spare the second you need to line up a parry, but boy was it satisfying to deflect three swipes as Ave and shatter the enemy's defenses with Lune's arrow just before her final swing connected.
(Image credit: Tyler C. / Lunarium Game Studio)
I knew I was going to like Lunarium the moment the skill tree showed me a way to chain Ave's dashes together like I've been doing as Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign for 500 hours. Don't let the first hour or so fool you: You won't be swinging at monsters over and over for the entire length of the journey. There are a bunch of different ways to approach fights as you craft cloaks and embroidery for Ave that modify her abilities. The Steam page teases one that increases her damage the more attacks she does in a row and one that makes enemies weak to backstabs, so I imagine there are plenty of different combinations to try out.
None of this would matter much to me if I didn't find the two girls so charming. Some of the English localization doesn't always land, but there's enough fun banter between Ave and Lune that you want to see where the story's headed. Ave is a pretty headstrong character, but is willing to hear Lune out when she warns her that the black tendrils infecting the world aren't something you can just pick like weeds. I stopped just short of meeting another character who shares the same magical powers as Lune but has seemingly failed her duty to prevent whatever's happening, and I suspect that meeting won't go very well.
Tyler C. / Lunarium Game Studio
Tyler C. / Lunarium Game Studio
Tyler C. / Lunarium Game Studio
Tyler C. / Lunarium Game Studio
It would be a crime to see this game get overlooked in such a saturated genre on Steam.
My preview build was missing a good amount of the text entries that explain the history of the ruined kingdoms and temples you pass through. But even without that context, I could tell that the developers thought about the history of this place and weren't just throwing around broken statues to meet the soulslike quota. There's an attention to detail in the environments and the way they're connected to each other that makes each section stick in your mind. Even the shortcuts that help you save time when you're backtracking are hidden in such a way that makes you feel smart for finding them.
I wouldn't say I went into Lunarium with low expectations, but I certainly wasn't expecting to find something so well made. It would be a crime to see this game get overlooked in such a saturated genre on Steam. July already gifted us the brilliant new Hell Clock expansion for build-obsessed action RPG players. Now we have Lunarium for the ARPG players who want to explore a moody world on the brink of collapse. Lucky for me that I get to enjoy both. Lunarium is coming to Steam on July 28.
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