Bjoern the Smexy
Member
Yesterday I first played and finished To The Moon for the first time with a friend who already finished it several times before.
I knew what I was in for so I thought I was prepared. But I was wrong. Boy was I wrong.
I played my fair share of games with focus on emotions, like The Last bf Us, Mother 3, etc. and I'm glad that To The Moon finally made its spot on that list.
The characters are awesomely written and portrayed. Dr. Watts is a total jerk, but very likeable none the less. Eva (forgot her last name) was likeable at first but she became (in my eyes) a total bitch in the end. I will elaborate on that later.
The soundtrack is hands down AMAZING!
My favorite tracks (and I'm definitely not alone on that one) are To The Moon and Everything's Alright, both for their emotional sound and feelings they produce. My eyes are tearing up just getting the melodies into my head, I'm not even jokong.
The story is definitely something. Especially for a game made with the RPG Maker. I myself have my "internet origins" in a big German RPG Maker community and because of that I focus on many aspects of RPG Maker games. I have never seen an RPG Maker game that was this well done and have seldomly played one that hooked me as much as this one.
As for the game and story itself:
Outstanding. The game isn't particularly long. It's around 3-4 hours and can easily be done in one sitting, which i did.
I can't even say what my favorite part of it was. I think i'll just write down my biggest shocks, twists and sad moments:
The first twist, where we learn that John has some inaccesible memories was pretty interesting. We never learn his reasoning as to why he wants to fly to the moon up to that point and after implanting the desire to fly to themoon fails repeatedly this mystery gets even bigger and more interesting.
Then we find out that these inaccessible memories are not only inaccessible, they are repressed memories which John himself cannot even remember because hebasically got brainwashed to forgetwhatever happened back then.
Then we find out that those memories are of him dying.
Then we find outthat it was not him dying but actually his twin brother!
Then we find out that erasing these memories was actually the reason why his wife was folding hundreds of origami bunnies.
The last one is also one of the saddest scenes in the game, when John and River as kids sit on a tree stump at a cliff, looking at the moon, making up star signs and make a promise that whenever they lose track of each other they will meet on the moon.
The single most saddest thing of the game though were the last 10-15 minutes:
Eva "moves" River out of some of John's memories so as to finally implant the desire for him to become an astronaut and fly to the moon.
Which means that his memories were altered in a way that he never met River again after that time they made the promise to meet on the moon.
Watts doesn't agree in going forward with that because that would mean he would never meet the love of his life ever again. Yet he can't stop Eva. She successfully changes his memories by keeping John's brother alive and moving River out of the picture. John applies at NASA to become an astronaut.
This is the point in the game where I started to fucking hate that bitch Eva. I consider myself a very loyal person. If anyone proposed to me the idea of erasing my memories of the love of my life just so i could become another or more successful person, live a happier life or whatever, I would walk them out of the door immediately.
Of course that's not te end to that story. What happened next was that River also applied for an astronaut job at NASA and it justso happens that John and River meet again, become a pair in a different way and board the space shuttle to the moon. When they reach space all you can see is them holding hands all the while a silent steady beep becomes louder and slower and finally becomes long and steady.
That last sentence took me like 5 minutes to wright because holy fuck. Everything comes together at that scene, the music, the story, the emotion, everything.
As i said I come from a big German RPG Maker community. I played my fair share of RPG Maker games, even started some myself though I never really finished one. I played good ones, bad ones, ones with a focus on story, ones with a focus on gameplay, ones that start out good and turn horribly bad at the end and the other way around, too.
But I never ever played an RPG Maker game that had so much love, soul and emotion as this one.
I love this game and as I said before I am proud that it is the first RPG Maker game on my list of games that made me cry my eyes out.
You could basically that with this game...everything's alright.
Thank you for reading this.
I knew what I was in for so I thought I was prepared. But I was wrong. Boy was I wrong.
I played my fair share of games with focus on emotions, like The Last bf Us, Mother 3, etc. and I'm glad that To The Moon finally made its spot on that list.
The characters are awesomely written and portrayed. Dr. Watts is a total jerk, but very likeable none the less. Eva (forgot her last name) was likeable at first but she became (in my eyes) a total bitch in the end. I will elaborate on that later.
The soundtrack is hands down AMAZING!
My favorite tracks (and I'm definitely not alone on that one) are To The Moon and Everything's Alright, both for their emotional sound and feelings they produce. My eyes are tearing up just getting the melodies into my head, I'm not even jokong.
The story is definitely something. Especially for a game made with the RPG Maker. I myself have my "internet origins" in a big German RPG Maker community and because of that I focus on many aspects of RPG Maker games. I have never seen an RPG Maker game that was this well done and have seldomly played one that hooked me as much as this one.
As for the game and story itself:
Outstanding. The game isn't particularly long. It's around 3-4 hours and can easily be done in one sitting, which i did.
I can't even say what my favorite part of it was. I think i'll just write down my biggest shocks, twists and sad moments:
The first twist, where we learn that John has some inaccesible memories was pretty interesting. We never learn his reasoning as to why he wants to fly to the moon up to that point and after implanting the desire to fly to themoon fails repeatedly this mystery gets even bigger and more interesting.
Then we find out that these inaccessible memories are not only inaccessible, they are repressed memories which John himself cannot even remember because hebasically got brainwashed to forgetwhatever happened back then.
Then we find out that those memories are of him dying.
Then we find outthat it was not him dying but actually his twin brother!
Then we find out that erasing these memories was actually the reason why his wife was folding hundreds of origami bunnies.
The last one is also one of the saddest scenes in the game, when John and River as kids sit on a tree stump at a cliff, looking at the moon, making up star signs and make a promise that whenever they lose track of each other they will meet on the moon.
The single most saddest thing of the game though were the last 10-15 minutes:
Eva "moves" River out of some of John's memories so as to finally implant the desire for him to become an astronaut and fly to the moon.
Which means that his memories were altered in a way that he never met River again after that time they made the promise to meet on the moon.
Watts doesn't agree in going forward with that because that would mean he would never meet the love of his life ever again. Yet he can't stop Eva. She successfully changes his memories by keeping John's brother alive and moving River out of the picture. John applies at NASA to become an astronaut.
This is the point in the game where I started to fucking hate that bitch Eva. I consider myself a very loyal person. If anyone proposed to me the idea of erasing my memories of the love of my life just so i could become another or more successful person, live a happier life or whatever, I would walk them out of the door immediately.
Of course that's not te end to that story. What happened next was that River also applied for an astronaut job at NASA and it justso happens that John and River meet again, become a pair in a different way and board the space shuttle to the moon. When they reach space all you can see is them holding hands all the while a silent steady beep becomes louder and slower and finally becomes long and steady.
That last sentence took me like 5 minutes to wright because holy fuck. Everything comes together at that scene, the music, the story, the emotion, everything.
As i said I come from a big German RPG Maker community. I played my fair share of RPG Maker games, even started some myself though I never really finished one. I played good ones, bad ones, ones with a focus on story, ones with a focus on gameplay, ones that start out good and turn horribly bad at the end and the other way around, too.
But I never ever played an RPG Maker game that had so much love, soul and emotion as this one.
I love this game and as I said before I am proud that it is the first RPG Maker game on my list of games that made me cry my eyes out.
You could basically that with this game...everything's alright.
Thank you for reading this.
