To the Moon | PS5 Review.

Publisher: Serenity Forge
Developer: Freebird Games
PS5 Review

*Disclaimer: I was sent the code for this game on PS5 in return for a review, all opinions are mine and mine alone.

Meaningful games will always stand out to me, I was given the opportunity to review To the Moon and wasn't aware of just how meaningful this game would be, on the outside the 16bit style game makes it look like many that have come before, we get to delve into the world of life and death and discover traumatic events that can alter someone's mindset. When speaking about mental health this is a great starting point, games like this help people understand that the brain can change in ways you never knew even when it comes to accepting you're dying.

The game starts in disaster. We see two doctors have crashed but aren't very far from their location so they choose to ditch the car and take their equipment with them. Players take on the role of the two doctors Dr Wyatt and Dr Rosaleane, it's their job to give people their dying wishes by going into the memories of the dying and using mementoes as tools to build the world they can live in for their final wish. This sounds a lot like a Black Mirror episode, as someone who loves the ingenuity of this, I knew I would end up enjoying the rest of the gameplay, I was keen to see how it all played out.

The man they would be working with on this job is called John, his last wish is to visit the moon, there is no indication as to why, which is why the doctors must go inside of his mind to gather all the information they need to make this happen. Each layer they visit will go back in time, from old to young finding the exact point in time where John first wanted to visit the moon, once they have found it they will digitally and mentally make it possible to send him to his final destination before he passes away.

The mind can be volatile, it has layers to strip back on and not everything is as it seems, the controls within the game are very basic, you look around for objects from John's past to break momentos and move on to the next memory in his mind. To activate the memento, you're faced with a puzzle and must unscramble the image of the memento. I found this pretty annoying at first because I had no idea what I was doing, the more puzzles I completed the easier it became. Push the puzzles to one side and look more deeply into what you learn along the way and you begin to unfold John's tragedies and what he has endured in life, I found myself immersed with each memory.

Meeting John's deceased wife was sad, we see how they met throughout the game and what becomes of her, John couldn't quite understand a lot of the things his wife River was talking about, the need for the white rabbits, and why she acted so strangely. He felt distant from her because he didn't seem to care for her at first, I found him to be unloving until I learnt more, John became someone I wanted to have a happy ending, I needed to find out answers for him to go to the moon, even the doctors start to become obsessed in finding out the missing links.

At times I felt rude for invading John's memories, Dr Wyatt just wanted to get through the memories as fast as he could to find the root of wanting to go to the moon whereas Dr Rosaleane started to get obsessed with there being something out of place, she trusted her gut and went with it, sometimes that the best thing a person can do. I found myself leaning towards Dr Rosaleane's obsessiveness as I grew just as concerned as she did.

To the Moon has a nice slow pace, I never found myself getting bored I was mainly too focused on finding out more about John. The scenery and artwork is beautiful, and there is some level of exploration but the movement isn't smooth you will need to take paths that are marked out for the doctors to get to your destinations. I stayed up until the late hours playing through the game, I wanted it to have my full attention, it took just over 4 hours to complete, which was the perfect amount of time for a game like this. For those who want to give this a try, don't rush the dialogue, read it and take in the story, it deserves your full attention.

Have a cosy day

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