Lunistice is a game from Deck 13 that I was lucky enough to get a review copy tossed my way at the last moment. Going into it I didn’t know much besides that it was a 3D platformer inspired by the 32 bit era. Think along the lines of Mario 64 (yes despite it’s name it was a 32 bit game)
Lunistice takes place in a world right after something called the “Moonfall” and traps people in their dreams. That is where the game play takes place.
You will traverse about 15 levels in multiple biomes, collecting various collectables, following multiple paths and trying to get the fastest time to get that elusive “S” rank.
“S” rank will unlock some things for you but truthfully they weren’t really worth it to me. I have never been a fan of trying to speed run things however so please keep that in mind.
The graphics however are nice, I enjoyed running around and seeing the gems in the ground in the first couple levels or seeing what was over the side of a bridge down below. This however was offset when you notice the enemies you fight don’t have much variety to them and you really just kill them all with one attack.
The music does set the stage nicely though and I never grew tired of it. More than once I found myself simply jumping around and nodding my head to whatever the instruments were, I’m not sure what they were but they sounded like maybe flutes to me.
The game did have moments of being harder than I would have expected admittedly. Many of the reasons were simply because jumping was hard to manage without a darker shadow as a reference point or because once I spun to kill an enemy and destroyed the crystal we were standing in because it didn’t look like a crystal. Another time I simply walked off an edge thinking I was walking into water. The water one might be on me admittedly. As a fan of the Soulsborne series however I can’t complain about a challenge.
When all is said and done I enjoyed my time with this game,and my five year old thought Hana was adorable. She wasn’t so good at the game, maybe don’t let small children play. But at $4.99 (US) fans of platformers should grab it. 7/10
