Momodora is a cult classic metroidvania title that has been running for fourteen years now. I’m somewhat new to the series, having only played the fourth entry: Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. Now with five different entries, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is the sendoff for the series. One that intends to close off the franchise for longtime fans, but also make it approachable for newcomers. Between Momodora and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown kicking off 2024 with two excellent metroidvania titles.

Fairies are a huge part of Momodora.

Set five years after a calamity that saw demons lay waste to Koho, you play as Momo, a priestess for Koho village who has been sent by the Patriach to uncover who is summoning the demons and stop them before Koho is completely overtaken. It’s a pretty basic premise that you’ve probably seen hundreds of times. However, this is not a bad thing, as the story here is pretty good even if it is a little predictable. It has some solid characters and world building that isn’t overwhelming. 

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is a moderately sized metroidvania title, with all the tickbox items that you would expect from the genre. You will be exploring a moderately sized map that is almost seamlessly connected together with various branching paths. It’s not as sprawling as the likes of Ori, with it being a bit more linear and straightforward, but does what it sets out to do fairly well. I enjoyed exploring the world, thanks to an absolute ton of secrets to find and rooms that you can’t access until later on in the game. This encourages thorough exploration of the environment and extensive backtracking to find stat boosting fruits or free trapped fairies.

The combat in Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is pretty straight forward. Momo has access to a sword with a standard three-hit combo, as well as a ranged bow. You will also be able to dodge roll through enemies, and perfectly timing restores your stamina allowing long combo chains. Whilst the combat is competent enough, I found the early to mid game stages to be a touch too easy, being able to easily spam my way through it. Any of my deaths here were just reckless behaviour. Thankfully, things do pick up after the halfway point with tough enemies (but it’s never overwhelming), great boss fights, and longer stretches without checkpoints that really make you play a little bit more carefully.

As you can tell the world is massive and completely connected.

To help the simple combat mechanics along, the Sigils provide your various builds. You’re able to stack up to five of these during your playthrough. These will buff Momo with a variety of attack or defensive boosts boosts. It’s a decent enough system, but lacks in imagination. There’s not a lot of abilities that really transform the gameplay experience, and I found myself ignoring the vast majority of the Sigils. Then we have the companion system that allows Momo to have a creature follow her around, but I barely ever noticed it do anything of importance. Again, some wasted potential here.

Regardless of these complaints, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is an absolute blast and I enjoyed my time with it. With a fantastic world to explore, light platforming puzzles, and combat that whilst simple is engaging enough. Taking me roughly eight hours to do quite a lot the game has to offer. Once the story has been completed there is an additional difficulty mode (though I would argue this should be unlocked from the start). As well as a hardcore mode that will take you back to menu if you die once. Hard difficulty alone is enough to convince me to do another playthrough. It has also convinced me to go back and get the previous games; the first two of which are actually free on the developer’s itch.io page.

One place where this game stands out is in its excellent pixel art style. Aside from the standard early game underground locations that feel a bit uninspired, the game does a great job. It has a wide variety of locations, from grim swamp locations, to fairy villages, and caves shrouded in darkness that limit your visibility. Complementing the art style is an equally excellent soundtrack, with each zone having its own background theme, setting the tone and atmosphere. Then it ramps up with some epic boss themes.

Boss fights are the highlight of Momodora: Moonliit Farewell.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell kicks off the year with a great metroidvania title. The fantastic level design and art style make it easy to recommend to fans of the genre, despite some shortcomings. It provides a fantastic entry point for franchise newcomers, and what I’m confident in saying is a great sendoff for long time fans. Anyone looking for a solid metroidvania will have a good time here.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is available now on PC.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Momodora: Moonlit Farewell was provided by the publisher.