Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault Review Summary

A worthy sequel that improves on the original with fun, addictive gameplay and satisfying combat, though frequent crashes, numerous bugs, and combat that quickly grows repetitive hold it back.

Sequel improves on original: Many reviews highlight that the game significantly improves upon the first game, refining mechanics, adding new features, and enhancing overall quality. Players feel it is a worthy successor that surpasses the original in various aspects.

Game is fun and addictive: Players consistently describe the game as fun, addictive, and highly replayable, with engaging gameplay that makes time pass quickly. The core mechanics are satisfying and the game offers multiple playstyles, contributing to its broad appeal.

Combat is improved and satisfying: The combat system receives high praise for being more dynamic, fluid, and satisfying than the first game. Players appreciate the weighty hits, smooth animations, and the variety of weapons and perks that enhance the combat experience.

Graphics and art style upgraded: The visual presentation is a standout improvement, with better graphics, a beautiful new art style, and enhanced animations. Players find the game more immersive and visually appealing, contributing to a cozy and charming atmosphere.

Backpack management is fun: The backpack inventory system is a highlight, offering a fun puzzle-like minigame for fitting items. Players enjoy the added depth and the ability to upgrade the backpack, making management more engaging.

Combat becomes repetitive quickly: Players report that combat lacks variety and becomes boring and tedious after a short time. The loop feels samey, with no new mechanics introduced to keep engagement.

Numerous bugs and glitches: Players encounter many minor and major bugs, including projectiles passing through walls, homing spear issues, and general glitches. These bugs detract from the experience and contribute to a sense of unfinishedness.

Boss fights are frustrating: Bosses have long invincible phases, short damage windows, and attacks that are hard to track, making fights feel sluggish and tedious. Health-lock mechanics and scripted interactions drag out encounters.

Game feels unfinished: Players note that the game lacks polish, has missing features, and feels half-baked. The end of the game is missing, and early access content is lacking, contributing to an incomplete impression.

Limited weapon variety and balance: Only four weapon types exist, and their upgrades are linear and underwhelming. The greatsword is particularly poorly balanced with long wind-ups and low damage, making many weapons unsatisfying.

Shop management integration: A core mechanic involves running a shop where players sell items obtained from dungeon runs. This shop management system is a central part of the gameplay loop.

Roguelike dungeon crawler: The game is consistently described as a roguelike or roguelite with dungeon crawling and exploration. Players engage in runs, make decisions, and extract with money and items.

Core gameplay loop: The gameplay loop involves combat, inventory management, and selling loot. Players kill monsters, gather resources, and sell them in the shop.

Relic selling system: Players manage and sell relics found in dungeons. The relic and sales mechanic is a notable part of the game.

Grinding for upgrades: The game allows grinding and upgrading the character to overcome challenges. Weapon progression through grinding is a key mechanic.

Frequent crashes during gameplay: Multiple players report the game crashing to desktop, during boss fights, mid-run, and when entering new areas. These crashes occur frequently and sometimes lead to loss of progress.

Stuttering and freezing issues: Many players experience constant stutters and freezes, even on high-end PCs. These issues occur during combat, between levels, and in towns, making the game feel unoptimized.

Poor performance on Steam Deck: The game is advertised as Steam Deck verified but runs poorly on the device, with low frame rates, stuttering, and crashes. Players must lower settings significantly to achieve playable performance.

Optimization problems on high-end hardware: Even with powerful GPUs like RTX 4090 and 5080, players report frame drops, stuttering, and crashes. The game seems poorly optimized for current hardware, with issues like high GPU usage and memory leaks.

Performance issues after updates: Recent updates have introduced or worsened stuttering and crashes for some players. While a few noted improvements, others report consistent performance degradation after patches.

Fans of original Moonlighter may be disappointed: Multiple reviewers warn that this sequel does not deliver the same experience as the original Moonlighter, with some suggesting players replay the first game or buy its DLC instead. This sentiment appears in several clusters, indicating a significant portion of the fanbase feels let down.

Strongly recommended by many reviewers: A large number of reviewers give the game a strong recommendation, praising it as a worthwhile experience. This positive sentiment is consistent across multiple clusters, suggesting the game has broad appeal.

Not recommended in current state: Some reviewers do not recommend the game as it currently stands, citing issues that may be fixed with future updates. This cautious stance suggests the game has potential but needs more polish.

Recommended for roguelite and management fans: Reviewers recommend the game to fans of roguelites, dungeon crawlers, loot systems, and shop management mechanics. This suggests the game successfully blends these genres and appeals to players who enjoy those elements.

Game is worth the price: Several reviewers state that the game is worth its price tag, describing it as solid and a good value for money. This positive assessment of the game's cost-to-content ratio is a key selling point.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $25.00.

Game completion: 30.0h.

Story completion: 13.0h.

Session length: 1.0h.

Moonlighter 2 is immediately fun and addictive, but many players report that the experience becomes grindy and repetitive after the mid-game, leading to a drop in enjoyment.

Friction: Crashes during tutorial and early game; Tedious shop management; Small inventory space; Low health and lack of healing; Repetitive first map; Sparse loot drops.

Unlock drivers: Upgrading inventory space; Upgrading health and healing; Unlocking better weapons and perks; Shop upgrades; Meta-progression upgrades.

Moonlighter Veteran: Compares mechanics to the first game, cares about shop complexity and dungeon design, may be critical of changes. Motivation: To see how the sequel evolves the series while preserving the original's identity. Stance: sale.

Chill Cozy Player: Plays casually, enjoys shop management and exploration, may listen to music or watch videos. Motivation: To relax and unwind with a cozy, low-pressure game. Stance: buy.

Roguelike Enthusiast: Focuses on perks, weapons, and meta-progression, may optimize builds. Motivation: To enjoy varied runs, build synergies, and challenging combat. Stance: buy.

Performance varies widely across hardware, with many users reporting crashes and stuttering even on high-end systems, while lower-end and handheld devices face significant issues.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. Many users report stuttering, crashes, and softlocks despite capable hardware, with optimization issues dominating.

Windows <8GB VRAM: mixed. Some users report playable performance, but crashes and lack of save states are common complaints.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. Most users report smoother performance, though occasional crashes are mentioned.

Steam Deck: Moonlighter 2 on Steam Deck presents a mixed but largely problematic experience. Many users report frequent crashes, including hard resets of the device, significant FPS drops in the city, and the need for extensive settings tweaks. The game's 'Steam Deck verified' status is questioned. While some users have a positive experience, the prevalence of stability and performance issues suggests the game is not ready for Steam Deck without significant tinkering.

Linux and Proton: The game shows mixed Linux/Proton compatibility on Steam Deck. While a minority of users report smooth performance, many encounter significant FPS drops, stutter, and crashes, including hard crashes of the device. The game requires substantial settings tweaks to be playable, and performance varies with updates. Overall, it is playable with effort but not out-of-the-box.

Monetization: The reviews contain direct evidence of monetization: a Japanese review indicates that payment strengthens the game (pay-to-win), and another review mentions a purchasable cosmetic DLC. Base price complaints and gameplay pricing mechanics are not considered monetization. The presence of pay-to-win elements makes the monetization predatory.

External guides: The feedback primarily highlights a need for better in-game information systems. Users request a more detailed encyclopedia covering mechanics, bosses, and lore, and also demonstrate reliance on external tools like spreadsheets for inventory management and item valuation. The presence of spreadsheet-related keywords indicates a dependency on external data for inventory management.

Compared to Moonlighter series: The game is frequently compared to the Moonlighter series, with reviewers noting it shares similar mechanics and characters but has significant differences in progression and upgrade systems. Some consider it a true sequel that improves on the original formula, while others find it inferior.

Hades-inspired gameplay elements: Reviewers draw strong comparisons to Hades, noting the game is inspired by it and shares similar elements such as isometric view, weapons, UI, music, and build choices. Some reviewers even mention that creators of Hades helped make this game.

Early access status noted: Many reviews mention that the game is currently in Early Access, with a full 1.0 release upcoming. Reviewers note that while the game is not finished, it already has tons of content and many levels available.

Substantial content length: Reviewers indicate the game offers around 40-45 hours of content, with some estimating 30-40 hours for the full game. The game is described as having a fair amount of content and at least 40 hours of gameplay.

Missing language support: Several reviewers note the lack of Turkish language support, Ukrainian localization, and Russian voice acting. This absence of language options is a point of criticism for players who prefer these languages.