Developed by Code Heretic and published by Black Tower Entertainment, Against the Moon is a new turn-based card-battling game set in the city of Arx. The game features a post-apocalyptic setting and combines the mechanics of titles such as Slay the Spire, Hand of Fate, and Talisman to deliver a unique video game with unique visual art and a good deck -building mechanic. Card battling games have long-dominated the video game industry and surprisingly they hold pretty well even today with a large number of video games releasing in this genre every year. This is our review of the PC version of Against the Moon in which we fight some Furos and try to overcome the corrupted moon.
Against the Moon is set on an Earth that has been overrun by the vicious, species Furos which was once created by people of the ancient times. However, all the Furos are now under the control of the corrupt moon and they are slaughtering humans everywhere they go. These powerful beings have pushed humanity on their last brink and the human race is now about to go extinct if their last stronghold Arx also falls. This is where you jump into the story of the game as you take control of some of the most powerful warriors called Ultori and thus you must push the Furos back and take back the earth from them for humanity and defeat the Corrupt Moon.
These Ultori are your main heroes in the game and the game’s story revolves around them. While each of them is miles apart from each other, each of them is vital to the main story and comes with their own voices and dialogues. The story of Against the Moon plays out on a map where apart from key missions and points, most of the path is based on your decisions. For reaching every goal there are multiple paths and each path offers a unique and different reward when you clear out that path. During the main story, you are fed the lore of the game via cutscenes that make it a visual novel with great dialogue delivery. The game surely has a great voice cast. The dialogue is not too much in the game, but the one present is pretty decent.
Against the Moon is essentially a card-battling game with some fancy terms for traditional card-battling mechanics. The battles are played out on stages where you take the left side of the screen and the opponent takes the right side of the screen. Each side has a leader than cannot attack but comes with a powerful support ability that can change the tide of the battle easily if used properly. For your side, your leader is always Arx Sarcophagus since she is vital to the story of the game while the enemy leaders are different in nearly all battles of the game. The main form of battle is placing down units or in this game’s language, Minions.
Leading your battles are your superhuman heroes known as Ultori and in each battle, you can have three of these heroes in the battle. Each Ultori is unique and vital to the main story of the game. The campaign levels play out in the form of branched maps where you make the decision of which path to take. Each path offers unique rewards and battles along the way however all branching paths ultimately lead to the same final battle or conclusion. At these key points, your decisions matter however the main story is not much affected by these decisions. Certain decisions are also offered to you during cutscenes but all of them are simply based on rewards and items as well.
Minions are your main fighters of the game that are not only cheap to buy but also come in various shapes and sizes. Each minion has a specific HP and Attack value. Every attack passes through the number of enemies that are in the row and if the number of enemies is lower for an attack., the remaining attack is carried forward to the leader of the side. This is the same for you and your enemies. Your main goal in any battle is to ensure that your leader is safe and you take out the leader of the other side. There is no other winning condition of the battles in Against the Moon.
You either win the game by defeating the leader or die trying. Apart from Minions, the second type of power that you have in the game is called Magicas which is just a fancy term for support powers. These Magicas do not need to be placed on the battlefield as they are instant. These range from bombs to creating shields around your units for protection to damaging all of the units in a single line. The battles are fought in stages that feature square-grid formation in three lines. Each grid can only be occupied by a single Minion or a hero so there is a limit on how many units you can actually have on the battlefield on either side.
This is further made challenging with the fact that each Minion you summon or Magica you use, comes with a Luma cost. Luma is simply the cost of action points that you must have. For each move, the game grants you a specific set of Luma. You can use it all in the current move or save some for the next one. You can use any Minion or Magica card as long as you have enough Luma energy. The more powerful a Minion or Magica, the more Luma energy it will cost you. During my playthrough, I figured out that having more in Against the Moon is not always the best strategy. You can have the lightest of the Minions but if your strategy is right, you can throw in some Magicas and still win battles.
At the end of each battle, you get different resources based on the path that you take. These range from Metacubes that allow you to mutate your powers to make them more powerful and specific or simple upgrade points at key milestone points in the story that allow you to purchase upgrades for your heroes. Before jumping in a mission, you can head over to the Arcana to build your deck, upgrade your Minion and Magica cards and choose which heroes you want to take into the battle. You can also upgrade your heroes on this screen. As much as I loved playing with the starting heroes, the heroes you unlock later also have really good abilities so I was mostly switching between the heroes just randomly during my missions to enjoy all of them.
Against the Moon also has a very good Card upgrade system where you can upgrade each of the cards into 2 variations. For this very reason, you have two of the same cards in your deck so you can upgrade each card to its 2 variations and then use the one that you like the most. The same is the case with your heroes, you will soon unlock plenty of unique heroes but at a single time, you can only have three active heroes. Rest will stay on standby unless you switch out your current squad with them. This really gives you the freedom to have the heroes that really suit your playstyle. Each hero comes with their own unique ultimate attacks and each ability is useful in its own way. As a new hero adds your party, they also add unique Magica cards to your Arcana.
The heroes are pretty much balanced however I did feel that the normal minions need a little more balancing especially with the amount of Luna that you get for each move. As better Minions and Magica become expensive, you are left with no choice but to stick with the basic ones in most battles so you can save for the better ones. This might be okay from your side but the Furos do not wait for anyone. They come in force and really hit hard. The heroes cannot survive for long on there as well and some heroes are extremely fragile making their use in solo fights useless.
Another thing that bothered me during certain fights was that every time there is a tough fight in the game, your team comes under some sort of a special effect such as getting corrupted. This causes the difficulty to rise considerably for an already tough fight and I found these fights extremely annoying. In one certain scenario, my whole Luna deck was filled with useless corrupted Minions and Magica cards and I was left with no option but to restart the level to try again. Even with upgraded heroes and cards, certain battles are just annoying and too difficult which I think should be balanced out. No matter how good you play in the game, these annoying factors really give you no choice or option in the game. Apart from a few gameplay balancing upgrades, I loved every other aspect of the game.
At this point Against the Moon has a decent amount of content for you to enjoy. There are empty campaign and hero slots in the game at this point and I was reading online today that the developer has shared a roadmap for additional campaign missions and heroes arriving in the game as well in the coming months along with more cards and content. The game is still pretty meaty and will offer a good, fun experience to fans of card-battling games. With more content on the way, players are looking at a title offering solid content that is surely going to keep them busy for a long time to come.
Final Verdict:
While Against the Moon may use many fancy terms for its mechanics, it is strictly a card-battling game and a pretty decent one as well. I had a good time playing it although I am not a very big fan of the whole card-battling games genre. I loved the unique art style of the game and how decision making is extremely simple in the game. However, I do think that some units need a little more balancing than they are at this point. Certain units feel too overpowered in the game especially when it comes to HP. Most of your units are extremely fragile and even your Heroes have less health than most of the enemies. I am sure that small balancing here and there would definitely make this game a more enjoyable experience for many players. With solid post-launch support by the developers, players are looking at a game that certainly has a long lifespan even if you find the game empty at this point. It is definitely a game that is worth investing your time and money in especially if you love card-battling games. However, if you wait a little time, the game will eventually offer you more content right from the start.
Final Score: 7.5/10
