I randomly stumbled across this game on YouTube and decided I had to try it. I bought it all the way back in 2019, so just now getting round to playing it! It is short and sweet, so let me break it down in some short bullet points:

• The story is barebones, and a little generic (the peaceful land is dying, you are the saviour), but that is enough motivation to get you to do something
  
• The atmosphere, visuals, and music are amazing! I wish the music was developed a bit more instead of being short loops.
  
• The game's mechanics are very simple and unfortunately once mastered offer very little replayability and challenge (that is why the hardest difficulty lazily just makes everything kill you in one hit).

If you want an introduction to a 2D Metroidvania with combat mechanics then this is a good place to start, and that is why I am recommending it despite my criticisms. I certainly cannot say I did not have fun, so that's another factor.


If that's not good enough for you to try this, then I would recommend Rabi-Ribi instead. It is not made by the same devs, but it is very similar. One major difference is that it leans a lot more into the bullet hell genre with its combat, so do keep that in mind:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/400910/RabiRibi/

Its main downside is that the story is pretty bad and incoherent. There is some suggestive imagery; I personally am not bothered by this, but some people are. Overall it is far longer, has a HUGE map, has much better difficulty choices, hundreds of items, character skill point allocation (known as badge points), ranged attack customisations, and many abilities.

I will compare something as simple as the ranged attack.
In Momodora your ranged attack is a bow and arrow. As it is upgraded it can be charged to fire a barrage of arrows, and then the next charge will fire a hail of arrows directly at the target. The charge speed can be reduced, and some passive effects affect your arrows and that's about it.
In Rabi-Ribi you have a fairy companion who serves as your ranged attack. She also has 2 additional charged states, however she can also customise what her attack does, from homing orbs, to lasers, to energy fields that slow down enemies and so on. She has many passive effects to upgrade her attacks. You can also upgrade her to do her basic weak attack while she is charging allowing you to maintain damage, and even has ultimate abilities which range from healing, to a damage boost, to a laser of death, to becoming the source of bullets in a bullet hell and more!

I will stop there otherwise it will become a review for Rabi-Ribi, but I think you get the point. In terms of pricing it is double the cost (depends on region pricing) for way more than double the content!

Yet another otherwise good game ruined by expecting you to die to a boss multiple times to master their specific attacks. I'm old enough to remember when it was considered objectively bad game design to not have enemies or bosses telegraph attacks.

Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight es un juego que a pesar de su sencillez me atrapó por varios días hasta que me pasé por completo por todos sus logros, y no es para menos, con algunas claras referencias a juegos clásicos como cave story, dark souls, castlevania entre otros pocos mas, logra resaltar por su fuerte personalidad en comparación a estos.

No esperes una gran historia ya que presenta algo bastante cliché y argumentalmente bastante flojo, pero opacada por su jugabilidad algo desafiante (aunque sea al principio en lo que le agarras el truco a los controles y consigues mejoras), sus escenarios que realmente son bastante inmersivos y memorables, una buena banda sonora y una jugabilidad fluida.

Recomiendo mucho este juego si eres aficionado o apenas te andas adentrando al mundo de los plataformeros y a los metroidvania, es sencillo, no es una obra maestra ni para todo publico, pero el creador hizo con amor este juego y se siente desde un principio, y sobretodo divertido que es lo que importa