Developed by KeokeN Interactive and published by Wired Entertainment, Deliver Us The Moon is a puzzle narrative adventure game that was originally released back in 2019. This was the first title in a series of further ‘Deliver Us’ titles such as Deliver Us the Mars or their most recent title Deliver Us Hime which recently managed to reach its Kickstarter goal. After debuting on PC and all other consoles including the current-gen versions, we finally have the Nintendo Switch release of Deliver Us The Moon as well which was axed four years ago. Despite its troubled development, it is now here, and we have already played through it. This is our review of Deliver Us the Moon on Nintendo Switch in which we launch a rocket to the moon and drive a rover on its surface.
If you are familiar with this franchise, you will already know that these are narrative-heavy titles with no combat in them. Deliver Us the Moon is the first title in this series so naturally, it feels a little dated in different ways and these things are present in its Nintendo Switch release as well. After booting into the game, it introduced you to the game’s premise where the earth has run out of its natural resources and humanity is now extracting a rare resource from the moon. After bringing this resource back to earth, it is being used to power everything that humanity is using. However, this resource’s production is suddenly halted from the moon without any explanation, and humanity is plunged into darkness.
You step into the game as an Astronaut who is being prepped to be sent to the moon and investigate what happened and if possible, turn back on the resource generation so that humanity can survive on earth. From here onwards, you are in control and must complete the mission by solving a couple of puzzles now and then and exploring some cool locations. Like I said earlier, Deliver Us The Moon is a strictly narrative sci-fi game and there is no combat in it so things can sometimes get a little too quiet because you only hear your character’s movements and there is no one around you. You start in the middle of a desert facility on Earth where you must prepare for launch and arrive on the moon to figure out what happened there.
The gameplay entirely revolves around you figuring out how to complete different tasks based on the current location. You will need to flip switches, find codes, and collect items and objects for various tasks. You have a handy Astrotool that tells you what you need to do next and also keeps track of any collectibles or notes that you find along your journey. You have limited tools at your disposal such as a laser cutter to cut through small blockades such as wires or bolts which hinder your progress. Apart from this, you are accompanied by a cute little robot called A.S.E. which assists you in different tasks such as gaining access to locations that might be too high or too tight for you. Everything you acquire in the game assists you in different tasks throughout your journey.
Now let’s address the white elephant in the room, the game’s visual fidelity and performance on the Nintendo Switch console. Every time we hear about a Nintendo Switch port of a PC or PS4/Xbox One title, the first thing that comes to mind is a degradation of resolution and bad performance. Sadly, this is true for Deliver Us The Moon as well but considering the limited hardware of Nintendo Switch, there is no other way of experiencing this brilliant narrative title on the portable console. The Nintendo Switch version runs at around 30 FPS with resolution limited to just 720p. This is not locked because the frames continuously drop, and the visuals sometimes become so pixelated that it reminded me of the PS2 era of video games. The frame drops are more common when you are switching environments like from the inside to outside or vice versa. In inside areas, sometimes the screen becomes very dark and due to the visuals all pixelated, it becomes even darker.
Despite this choppy performance, I do not think that I encountered any sort of game-breaking bugs or something that would cause the game to crash or bug out. This shows that this port is a good one and apart from the choppy performance and low visual fidelity, I have no other issues with it. It still has its moments like when you take off from Earth, land on the moon, and step out for the first time, it still feels overwhelming because the game design along with its audio design is solid. It still feels like a proper Deliver Us title because it is. The Nintendo Switch has only made the performance and visuals worse but the gameplay, narrative, and sound design are still the same that we all loved on other consoles.
I tried Deliver Us The Moon both on a Nintendo Switch Lite and a standard Nintendo Switch console in docked mode. The docked mode is obviously the best mode to try it on because it manages to keep the frames somewhat steady and the Switch Lite is the worst performer out of the bunch. It is still playable and manages to deliver an amazing narrative adventure. A side-by-side comparison with the PS5 version shows a massive drop in visual fidelity but this comparison is certainly not fair. Wired Productions has done an excellent job to finally release it on the portable console because everyone deserves a right to experience this amazing narrative adventure.
Final Verdict:
Deliver Us The Moon is a great game, but Nintendo Switch is perhaps not the best platform for it to enjoy. However, if you have no other option to play it on, it is still better to have it than not have it on your platform of choice. Just like its development cycle, the Nintendo Switch port is a choppy one. It would help if you went in prepared for low resolution and inconsistent frames all around but this is one of the best narrative titles out there so I will still count it as a win for Nintendo Switch players. If you have other platforms, experience Deliver Us the Moon on them but if you are strictly a Nintendo Switch player, then you must give this game a shot if you love narrative-driven titles.
Final Score: 7.0/10
