Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon is now available in its first phase of Early Access. Unlike the original NES game, it is a roguelite that draws heavily on classic titles of the genre, especially Dead Cells. We tell you whether or not it is worth trying this new Konami adventure, as well as the status of this first version of the game.

Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon I liked it . Its playable approach, art direction, combat, and final bosses are engaging and fun. I’ve been hooked on this game for quite a few days and, as soon as you like the roguelite genre (live, die, repeat), the Japanese aesthetics and the sword fighting, Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon will like you too; but do not look for any revolution in any of its sections. The title begins with the resurrection of an old evil that opens the gates of hell. We have to embody a legendary warrior, take his sword and descend into hell.

The game is structured in small phases that are covered in less than ten minutes. At the end of each of them there is an imposing boss drawn with a lot of talent. You defeat him and advance, you cross a sacred door and you descend a little more. Each level is procedural , that is, following a common design pattern, random tours are generated. In them there are enemies to defeat, chests in which to collect loot and shops. Every time we reach a new phase, we not only have to strive to reach the end, we also have to find all the treasures we can, accumulate wealth and use them to improve our weapons, create others and enhance abilities. If we die, we lose weapons and loot, but the unlocked optimizations remain. And then we die, and we rise again, and we die again, and …

I mean, no, Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon offers absolutely nothing new to its genre. The playable cycle is the same as always and is full of all its common places. In fact, it looks a lot like Dead Cells in its pace of play, combat, and even has almost traced item collection interfaces, but it doesn’t do that well. He’s also not brilliant in his stage design and exploration. The structure of the levels is new and changes every time we get to each phase, but the base is a somewhat simplistic 2D platformer , with too many dead ends, few shortcuts and that solve their lack of talent with many teleports so as not to get lost and retake the good route to the boss. In addition, his sense of death and resurrection ends up exhausting.

It requires the same patience that you had to have when you were killed in Megaman 2 in the last phase and you had to start over . I have completed levels in ten minutes and they have seemed like half-hour phases, and the changes or rewards when dying and resurrecting do not always invite to play another game. This is not Hades , there is no revolution here every time we are resurrected. Narratively it is crude and there are weapons clearly much better than others… So why have I had a good time with Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon? Why did I like it? For the basis of his combat, for his artistic design and because the prize after each resurrection is learning, and you notice it; It is something intangible that ends up being noticed in the gameplay.

Why did I like it? For the basis of his combat, for his artistic design and because the prize after each resurrection is learning“GetsuFumaDen uses a combat system called Setsuna, which is based on the path of the Japanese warrior, in his sense of distance and rhythm. When fighting correctly, and taking the right actions, a kanji will appear on the enemies. One that indicates that you have made a counterattack, another when you reject the enemy’s blow well, when you break the guard, when you do an execution … (…). In addition, there is also the demonization system. Players who master the correct battle rhythm without taking damage or who kill enemies quickly are rewarded, allowing them to go through different states of demonization with various benefits: increasing their damage, for example. “What producer Shin Murato explains to me Konami boss in charge of this project, sums up pretty well what we get as a gamer by playing, dying, playing, resurrecting and playing some more: we learn to fight fastbut following the path of the warrior. To help this happen, the enemies have very marked routines and the scenarios, although they change, have very recognizable obstacles. The more we play, the more kanji and beneficial states will begin to emerge, the more we will recognize the weaknesses of the enemies and the more we will feel that we handle our weapons better . This feeling is the best of Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon. It makes the game feel very tense, but it also makes you want to play again to apply what you have learned.

What is the best thing about Getsu Fuma Den?

But if the attack routines and the recognizable stage designs make it easy for us to play well, in return, mistakes are paid . Three full taps will render you almost lifeless, and in Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon there are very few ways to regain health . Dying takes us back to the beginning of the game, and everything will have to be repeated. Fortunately, we can find keys that give us quick access to other areas, and the final bosses hide very useful weak points. Skills will also be unlocked, but it takes a lot to unlock them. Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon gives nothing awayIt requires patience, a lot of learning and that you understand that repeating is synonymous with knowing more. And these loops of life and death are better with an art as unique as the one it has: “being a Japanese company, we believed that we should also have a very Japanese style, but that it will attract attention on a global level. There are already many video games with a sumi-e style (Chinese ancestral painting), so we bet on an artistic style from the Japan of the Middle Ages with hell as the central theme “. This translates into very thick lines and with backgrounds loaded with content, demons, twisted bodies and a lot of dynamism.

However, this aesthetic does not always work well . In some levels, the difficulty consists in blurring the image, making it inconspicuous to the player when recharging it with items. That makes you miss your punches and get hurt, and you get very angry because all the grace of their combat system is lost. Namely, Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon combines good action moments in which his battles and style are remarkable, with many others that are not. Sometimes it looks like a very fun 2D action game, but others just a roguelite of the pile. For me, the good wins, but you can see that the game is in an early access version and has a lot to improve: “the game is between 70% -80% complete towards its final version. The content of that final version it will change based on all the feedback we receive from the players, so we need to fix things and work with the community. “

In short, for me it is worth enjoying its early access on Steam now. It’s not a perfect roguelite yet, but it’s captivating, tough, and pretty in its own way. “For an experienced player, the game can be passed in 15-20 hours through a lot of trial and error. But if players dare to complete it all, we believe they will have to play the Early Access version about 200 times, and we will continue to grow the game over time. ” My wish is that they optimize the generation of procedural phases so that they contain fewer areas with nothing to do, that they better balance the weapons with each other (double swords are too good), and that they reduce what is required in exchange for improving equipment and abilities. For now, they have already added a new character: the agile ninjaGetsu Renge , and the team has fixed a lot of minor bugs. That is to say, Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon is not a perfect game today, it is not the best rogue in history, but it has hooked me and I want to continue playing it more. Needing to know what the next world to play is like, enjoying learning its combat system, and its final bosses, softens the understandable problems of being early access.