Moonvile Review (PC)

Take Dead by Daylight into consideration for a moment. No, take the asymmetrical formula—Texas Chain Saw Massacre; Among Us; and Midnight Ghost Hunt, for example. Take all of those worlds, and douse them with an elixir of spell-crafting and magical infusions, wand-waving theatrics and curious creatures. If you do that, then you ought to have the basic outline for a new PvP affair—a Moonvile one, at that.

Moonvile takes the same basic approach as a lot of its PvP/PvE extraction-centric counterparts. Similar in design, it invites up to twelve players to duke it out in a spell-studded world, with one team donning the magical cloak of portal-producing mages, and the other team filling the boots of tactical hunters whose primary objective is to eliminate the magic folk and restore balance. It’s an incredibly simple setup that, in all honesty, has been recycled dozens of times over. It’s Midnight Ghost Hunt with mages; it’s Dead by Daylight with wizard cages.

On the flip side of its rather generic blueprint, the game does feature a handful of intriguing hooks. For example, the latter stages of a round fosters tide-altering events like Blood Moons—short bouts that restrict Mage’s abilities and provide Hunters with an advantage over the battlefield. What’s more, it adopts familiar traps like Soul Furnaces—contraptions that exhumes a wizard’s essence and drain their power. Of course, we’re barely scraping the tip of the iceberg here, but you get the idea. Essentially, Mages and Hunters collide; one yearns to escape, the other to eliminate their opponents before the time runs out. It’s textbook PvP at this point, and a passage that, frankly, you don’t need a tutorial on to comprehend. Yet we digress.

Beneath the Blood Moon

It goes like this: Mages—a tactical bunch who utilize the power of magical abilities and portals to enact their means of escaping—take to the whimsical world of a trap-addled biome, where Hunters—a foolhardy troupe that favors traditional means of capturing their prey—prowl the ominous quarters in a bid to thwart their enemies. With up to twelve players making up two separate factions, the game begins with Mages working to locate portals to escape, and Hunters using various resources to knuckle in on their targets. If, for instance, a Blood Moon shrouds the round, Mages can no longer utilize their abilities, and Hunters can move more freely to squash their opponents. To that end, I suppose you could say that Hunters have the upper hand here. It’s just a shame that they’re made of flesh and bone and not, for example, magical bone marrow.

If you’ve played the likes of Midnight Ghost Hunt or, failing that, then any other asymmetric game on the market, then you shouldn’t struggle to learn the rules of this particular spooky festivity. It’s a fun, albeit somewhat steep learning experience that involves a handful of different strategical tasks and trial-and-error tactical decisions. Yet, it’s also a surprisingly rewarding experience that contains a platitude of value behind its price tag. It isn’t a demanding game by any stretch, though it is one that provides a good balance of strategic gameplay and mindless theatrics. And with friends, it’s even better.

The world that the game envelopes in its cauldron of elemental essence bears a certain cutesy feeling to it. Granted, it isn’t the greatest visual representation of an asymmetrical thriller, and it doesn’t possess the complexity of an enthralling cinematic masterpiece, for that matter. Yet, it’s the small things that count; the bubbling cauldrons and ultraviolet undertones, the gloopy greens and the enchanting colors. Suffice it to say that, from the outside looking in, it comes across as a joyous sight for a younger audience. It isn’t perfect, but it blends nicely with the overall aesthetic — and that counts for a lot.

Enchantments & Doodads

While you could argue that the gameplay loop here isn’t anything that we haven’t already clocked a dozen times before, there are, in fact, several components that aid Moonvile’s efforts to thwart its adversaries’ platforms. Granted, the process of a round is about as textbook as they come: a countdown begins, and two warring factions spend whatever time they have left either actively hunting their targets, or seeking out powerful potions to help manifest an exit strategy. And yet, behind all of these tropes and pulpy rules lies a surprisingly entertaining hook. It’s a little wishy-washy in parts, true — but it’s bashful, nonetheless.

Let it be said that, as with most PvP games that focus solely upon just the one primary mode, there is really only so much that you can carve out of Moonvile before its waters begin to sour. Don’t get me wrong, the experience brings a lot of joyful encounters to the table, but it also falls victim to a lack of incentivized innovation. Naturally, it falls into the Early Access conundrum—a phase that, at least at first, lacks the weight of a full-fledged game, but litters its prospects with the hopes of obtaining more material. Yet, for as little as a few dollars, it’s hardly worth complaining about, to be fair.

For the sake of bolstering the notion that Moonvile is a solid advocate for the PvP genre, I will add that, gameplay-wise, it runs a tight ship. Sure, it’s a little wonky in parts, and your chances of being able to locate a complete lobby are somewhat slim. But then, once you find a game, you immediately begin to latch onto the pulpy goodness that is its greatest strengths. And it’s an entertaining little number, too, despite bearing one or two minor flaws. A little extra time in the oven and another slice of content, however, would certainly benefit the cook (or wizard), so to speak.

Verdict

Moonvile taps into its spookiness with the support of a magically enhanced asymmetrical PvP/PvE formula that’s both whimsically balanced and satisfying to consume in short bursts. In spite of all its drawbacks, the game itself showcases a good amount of promise, of which it has the potential to bolster under the right guidance and the mandatory trove of features and general hot fixes to grease the hinges.

While asymmetrical horrors are indeed a dime a dozen, the likes of Moonvile and other B-list PvP hide-and-seek battlers do stand a chance of being accepted among the ranks as worthy palate cleansers. As for whether or not you could argue that this case is the most compelling of the bunch is another matter, and one that, frankly, ought to receive mixed reactions depending on who you ask. Alas, if you’re something of a seasoned fan of cult favorites like Midnight Ghost Hunt or Dead by Daylight, then you’ll probably feel right at home here. If, however, you’re new to the genre and, more importantly, reluctant to throw your coin at any ol’ PvP game, then I’d suggest taking your purse elsewhere to find a safer alternative.