It was 2011. An unknown indie developer released his first commercial product. It quickly became a Youtube sensation, and spawned a decently sized(for an indie game) loyal audience.
Fast forward to 2024, and an unknown player writes his negative review on it.
Why? Well, let's look at what it is: a tragic drama revolving around one man's long forgotten promise to his love. By itself, the premise isn't bad, and while I'm not one for romances or relationship dramas, being a decently executed tragic drama would be fine.
But that's not all the writer tried. He attempted to elevate the story by making it an examination of wish fulfillment, exploring the idea that perhaps, sometimes make believe was a good thing. Had he succeeded, there could've been a truly great story here.
But he didn't.
He screwed up the premise in multiple ways. First, he opened with an overtly long focus on the relationship drama, held by the flimsiest of characterization. Johnny and River are barely a step beyond cardboard cutouts. Then, in the final, climactic portions, he resorts to certain worn out cliches, including fridge-ing a long forgotten sibling, before finally leading to the grand revelation that...Johnny had first met River in his childhood in a pleasant conversation. And she spent most of her life trying to remind him of that to relieve him of his guilt, even though, by all accounts, he was in the wrong, as he had been drawn to her for her autism in high school. And he wishes to go to the moon because, in that same childhood meeting, he promised to River that he would regroup there.
Sounds convoluted? Oh, I haven't even started on the central conceit of the story, the memory manipulator. Supposedly, it alters a key memory to convince a patient's brain to alter the rest of their remembered life, but it needs to be tied to a core motive else it has no permanent effect. This is so embarrassingly narrow for a supposedly advanced machine it's effectively useless, except when it's plot mandated not to be.
All in all, To the Moon very much has the signs of being an amateur author's first work. By those standards, it's not too bad - while it certainly falls on the front of characterization and plotting, it at least tries to elevate what would be a fairly ordinary story with profound themes, and even partially succeeds at them, despite all of the flaws.
It's not hard to see how it resonated with a certain audience - it was certainly progressive in terms of depicting autistic people, and the central characters become a lot more appealing when you can identify with them and their struggles. However, the story should be evaluated on the basis of its general merits, and by those standards it is still decidedly average, and most of its praise unwarranted.
Its main points of value, then, is mostly as an interesting failure, and as an intriguing piece of history. I definitely don't recommend getting it otherwise, unless you can identify with either of Johnny or River or are a sucker for melodramatic relationship dramas. Maybe watch about two hours of an LP to determine if this game is for you.
Fast forward to 2024, and an unknown player writes his negative review on it.
Why? Well, let's look at what it is: a tragic drama revolving around one man's long forgotten promise to his love. By itself, the premise isn't bad, and while I'm not one for romances or relationship dramas, being a decently executed tragic drama would be fine.
But that's not all the writer tried. He attempted to elevate the story by making it an examination of wish fulfillment, exploring the idea that perhaps, sometimes make believe was a good thing. Had he succeeded, there could've been a truly great story here.
But he didn't.
He screwed up the premise in multiple ways. First, he opened with an overtly long focus on the relationship drama, held by the flimsiest of characterization. Johnny and River are barely a step beyond cardboard cutouts. Then, in the final, climactic portions, he resorts to certain worn out cliches, including fridge-ing a long forgotten sibling, before finally leading to the grand revelation that...Johnny had first met River in his childhood in a pleasant conversation. And she spent most of her life trying to remind him of that to relieve him of his guilt, even though, by all accounts, he was in the wrong, as he had been drawn to her for her autism in high school. And he wishes to go to the moon because, in that same childhood meeting, he promised to River that he would regroup there.
Sounds convoluted? Oh, I haven't even started on the central conceit of the story, the memory manipulator. Supposedly, it alters a key memory to convince a patient's brain to alter the rest of their remembered life, but it needs to be tied to a core motive else it has no permanent effect. This is so embarrassingly narrow for a supposedly advanced machine it's effectively useless, except when it's plot mandated not to be.
All in all, To the Moon very much has the signs of being an amateur author's first work. By those standards, it's not too bad - while it certainly falls on the front of characterization and plotting, it at least tries to elevate what would be a fairly ordinary story with profound themes, and even partially succeeds at them, despite all of the flaws.
It's not hard to see how it resonated with a certain audience - it was certainly progressive in terms of depicting autistic people, and the central characters become a lot more appealing when you can identify with them and their struggles. However, the story should be evaluated on the basis of its general merits, and by those standards it is still decidedly average, and most of its praise unwarranted.
Its main points of value, then, is mostly as an interesting failure, and as an intriguing piece of history. I definitely don't recommend getting it otherwise, unless you can identify with either of Johnny or River or are a sucker for melodramatic relationship dramas. Maybe watch about two hours of an LP to determine if this game is for you.
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