Developer: Digital Sun
Publisher: 11 Bit Studios
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One,Switch
Price: $6,99 USD
Release Date: July 23, 2019 (PC), PS4, Xbox One,Switch: TBA
Okay if you are here means you have played Moonlighter and can’t wait to get your hands on the new content. After a year of free content updates this is the first paid DLC for the game and brings a brand new dungeon for you to explore, new enemies and loot for you to find, collect and sell.
Story
After you defeat the pirates in the original game, some time has passed and a mysterious new portal opened, the captain of the guards go in search of the famous owner of the Moonlighter shop to investigate more about the strange new and gooey portal. Looks like a giant Ditto in urgent need of a Snickers but no, is a dimensional portal and is up to you to investigate and discover the mystery behind it. Because why send your highly trained soldiers when a merchant can do the job right? You asked what about Thor, what about Captain Marvel? But they was unavailable so is up to you to unravel this.
Gameplay
Unlike vanilla with 5 dungeons, this DLC brings one big dungeon to explore, compared to previous ones this goes way deeper than any of them, some of the monsters are new and some of them a mix of the old ones, with increased hp and attack power. Because, who doesn’t love hp sponges? Yay! You get a total of ten new monsters plus the new mini bosses.
You will find new armor and weapon sets to craft and upgrade, you can also find portals in the old dungeons leading to some gooey new stages, allowing you to skip some of the original minibosses, in there you can encounter new mini bosses and weapons that will dissapear once you leave the dungeon.
Upgrading some of the new armors and weapons will not be cheap, you may need half a million or more, but if you are a veteran merchant, selling loot at the right price will yield that money fast and without much effort.
The DLC also adds a new shop in town and some new NPC’s inside and outside the dungeons. Aside the new weapons and armor, you also get new pets to join you in your dungeon crawling adventures.
Interacting with the new NPC’s inside the dungeon is a must to reach the lower levels, as per usual is all about money so get ready to grind as dealing with these guys will not be cheap. But their portals will help you to skip several floor of the new dungeon.
These guys can also sell you a copy of the weapons you obtained by defeating the new mini bosses, these merchants will require a new type of currency you can obtain by defeating enemies, as per usual had to be a goo type of drop, why i am not surprised, is all gooey in there, even the merchant is made of goo.
Graphics
The town got a fancy make over, you can see antennas, dishes and tech on the roofs, the town signs are holograms now, the town is blooming after you defeated those nasty pirates! I love the high tech look of not only armors and weapons but the town overall looks fantastic, even the store gets visitors with high tech gear.
Downsides
You liked the grind? well you got it! To upgrade some of the new weapons and armor pieces you will need tons of gold, way more than vanilla. Which can be annoying if you plan to grind the new dungeons, as stated before they are a mix of old and new monsters, which are stronger than their counterparts in the older dungeons
to the point that it is ridiculous to take triple or quadruple of time to kill an enemy and have it drop the same loot as in the original dungeon, whch you can kill faster and with less danger of dying by revisiting the old zones.
Another downside is you can open a portal to go out like before but you can’t use it to return to the new dungeon, a complete downer if you ask me, mechanics are different making you play safe to keep your loot by going back which mans dungeon layout will reset, or risk going deeper and losing it all.
When difficulty feels is augmented like this by artificial challenge, can be discouraging for some people.
I feel the new armor sets and weapons are step back compared to the vanilla sets, you are not able to combine them to get more hp, walking spoeed, etc. There is only one path to upgrade the new weapons to be able to complete the new dungeons, in my opinion it takes away the spice that was trying different weapons and armors to defeat bosses in different ways. We need more, not less variety.
There’s been a patch for some of the soft breaking bugs, so at least in my game thought i did not encounter any of them that could ruin my experience, maybe i was lucky up until now.
Overall
So is this DLC worth it? If you enjoyed the original game mechanics, most definitely. While the grinding for money and dungeon/enemy difficulty ramps up to levels of absurd at times, not only gives you new monsters, gears and dungeons to explore but new bits of storyline for you to enjoy. Honestly yes, if you enjoy the mechanics and combat of vanilla, this DLC is worth to play.
