Moe Chronicles: Final thoughts

After 30 hours of intense Roaming 'n' Rubbing, I am officially done with Moe Chronicles.

Mind you, that doesn't mean that I actually finished the game. After having beaten a Final Boss of sorts, I am currently in the middle of a extra chapter called "Epilogue" that doesn't really know if it wants to be an epilogue or a full-blown postgame segment. I didn't witness any rolling of credits yet, so I guess this extra chapter qualifies as an epilogue after all, even though it could as well have been called: "Fake longevity on a silver platter". It involves revisiting the six dungeons of the game in order to explore previously sealed areas before fighting another Final Boss; and as though the prospect of somehow replaying the whole game a second time were not tedious enough, the difficulty has been ramped up to an unsufferable level. I had my first Game Overs during this chapter, and that was a hard wake-up call after the previous confortable easiness of the game. The random encounter rate is still just as high as before, if not higher, and all that makes for a very unpleasant roaming experience. The final nail in the coffin is the fact that the number of Monster Girls available for recruitment has dropped down while the planned obsolescence of Monster Girls is occurring much faster. My current line-up comprises Coco, Ranju, Gargoyle, Mocha and Griffin, and Gargoyle and Mocha are as good as useless despite the fact that I recruited them in the fifth and sixth dungeons of the game, i.e. just before starting the Epilogue chapter. And since my newest recruits—Coco and Griffin, who replaced Istasia and Kobold—are already in the party, my only option is to forge ahead until I encounter new Monster Girls, which I'm definitely not in the mood to do. So I'm calling it quits with a big smile of relief on my face.

Those 30 hours were quite lovely, I have to admit. Moe Chronicles may not be the best first-person dungeon crawler ever, but it's certainly solid enough to be entertaining. Here's a list of all the good and less good points of the game:

The good: 

—Not equipment galore. There are only four pieces of gear that can be worn by all the Monster Girls, so the best ones can pretty much be used during the whole game and passed up from one party member to the next.

—Leveling and powering up Monster Girls is quite easy. The high random encounter rate makes for a fast progression in terms of levels and stats can be considerably increased by wearing equipment. Inactive Monster Girls still gain 30% of the XP reaped in battle (and up to 70% if their rooms are refurbished maximally) and can thus be integrated in the party without too much hassle. Even better, the acquisition of the Skills specific to each Monster Girls is not tied to levels, but rather to the number of battles fought; this means that Skills can be gained quite fast by fighting easy battles in the first dungeons of the game.

—The story packs some unexpected depth (minor spoilers). Starting off as crappy, run-of-the-mill fan-servicy fare, it slowly morphs into an unexpected parable about the nature of sexual desire and its potential to be either a destructive or a constructive force depending on how it is approached and dealt with. Hero Io matures over the course of the game and learns to face and accept his own desires and to express them in a positive fashion, going from a shy, leering, harem-fantasizing teenager to a young adult who proudly claims his love for his childhood friend Lilia while being fully reconciled with the fact that he enjoys looking at females. It's nearly like the game is lecturing fan-service aficionados while gently poking fun at them, which is quite unexpected from the genre. This is basically a harem game saying that harem is not the solution and that horny teenage boys must master their desires and find their true soulmate to feel happy and fulfilled; and heck, that was quite the plot twist.

—The Monster Girls are quite distinctive in terms of abilities while being all potentially useful in battle; there are no worthless, nearly unusable party members with crappy abilities to be found in Moe Chronicles. Each Monster Girl is a unique combination of elemental affinity, skills and so-called "Moe Traits" that grant special benefits, and they can all shine when combined properly. Some combinations can even produce unexpected positive effects such as regeneration of HP and SP at the end of battles. (Which, for the record, is activated by the combination of the Moe Traits "Tiny tits" and "Lolita".)

The bad: 

—The planned obsolescence of the Monster Girls. Encouraging players to experiment with their party is one thing, but nearly forcing them to do so in another, and a much less pleasant one at that. This coercion of sorts is actually counter-productive and becomes restrictive on the long run, because it eliminates the oldest recruits from the roster of potential party members by making them nearly unusable. The player has no choice but to discard Monster Girls as the game goes on if they don't want to endure some insane level-grinding, which means that a good portion of the Girls will never reach their full potential—or be used at all, for that matter. Granted, I've seen some playthroughs of the game in which the oldest Monster Girls are battling the Final Boss, so it is feasible; but I'm pretty sure that such an endeavour implies a lot of extra grinding and/or buffing up with expensive gear. The option of resorting to newer and stronger Monster Girls is obviously more tempting, and yet it shouldn't be. The Girls should all have been granted the same global efficiency at a given level, period. Slowing down their progression was entirely unwarranted; I'm pretty sure that their irresistible cuteness and well-crafted uniqueness would have been more than enough to encourage players to swap them throughout the game.

—There is a modicum of fake longevity at work in Moe Chronicles. The absence of an instant save feature, the grueling random encounter rate and the forced revisiting of all the dungeons of the game in the Epilogue chapter are all guilty of artificially extending the game's lifespan. Be also prepared to pour a considerable amount of time into the game if you want to reach full harem completion and max out all the Girls' affections, refurbish their rooms to the highest level and obtain all their extra outfits. And talking about this...

—The extra outfits granted by the game are a total scam. Since they raise half of the stats while lowering the other half, you're as good with the original outfit. On top of that, these "outfits" are only swimsuits with various patterns. Really, game? Can't we have a bit of imagination here? Maybe not the overused maid costume, but what about cosplay outfits or even a bit of lingerie? Swimsuits only are boring, and Senran Kagura does them better than you anyway.

—Poor production values, which I already described in my first post about the game.

All in all, I'm glad I played Moe Chronicles, and I even have plans for a future run in which I will experiment more profusely with party combinations. That being said, I have to admit that after playing three first-person dungeon crawlers in close succession, I am suffering from a serious case of dungeon crawler fatigue. What I'm really craving right now is a meaty story-driven RPG, preferably with retro-looking aesthetics, a ridiculously convoluted storyline and a lot of relationship drama. I'm probably going to regret having ever nursed that thought before being done with said story-driven RPG, but it doesn't matter. The gaming instinct wants what it wants! And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to dig for that compensating meaty story-driven RPG in my vast gaming collection. (Suggestions are welcome!) Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!