When I first picked up Saga of the Moon Priestess, I immediately thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, because that’s obviously where most people’s thoughts would go. Emerson had many great quotes in the course of his writings, but the poignant quote is “never strike a king unless you are sure you shall kill him.” That is to say, in the words of The Wire’s Omar Little, “You come at the king, you best not miss.” You can’t just waltz onto Nintendo’s platform with a game that is so obviously evocative of a core series unless you’re here to do serious damage. And, to keep the quotes game going, it looks like Saga of the Moon Priestess brought a baguette to a sword fight.

Saga of the Moon Priestess caught my attention because it looks like Link’s Awakening. Not the Switch remake from a while back, but the honest-to-Gameboy edition that I spent hours upon hours enjoying. Granted, I haven’t picked up the game recently, but the first screenshots of Moon Priestess made me say “That’s clearly Link’s Awakening.” The story, for whatever it’s worth, is a nonsense machine that has nothing in common: a nobleman’s son is kidnapped by some kind of evil being, and so, apropos of nothing, Sarissa the orphan girl sets out to rescue him, I guess. There’s not actually a connection given between the two initially, so leave it to your own imagination to fill in the critical gaps.

Besides looking similar, Saga of the Moon Priestess also functions in the same way as the Zelda classic franchise. You’re in a top down view, you move around a pixelated map, and you enter dungeons to find equipment to move forward. The equipment I was able to find before game failure took place was a glove that throws rocks around and a bow and arrow that can also trigger targets. Cracks in the walls here and there tell me that you can, eventually, get bombs to blast to new areas and find secrets, and a crazy old man told me that he could forge something from mithril if I found his hammer that I lost in a river. So get stuff, fight monsters, beat bosses and move forward. Cool.

While Sarissa isn’t limited to four directional movement, her choices and attacks are set in those patterns, so be sure to line yourself up properly before trying to act on anything. You can miss an enemy by a couple of pixels, but you can also strike what appears to be far too soon due to the hit boxes being imprecise. Instead of a sword, Sarissa has a spear of sorts that acts as a decent reach weapon and also is how you save. I get that they wanted to make it so you can talk to the Moon Goddess statue for advice AND save there, but was stabbing the effigy of your deity really the best choice for save progression?

Unlike another game franchise I will stop naming, Saga of the Moon Priestess looks and feels small in almost no time at all. Immediately, you realize that you need to clear a certain dungeon before you can move on in any way, and that’s incredibly limiting. Even NES era games gave a certain freedom to explore and get totally schooled in the process, and thus taught you which was the ideal route to follow. Here, you are completely closed off from drifting off the game’s route (with one small exception) because the dungeon related items keep you fenced in. The illusion of choice is neutered from the get-go, and that’s a bizarre choice for a game made in 2024.

Moreover, even though it’s retro-inspired in graphics and design, it certainly didn’t need to feel quite so retro in execution. Besides the directionality being so rigid, Sarissa moves at an almost unbearable trot between the screens, which just prolongs the game in the worst way possible. Yes, I get that the map isn’t huge, but I’m not going to feel like I got more gameplay out of it because it took me an ant’s lifespan to cross three rooms. I’d like to believe the developers considered making movement faster, but dumped those resources into oddly busty profile pictures of Sarissa.

The nail in the coffin for Saga of the Moon Priestess is the fact that fail states exist and I can’t even identify why. There came a point where, in a dungeon, I just couldn’t progress forward. I had the relic, the boss key, but the game insisted I needed a regular key that simply didn’t seem to exist. I went back to the town, I went back to other dungeons, I moved blocks, tossed rocks, cut down bushes…nothing. I cannot tell if this is a glitch or I’m entirely blind, but as someone who has made progress in other games, I’m honestly unsure if the problem is me or the game, and I’m inclined to think it’s the game.

This might all, somehow, be acceptable if there was a key factor at work, but the problem is Saga of the Moon Priestess is also just boring. The font used for dialogue is terrible and interwoven with typos, flat jokes and nonsense exposition. The dungeons are large enough but also very empty in terms of spatial use and creation. The fact that I can’t move forward on the map unless I do my dungeon chores first removes the adventure and excitement and turns it into a “to-do” list instead. It just anesthetizes everything that’s supposed to make this era of gaming thrilling and special and burps up a flaccid pixel pile instead.

When I give a game up as a loss, it’s not because of difficulty. Games are open and often brazen about unfair levels of hardness, and I am inherently terrible at games, but still love them. Something being “hard” is not a reason to bounce off or give it an awful score. When I give up on a game, it’s because it’s either boring or broken, and Saga of the Moon Priestess managed to be both. While it technically functions, there’s no drive or heart to it. It feels like it’s going through the motions, and the motions are just a vague interpretive dance to John Cage’s 4’33”. I can’t recommend it, or even suggest it.

Graphics: 4.0 There’s been just enough modified in place holders and backgrounds, and the enemies aren’t clearly from the Island of the Wind Fish, but I’ve already seen this game once before and liked it better then.	Gameplay: 3.0 See enemy. Stab enemy. See door panel. Step on door panel. Find key. Can’t find key. Why can’t I find key? Backtrack over entire map one room and rock at a time. Don’t find key. Curse existence.
Sound: 5.0 Repetitive but decent, this at least feels more like an homage to Zelda rather than a straight up lift of the tone, and I appreciated the music, even if it looped ad nauseum.	Fun Factor: 1.0 I knew it wasn’t going to be the same, but I sincerely didn’t think it was going to be this bad. Clunky, slow and awkward, there are a ton of better Game Boy inspired titles to suggest, and plenty more on the NSO to play right now.
Final Verdict: 2.5

Saga of the Moon Priestess is available now on Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Saga of the Moon Priestess was provided by the publisher.