Moonlighter 2 The Endless Vault Review: A Monster Hunting Business Simulator

It is immensely satisfying to steal relics from dens filled with monsters to sell them back home for a huge profit margin. Moonlighter 2 successfully brings balance to roguelike dungeon combat and relic business minigames. Both sides are handled well, and there is an equal level of complexity to be extracted from the combat and business facets of the game. Here is our review of Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault.

Deep Visual Originality

One of the things that will stick with me about this game is the sheer amount of artistry in the visual aesthetics of this game; its playful art style fits perfectly with the fantasy theme of the game. From the mundane object hiding behind a fence to birds on a stranded rock at a distance covered in water, all add a level of atmosphere that easily sucked me in from the very beginning.

While the area of interaction is very small, it never feels empty. The team did an amazing job in creating a small town with notable areas that stick with you, as you are constantly going from one side of the town to another.

The music also had a playful theme that carried the atmosphere and the level design. But when it comes to a memorable track, there’s nothing that made me look for it or save it in a playlist.

Monster Hunter by Day, Businessman at Night

The core of the game is hunting down relics and selling them at a higher price. There is an incentive to collect relics; the amount of gold you gain from the relic will go towards upgrades and many new features that help yield even more money from the relic. Even in early access, the game offered enough content for me to be glued to the chair for more than 24 hours.

Upgrades are tied to bosses, as they drop materials that are crucial for high upgrades. So, repeated playthroughs are required to complete all the upgrades for the sword, armor, or guns. I never found myself bored or encumbered by the game mechanics; nearly every new mechanic the game introduced either helps with the combat or the relic side of the business. In short, the core formula or role-playing with business simulation is working wonderfully.

Good Bosses but Annoying Fights

The early game access game offers twelve minibosses, who are just a bigger version of the smaller enemies, and six bosses to make the combat engaging. While the bosses have a unique design, most of the combat around the boss comes down to a more tactical play than an aggressive approach. During boss fights, you must engage in certain forced scenarios where you have to carry out a specific action to deal damage. 

For example, there is one boss who flies off in the air, refuses to come down until I parry its projectiles to land him back on the ground; all the while standing on a broken platform, dodging around, avoiding the gaps on the floor. Sometimes my character would lag on the edge of the platform and fall down, taking damage. And I was not allowed to hit the boss in the air, even if I had a gun filled with ammo. The game decided to make the boss invincible until I carry out certain tasks to make him vulnerable again.

These tasks are minigames that you have to play, such as parrying the enemy projectiles 3x times or breaking the boss’s shield by launching enemy projectiles off the ground with the backpack. There is a theme of waiting for the boss to become vulnerable, so I can land a strike.

These types of scenarios certainly leave a good first impression, but on repeated playthroughs, I found myself skipping the boss fight because I didn’t want to deal with the boss phases. I could defeat the bosses; the sheer thought of playing small minigames to make the boss vulnerable to attacks wasn’t worth the time.

While completing a dungeon helps on the business side, it doesn’t offer any reward to push the player to complete the dungeon to get something extra. To be fair, once you beat the main boss, you will get a specialized material from the boss, but that’s it. There is no bonus gold or any other reward to beat the dungeon unless I really sought out the material. I always found myself dropping out of the dungeon, skipping the boss fight.

Handful of Bugs

The tag Early Access also comes with a fair share of bugs, one of the annoying ones I faced towards the end of the run, in the legendary tiles. The moment I got a legendary relic, using the relic bonus to make it stronger bugged the game. I couldn’t do anything; all I could do was quit the game. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t save in the dungeons, which means all the loot was gone, vanished into thin air. The game only saves at the end of the dungeon, so if the game crashes in the middle of the dungeon, then you have no choice but to kiss all the loot a sad farewell.

This happened many times, I had no choice but to start all over again, something that needs a desperate fixing or a reload button that starts from the node. It will take around 15 to 20 minutes to blow through a dungeon with decent gear. Hopefully, they will fix the bug in the future release.

Review Code provided by the publisher. Reviewed on: PC

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault