Become the Moon is a quirky and visually striking roguelike deckbuilder that caught my attention for its charming presentation and streamlined gameplay. Developed by solo dev Sean Cellan Jones and released in June 2025, the game challenges players to climb a series of increasingly difficult encounters by drafting minions, casting spells, and managing how effects play out during auto battles. After spending a fair amount of time with it, here’s my in-depth take on what Become the Moon does well, where it stumbles, and what kind of player it’s really for.

A deck building auto battler like you know them, but with its own charm.

One of Become the Moon’s most compelling features is its vibrant, cartoonish art style. The game’s visuals strike a delightful balance: bold, readable designs with a playful whimsy reminiscent of Adventure Time. Whether crafting a deck of minions or spells, each card feels lovingly illustrated and brimming with character. The minions aren’t just visually distinct, they’re expressive, memorable, and imbued with personality in how they’re portrayed.

You’ll immediately notice how much care has been poured into the card art. From unique visuals to the humorous text and effects that some units possess. each design reinforces the game’s charm. In my view, this creative presentation isn’t just cosmetic, it shapes the experience, making drafting a deck feel like curating an art gallery as much as planning a strategic toolkit.

The art is engaging, what about the gameplay?

This loop is satisfying, and the draft picks exciting. after the initial draft the player will ‘tier up’ when exhausting their entire deck, at this point the deck get reshuffled and the player gets to choose 5 more cards to add. Deck-building’s tactile pleasure is enhanced by synergies; flying minions, taunts, shield units, death abilities, battle spells that tweak stats mid-battle, you can cobble together combos that feel powerful and clever.

However, that’s also where the limitations creep in. Despite boasting ~140 cards, player experimentation hits a ceiling. The constrained card pool and procedurally rigid offerings mean a few clearly optimal strategies emerge, flying buff-deck, exhaust-heavy builds, taunt-slayer hybrids. Once you pin one down, runs tend to converge. Players approaches quickly crystallize, diminishing the game’s replay experimentation. A core criticism I found is balancing and randomness issues. With limited card variety and heavy reliance on RNG in drafts, high-skilled experimentation diminishes. You often need to embrace a particular ‘best build’ to reliably complete runs, especially on harder modifiers. Choices become less about crafting crazy combos and more about assembling the checklist of must-haves—e.g., a set of flying units and buffs or a mid‑tier tank line with spell support.

Add to this the auto-battle AI’s randomness, minion targets are random and lack intelligent prioritization, leading to occasional frustration when perfectly arranged line-ups fizzle out due to dice-roll targeting. One moment your decks shines in fully optimized execution; the next, a poorly-timed multi-hit misses and derails your hard-built synergy. While the 10 characters and daily seeded runs add variance, the draft constraints, recurring enemy archetypes, and reliance on few cards means exploring more unusual or off-meta builds seldom pays off. After enough reruns, you’re likely to default into safe archetypes because it’s simply more efficient.

“one more run” We’ve all said it Become the Moon ,Will make you say it again

Become the Moon packs a punch in difficulty and progression. Early runs are forgiving, but it ramps fast, by mid-game, combat shifts from manageable to punishing. The tier system (re-shuffle trigger for new cards) provides pacing, but success still depends on locking in synergies early. The devs smartly added difficulty modifiers, offering a “true ending” for hardcore players . However, because the meta consolidates around top strategies, progression still feels linear: harder runs demand the same deck archetypes, with only minor relic tweaks or class bonuses differentiating them.

The user interface leans into Hearthstone’s clean, functional design, clear displays, intuitive placements, and no fuss visuals. It’s fast, smooth, and supports quick reruns that make sessions punchy and addictive. Speed-up options, fast load times, and casual music ensure you can hit play again without friction.

My Conclusion

Become the Moon is an aesthetically charming and mechanically solid deck-building auto-battler—you can feel the love in its art, animations, and UI. Its core loop is hooky and engaging, packing plenty of tension across its roguelike battles. But the flaws I noted, the constrained card pool, the emergence of a few dominant strategies. On top of that, the randomness of auto-battle targeting, hold it back from becoming a sandbox of creative experimentation.

If you love compelling visuals, enjoy shorter roguelike sessions, and don’t mind leaning into the meta, it’s absolutely worth it. For a affordable price you get a polished, fun package with decent replay-ability that will put a smile on your face with its visuals. But if you’re hoping for endless twisty paths, quirky builds, or runaway experimentation, you’ll eventually bump into it’s walls.

Death end re; Quest: Code Z marks the latest entry in Compile Heart’s niche but distinctive series that blends traditional JRPG mechanics with visual novel storytelling. Known for its dark, narrative twists and genre experimentation, the series has cultivated a loyal following. Unfortunately, Code Z feels less like a bold new step and more like a rehash of past ideas that lack the narrative punch and mechanical refinement expected of a fully fleshed-out sequel.

Set in a disconnected timeline from the previous entries, Code Z introduces a new cast and storyline, attempting to act as both a fresh start and a continuation of the series’ theme. It follows a familiar structure, shifting between lengthy visual novel segments and turn-based combat encounters. While this hybrid approach remains conceptually intriguing, the execution remains uneven.

The Death end re; Quest franchise consistently offers tension, with a combination of disturbing psychological horror wrapped in philosophical undertones. Evidently, Code Z has tried to recapture this, but the pacing is its downfall. The players are burdened with heavy exposition, long internal monologues, and a slow burn narrative that rarely feels justified by the resolution. Dialogue that goes on for days, with scenes that could have been condensed were stretched well beyond their narrative significance.

The characters, while visually distinctive and occasionally endearing, are somewhat mundane. For a series that has previously subverted genre expectations, Code Z plays it surprisingly safe with its cast. Moments of character development are sporadic and rarely resonate, in part due to how much time is spent retelling their past and forgetting to develop their future.

Fans familiar with the franchise’s darker turns, may find themselves waiting for that signature twist or moment of tonal whiplash. Although Code Z doesn’t shy away from grim material, it feels more restrained than its predecessors, less daring, and as a result, less memorable.

The turn-based battle system returns with its familiar knockback mechanics, positioning elements, and turn manipulation features. At a glance, the combat appears deep, but in practice, it rarely demands much thought provoking combat encounters. Enemy encounters quickly fall into predictable patterns, and the lack of significant evolution from previous entries makes battles feel more like an obligation than an opportunity for tactical expression and artistic flair.

That said, there are occasional highlights where certain boss fights introduce interesting conditions or require thoughtful positioning but these moments are far and few between. The levelling system and character customization are functional but uninspired, offering little incentive for experimentation.

What’s perhaps most disappointing is how Code Z misses the opportunity to build on the innovative mechanics seen in prior titles, such as genre-switching or reality-altering battle effects. Instead, it settles into a conservative design that holds little inspiration. Even though the game has been released on PlayStation 5, it struggles to justify its presence on current-gen hardware in 2025. Character designs remain sharp and expressive, thanks to Compile Heart’s distinctive anime aesthetic, but environments are sparse, repetitive, and often devoid of personality. The dungeon layouts lack complexity, and exploration offers little beyond basic item collection and enemy avoidance.

Animations, both in combat and cutscenes, are stiff, and performance issues – including occasional frame rate drops – impedes on immersion. The soundtrack, a mix of haunting ambient tracks and electronic themes, does little to elevate the atmosphere. Voice acting, which limits listeners due to it being in Japanese, deters consumers (like myself) who are reluctant to spend their leisure time reading English subtitles.

Death end re; Quest: Code Z is a game caught between familiarity and franchise fatigue. Although it retains the core elements that define the series’ dark themes (unique combat, and an ambitious narrative structure it fails to evolve meaningfully), the storytelling feels bloated, the gameplay lacks momentum, and the presentation is several steps behind modern standards.

For dedicated fans, there may still be enough intrigue to justify a playthrough, especially for those invested in the franchise’s lore. However, newcomers such as myself will find little here to warrant the commitment, and even returning players may walk away feeling that Code Z is more of a regression than a resurrection.

Overall I’d give this a 6/10 – as there are plenty of flaws with little to no upside to it. Returning fans, I am sure will be able to salvage something from this title but good luck to those like myself who jumped head first into this title with limited pre-knowledge, you might struggle to understand everything going on.

Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny makes me think that demons need to be inserted into more of the world’s history. Can you imagine if William the Conqueror wasn’t just a Franco-Norman with a nark on, but a ten-foot demon prince? Instead of cavalry and clever tactics at the Battle of Hastings, he could send out the half-man half-horse demon soldiers. And what about Genghis Khan? Man was practically half-demon anyway. This way, a large part of the human race would have a little demon in them.

Anyway, the reason for this weird tangent is that I quite liked the broad strokes of Onimusha 2’s plot. I never played the original, but now that it’s been given shiny new graphics, I thought I’d fill this gap in my gaming knowledge. The result is something of a mixed bag. The central plot is nice, but it’s shackled to a dull as dishwater protagonist. The combat is skilful and exciting, but dragged down by poor gameplay choices that’ve been lifted wholesale from 2002.

Focus Sharpens The Mind

Onimusha 2’s demonic figure in question is Oda Nobunaga. In this case he wasn’t just a feudal lord who worked to unite Japan, but the embodiment of one of his nicknames – a demon king. Together with his demon friends, Nobunaga steamrolls Yagyu village in a startlingly brutal opening cutscene. Unfortunately, this village was the home of Jubei Yagyu, noted Samurai, who embarks on a quest to collect five sacred orbs and give Nobunaga a jolly good seeing to.

It’s an interesting plot, made more so by the fact that it’s somewhat branching. Jubei meets other characters on his journey, which he can interact with and befriend. Depending on how well you get on, they’ll appear at key points in the story and even become playable. It’s a neat touch. It’s just a shame that these characters have to be shackled to Jubei, who is an ultimate personality vacuum. He barely says anything and when he does, it’s usually the occasional grunted question. At one point a side character, Oyu, falls in love with him, despite him doing nothing but grumpily frown at her. A shame really, as the side characters are decently well written otherwise.

I’m going to get to the combat in a moment, but a word on the remastering. It makes a big point of its HD graphics and, to be honest, they aren’t too bad. The cutscenes suffer a little from the ‘potato face’ effect of the early 2000s, but everything looks bright and colourful. Enemy designs remain great, even if there is some blatant reskinning going on. Boss designs are decent too, though it gets limited points for that as it uses the same two bosses three times each. Controller support is excellent, and it seems like a very well optimised remastering. I strongly recommend switching off English vocals, though. They didn’t remaster those, so it still sounds like an amateur dramatics group at a first script reading.

Rise And Move On

So, that combat. I was intrigued by a quote from one of the Onimusha 2 devs that the combat was designed to punish button mashing. It really does. My first instinct was to swing wildly at the first enemy I saw, which promptly turned Jubei into sliced samurai. The swordplay rewards patience. Your swings do a hefty amount of damage, but the key is to connect them before the enemy does. So blocking and dodging are key, as is picking your moment to strike. Once you’ve got that down, you can start working on an ‘Issen’, where you attack just before the enemy does.

This yields a critical hit, which kills most standard enemies in one hit. In something of a masterstroke, performing one nets you a lot of ‘soul orbs’. These come in different flavours, but one is ‘health’. Health items are limited, so the best way to heal is to learn your way around the combat, and rip your HP right out of your enemies. It also yields you XP for upgrading armour and the various weapons (sword, spear, hammer and odd, double-bladed thingy). Though there’s only three levels for each, and other weapon upgrades just increase how much you can charge. So the RPG aspect drops off quick.

That said, I found myself getting into the combat. Which is a shame, because there’s one thing that absolutely tears it to shreds: the camera. Onimusha 2 uses the classic Capcom fixed camera. This is fine in something like Resident Evil, where it adds a sense of being watched and the struggle adds to the horror, but in an action game? All it does is mess with my perception, making Issen harder than it needs to be. Hell, it makes walking through a door a complicated task. When fighting bosses? You have no idea what they’re doing half the time. It’s needlessly frustrating, and caused all the goodwill towards the combat to dribble away.

Onimusha 2 – Faithfully Frustrating

As I said before, I’m a newcomer to this series. I’ve not played the original, so I’m coming in completely blind. Onimusha 2 got close to selling me with its challenging, skilful combat but it ended up losing me. The frustrating camera was a big reason. Jubei’s stony personality being another one. A shame, because I grew to quite like the other characters, especially the rifle-wielding Magoichi. Well, once I’d switched to the Japanese vocals at any rate.

I suspect this sort of thing is always going to be an issue when playing a remastering of a beloved game. If you’re a fan of the original, then I’ve no doubt you’ll love it. It’s everything it was, with some nicely touched up graphics and a smooth framerate. Certainly, when I went crying to various forums for advice on the combat, everyone expressed a fondness. I can’t see this remastering of Onimusha 2 winning over too many strangers to the franchise, but for old hats, it might encourage some dusting off of the issen muscles.

(Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny Steam Page)

Synopsis

You wake up to find yourself in the institute of a tormented doctor, who, after losing his wife to an incurable illness, descends into madness and comes to the conclusion that death is respite. Kidnapped by masked men, you must navigate through the dark and twisted hallways of the institute, facing the doctors creations, uncovering dark secrets and doing everything you can to escape.

Review

Upon looking at the game I thought that it would be a good and enjoyable experience, I wasn’t expecting an amazing indie game of course but one which I would actually like, however I was wrong.

There were some positives but the negatives outweighed them heavily. Starting off with the positives, I thought that despite the combat feeling very clunky it was somewhat fun, you only had 3 weapons available (an axe, pistol and shotgun) so the weapons were limited but I do like horror games with combat just as much as those that don’t. Usually, horror games which don’t have combat focus more on the atmosphere and playing the whole ‘running away game’, to make for a more terrifying experience and the games which focus on combat don’t so much and it was evident when playing.

There were a few boss fights, and though some of their designs were cheesy they were fun in a way, I mean apart from the fact that it took expending all of your ammo, and playing a dodge and hit game for several minutes until they finally died, it wasn’t that bad. I was actually impressed with how durable they were, I mean they withstood 15 bullets and around 30 hits with an axe before dropping, which just made the weapons feel useless in a way, throughout most of the game they do actually, but wow, the enemies did feel invincible at times.

The graphics were okay, nothing groundbreaking but good enough to hold up for a horror game, and the design for the institute honestly wasn’t that bad, I thought it was well designed and did feel quite creepy at times, some areas didn’t really have much to them and felt empty at times, but others were actually good enough to be compared to other horrors I’ve played.

The music also was quite good, some of the tracks really had that horror vibe to them and helped with the atmosphere, one thing with it that bugged me a bit, was that once the music would end there would be a couple of seconds pause then the track would play again, something which a lot of people would overlook but it just broke it up in a way. I’ve seen the same thing when playing some mobile horror games or even Roblox when I was younger, so it reminded me of being cheaply made.

Despite that it just has too many negatives to deem it a ‘good game’, sure it was playable but on a bad day I would probably turn off after ten minutes.

The animations were not good and some felt goofy, especially the first death of what seemed to be a prisoner who was tied in a chair and after pushing the button, blades from both sides would close in on him and as you can imagine would kill him, but it was executed poorly and unrealistically, horror games aren’t that realistic of course, but if there is one thing that should be it has to be the deaths. Anyway, the saws started cutting into him and he started to lose blood (everything was fine up until that point), then all of a sudden his body just dissapeared and all that remained were some limbs and organs which flew about, you probably can’t imagine it that well, but after seeing it yourself, you’ll realize how awful it really was. Not to mention he wasn’t even screaming in pain and there was no evidence of blood despite being ripped apart by it.

After seeing that around five minutes in, I had a good guess of what the quality of the game would be and I was pretty much right.

The levels didn’t have any uniqueness or good design to them, most of the time it was find a key or solve a puzzle to progress, it was overused and just felt lazy for most parts. Some of the puzzles were actually creative, but needing to do one to progress to the next section every time made it feel more like a chore if anything. There was one section which in all fairness was somewhat unique, you were basically trapped in an elevator for a couple of minutes dodging saws and that’s pretty much it. It was an extremely short level, but long elevator ride which was very boring, but that pretty much sums up the game as a whole.

The Voice acting was also pretty bad, I don’t think many people are bothered by it, but for me it most definitely did. I feel like especially for a horror game which is meant to put fear into you when playing, having the protagonist sound bored, unmotivated and just not trying completely ruins the atmosphere and if anything makes it more laughable. His reactions to specific things were quite funny actually, he didn’t sound bothered or terrified at all of being trapped in a place where he’s been brought to be tested on and tortured, he was calm about it which just made no sense and made me laugh a few times. But at least they didn’t use AI which would’ve been much worse…

Story wise is was pretty basic and just reminded me of Outlast with a lot less depth, person who runs a mental institute starts torturing and doing tests on the patients, only for them to descend into madness and become monster-like, it felt very similar to it.

I’m going to give the developers some credit of course, they’ve only made 2 games including Gore Doctor with the other one actually receiving some positive reviews, it was a completely different type of game of course, being a Sci-fi visual novel but it does show that they’re capable of producing good work. The idea for gore doctor wasn’t the worst, but just wasn’t executed well in the end. In all fairness If I was to make a horror game it would be nowhere as good as Gore Doctor, so good from them for actually making it possible.

Final Verdict

Gore doctor tried to be a gory, scary and memorable experience which left the bad animations, voice acting and boss designs etched into my mind. If you’re bored and want to play a short low quality horror game to earn easy trophies then go for it, otherwise I’d steer clear…

Developed by Nippon Ichi Software and published by NIS America, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is a long-awaited sequel to the 2004 original. It follows Marona, a girl who converses with spirits. After her partner Ash is separated during an encounter with malevolent ghost ships, she allies with a young phantom named Apricot. Together, they reassemble a lost pirate crew to rescue their loved ones

An interesting twist on tactical combat

At its core, the gameplay of Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero thrives on tactical experimentation. The absence of a traditional grid allows for more organic positioning and movement, creating a sense of freedom rare in the SRPG genre. Players command phantoms that Marona, the protagonist, can “confine” into physical objects on the battlefield, each object affecting stats differently. Confine a phantom into a rock, for instance, and you might boost its defense; use a flowerpot, and the result might be wildly different.

The game introduces new systems like “Confire,” where phantoms can fuse with weapons, and “Confriend,” a mechanic where Marona merges with her phantom allies, unlocking devastating attacks or buffs. These features deepen the strategic pool, though they come with a learning curve that might overwhelm newcomers. The lack of a formal grid also brings some jank, especially with physics. Enemies and objects can unpredictably bounce, fall, or block paths, sometimes soft locking and forcing the player to restart the fight. Still, it’s certainly a new way to innovate tactical combat and I would love to see it implemented in a more solid title.

The combat is certainly more innovative than the story

Narratively, The Lost Hero continues the journey of Marona, a young girl who can communicate with spirits. Her long time phantom companion, Ash, is separated from her early in the story due to the rise of ghost ships and a new supernatural threat. Marona teams up with a new phantom, Apricot, and sets out to gather a pirate crew to save Ash and battle this growing menace.

The story maintains the whimsical, heartfelt tone that Nippon Ichi fans will recognize, blending humour with moments of genuine emotion. However, some players may find the stakes feel lighter and more juvenile than expected. While character interactions are charming and well-written, the overarching plot often feels predictable and rarely reaches the emotional highs seen in other entries. That said, long-time fans will likely enjoy returning to this world and seeing Marona take centre stage once again. Where The Lost Hero truly excels is in its wealth of side content. In true NIS fashion, the post-game is practically a second game in itself. Randomly generated dungeons, hidden bosses, and advanced mechanics like character fusion and reincarnation ensure that min-maxers and completionists will find no shortage of things to do.

The game includes over 50 different unit types, each with their own playstyle and skill tree, as well as 300+ abilities to discover. You can also recruit and customize a vast roster of phantoms, test builds in challenge dungeons, and engage in item crafting and enhancement systems that go deeper than most modern RPGs dare. For those who thrive on grinding and optimization, the side activities alone may justify the purchase.

A very disappointing issue

Unfortunately, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero stumbles hard when it comes to downloadable content and pricing. While the base game is priced at nowadays standard pricing rate for a full-length strategy RPG, several key characters, scenarios, and bonus dungeons are locked behind paid DLC. For example, iconic crossover characters from other NIS titles are only available through the “Character Pack” DLC, while the “Another Marona” side story must be purchased separately.

What stings most is that these DLCs were ready at launch, suggesting they were deliberately withheld from the base game to be sold piecemeal. This practice has drawn considerable backlash from fans, especially considering the game already launched with technical issues. It creates the impression that the game is incomplete without additional purchases, undermining the goodwill built by its gameplay systems.

My thoughts

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero on PC is a rewarding but flawed experience. Its unique grid-less combat, deep customization, and endgame content make it a standout within the strategy RPG scene. Marona’s story offers emotional moments and whimsical charm, even if the pacing drags and the narrative stakes feel low. On the downside, the PC version suffers from occasional crashes, physics bugs, and AI glitches that should have been ironed out before launch.

The most serious misstep, however, is the DLC strategy. Locking substantial content behind paid walls, especially at launch, dampens enthusiasm and calls into question the publisher’s priorities. I cannot recommend a game with such practices in good conscience. If the title sounds like something you would enjoy, wait for a deep discount with a “all DLC included” version.