Guess who’s back! And this time, I’m on the weird borderline of my comfort zone. Today, we’re talking about Moroi. Moroi is a dark fantasy hack and slash, set in a strange Cosmic Engine hellscape. It comes to us from developer Violet Saint and publisher Good Shepard Entertainment.
Full disclosure up front, I was running this game on both a lower CPU and GPU than the minimum required via Steam. That said, I didn’t encounter any performance issues that I could notice. The game ran at a solid 30FPS for me with graphics on high. The fatal flaw for me, personally speaking, is the fact that the game is top-down. But we’ll get into that later! Let’s start with the basics!
What is Moroi?
Moroi is described as being a grimdark fairytale with a dark sense of humour. It has a mix of both violence and puzzle solving, alongside an interesting narrative and odd characters. You awake with no memory of how you ended up in this labyrinthine prison. However, the records of your crimes still exist, and you are still very much a prisoner. It is now time to fight your way out.
The truth about Moroi
This is where things take a turn for me. There is potential in the story and with the character development. But the top-down style and central gameplay are lacking. I don’t like top-down at the best of times. I can sort of forgive it if every other aspect is strong. Sadly, the gameplay throughout Moroi lets it down quite a bit. There is no camera movement, which I personally found annoying. It only moves along with you as you move. So no changing angles or views. Something that gets particularly frustrating when trying to figure out where a door or entryway is. Maybe that is just my own navigational issues, but it is something I have always struggled with top-downs. Unfortunately, Moroi is no different.
I do like the art style of Moroi, and the characters are legitimately interesting. But I cannot get over the gameplay. At first, I enjoyed the combat. Mindless slashing through enemies. However, again, the camera angle not being interchangeable was detrimental for me. I like being able to adjust and rotate in battle to get clear shots at enemies. I also found myself running into things a lot, purely because I couldn’t rotate the camera.
A parting thought
Moroi is not a bad game. I do feel a lot of my issues come down to personal preference. It’s very evident that a lot of love and care has gone into this game, and continues to be put into it. It just isn’t everything I would have liked. I think had it not been top-down, and was more to a third person hack and slash, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. If you’re someone who enjoys hack and slash, puzzles and oddities, Moroi is definitely a game you would love.
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