On paper, Moonglow bay had everything to please me. A village to restore, neat artworks, a soundtrack by Lena Raine (celeste, Chicory) and, above all, fishing. Unfortunately, the romance was short-lived because, as sometimes happens in a recent relationship, I realized that Moonglow bay didn't want me.
I gave too much time to the game of Bunnyhug who, at no time, had the courage to tell me that we were not made to be together. His problem is that he is not ready to start a relationship. Or, to put it another way and get out of that lame metaphor, that it's in an unnamed early access state.
Update of 28/10 at 19:30 p.m. : relaunched on Twitter, the studio says it is aware of certain “difficulties in communicating objectives to players”, and is working to correct this in an update which will be deployed on Steam next week. The Game Pass version will wait longer.
5
Read the conclusionMoonglow Bay
- The feeling of fishing
- The variety of the bestiary, which is often funny
- The beauty of music
- A well-designed interface...
- Bugs galore
- Unclear map and quests
- A voxel style that divides
- ... but abstruse as possible
Moonglow bay was tested for about ten hours on Steam using a code provided by the developer. It is sold for €24,99 on the platforms and available in the Game Pass PC and consoles.
Seasickness
Moonglow Bay has been in my sights for months. Stardew Valley meeting Animal Crossing speaks to me! And his pitch is engaging enough, and just the right amount of tragedy, to make me want to get involved. Take a closer look: in the small town of Moonglow Bay, on the east coast of Canada in the 80s, your character decides to roll up their sleeves to revitalize the economy and save the village after their partner disappears at sea.
However, it did not take more than 30 seconds to be confronted with a first obstacle, and not the least: Moonglow Bay does not support... mice. Even in the menus, you will have to navigate using the keys. That is. But it is also impossible to remap them. And we see the limits of this system from the introduction, where we are already shown the basics of fishing. You have to hook the fish with A, and play the keys J, I, K, L (????) to exhaust it by taking it in the opposite direction. In short: play it with the controller.
Past these early blowing nostrils, I was finally able to dive into the deep end. And things went better. For a time.
Three years after the disappearance of his companion, our character lets himself go completely. Just like the city that hosts it. Convinced that a sea monster is prowling the bay, no fisherman dares to soak his line. But that was without taking into account the surprise visit of our daughter, a real tutorial on legs, who will put us back on track to try to save Moonglow Bay.
keep fishing
His plan ? A seafood street-food stand. It's up to us to depopulate the surrounding waters using our rod and our net. But Moonglow Bay's gameplay doesn't stop there. The "kitchen" aspect of the title is a little more detailed than expected.
Once you have chosen a recipe from the appropriate thick catalog, you have to perform its different stages in a series of very simple mini-games.
To carve the fish, just press B at the right times. To wash the potatoes, it will be a question of keeping a slider in a moving zone. Cooking, frying and so on also require dedicated interactions that are certainly fast, but which require the player's concentration.
Fortunately, you can cook in batches. And Bunnyhug himself must have realized that the concept was withering away after the 200th fish and chips made. Thus perfectly mastered recipes can be prepared instantly provided you have the necessary ingredients.
But more than making money, food has a social aspect in Moonglow Bay. By preparing their favorite dish for the inhabitants, they will entrust us with new recipes, or we will talk about rare fish that we can go fishing, and deposit in the aquarium (a replica of the Animal Crossing museum) which, in the end, will increase the selling price of our fish and prepared meals.
JVFR
The bitter, which we see dancing
Different game bricks that would be superimposed rather intelligently, if the interface did not unnecessarily put a spoke in our wheels. Moonglow Bay's UI is very pretty, but not very functional. Thus, it is impossible to remember everyone's favorite dish without going back to talk to them. However, our character never misses an opportunity to list the slightest poiscaille crossed in his notebook.
Other brakes: the mini-map and the quest log. Quickly, and in particular thanks to daily objectives, the latter will be well fulfilled. Luckily, the game map lets you know where to go to complete them... but fails to tell us what quest it is. And the majority consisting in bringing to such and such a certain type of fish or dish, we find ourselves constantly going back and forth between the game map, the quest log, its kitchen and the NPCs who need our help. .
JVFR
JVFR
But I could still pass on all that if the very writing of the quests wasn't so abstruse. I threw away part of 5 hours because I thought I had faced a blocking bug. In fact, the quest was so badly written that I just didn't understand what I was being asked to do. “Fishing around the island for clues to the monster,” the journal basically tells me. How, from this information, am I supposed to know that I actually need to cast my line on the rocks in front of me, and not in the water?
JVFR
Questioned several times on this point, the developers of Bunnyhug never answered me. Later in the adventure, we will also be asked to free a whale injured by harpoons. Once again, you have to use your fishing rod to do this, but if you have the misfortune to miss your shot on the last harpoon, your line will systematically break with each new attempt. You're good to go again, fingers crossed to be more skilled this time.
Frail es likes
Understand my frustration. I set off into Moonglow Bay with the excitement of a kid unwrapping a Christmas present. I expected an escape from him; a chill game that allows me to clear my head like gutting a good 15-kilo trout. And when we manage to pass between the cascading bugs, we almost manage to imagine this game.
Sold as a fishing-RPG by its creators, Moonglow Bay has its good sides. Fishing is often fun (several types of rods and bait for more than 100 species of fish to catch), the cuisine manages to be satisfying if you vary the recipes, and the quests intended to renovate key places in the rather nice towns in that they change the face of an abandoned village.
JVFR
But how can you have fun in the long run if you can't play more than 10 minutes without encountering a bug, or an absurdity that completely takes you out of the story? Inhabitants who remain planted like dives day and night for example, while others return religiously to their homes at dusk.
Of course, the rare "boss fights" (legendary fish to catch that require a certain strategy) bring a life-saving breath of fresh air. But the progression to reach them is so frustrating, so punctuated with unnecessary obstacles represented by incomprehensible quests, that the game simply fell out of my hands. Not to mention the elephant in the middle of the room: is the choice of a voxel style best suited to playing Bunnyhug? Especially when you are able to make artwork as great as these? Technical barriers, one suspects it, but which create an unattractive contrast between the image that the game seeks to give itself and what it is in reality.
JVFR
JVFR
So what's left to save from Moonglow Bay? His music, undeniably. I'm not going to hide it, I discovered the game thanks to the presence of Lena Raine in the musical credits. And the American once again signs an exceptional soundtrack, which meets the game's chill specifications as well as it remains faithful to its very particular style. So yes, I will continue to listen to Moonglow Bay. But, to play it? I seriously doubt it.
Moonglow bay, l'avis de JVFR
It pains me to say so, but the first game of Bunnyhug is sorely lacking in finishes for a 1.0 version. Impatient, or perhaps pressed by third parties, the developers had however postponed the release of their title at the end of the month when it was scheduled for October 7th. But it's a real, long delay that Moonglow Bay would have needed to meet our expectations. And, above all, a much more rigorous QA phase.
As it is, the life simulation/fishing game represents a series of frustrations interspersed with a few pleasant moments, where the various gameplay bricks overlap without a hitch. But these moments are too rare, too succinct. So much so that instead of relaxing us, the game pisses us off because of an unclear interface, an incomprehensible quest or a script that doesn't trigger.
It's not a shipwreck strictly speaking, but the hull of the tub was badly damaged. Hopefully Bunnyhug has enough buckets to scoop it all up without too much delay.
Moonglow bay5
Moonglow Bay could have sealed a beautiful marriage between Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, but does not come close to one and certainly not up to the other. Riddled with bugs, and burdened by an unclear interface, Bunnyhop's game deserves to assume its early access status.Most
- The feeling of fishing
- The variety of the bestiary, which is often funny
- The beauty of music
- A well-designed interface...
- Playable in local co-op
The lessers
- Bugs galore
- Unclear map and quests
- A voxel style that divides
- ... but abstruse as possible
- Mouse not supported, remapping prohibited
