Moroi Review – A Slice of Weirdness
There is something wonderfully unhinged and peculiar about the world of Moroi. Inspired by Romanian folklore, there’s a story and setting that feels original and unexpected, but the same can’t be said of the gameplay itself. The exploration and combat of this top-down hack ‘n’ slasher are solid and dependable, but not groundbreaking in a way to live up to the rest of the Moroi’s presentation.
Narratively, Moroi is deliberately obscure and vague – even after completing the game with what I assume is the default ending I was left with far more questions than answers. This is not a criticism, as the weirdness and defamiliarisation is absolutely core to the experience. I haven’t had a chance to try a replay and look for the secrets that I guess will lead to a better ending sequence, but I’m hoping that it reaches a wide enough audience that this process will be helped along by forum discussions and guides. The broad story is that you wake up in a prison cell and must find your way through the world of the Cosmic Engine to recover your memories and find out what led to your incarceration.
Aesthetically, Moroi succeeds in offering up a grotesque and nightmarish vision of a world gone awry. Character models and enemies have an uncanny, almost claymation look and feel whilst everything is covered in oozing slime and blood. There are some distinct areas with their own style and sense of place as you progress and many of the NPCs you meet stand out as some of the weirdest this side of a Zeno Clash game. Whether it’s an imprisoned cannibal who decides to go out by eating his own flesh or a clownish villain who bursts out of a tortured corpse and slides around like a manic slug, almost every character is unique.
Exploration takes place in a top-down action RPG style, with many environmental puzzles blocking your path. These often follow familiar patterns – find a lever, the clues for a coded door etc. but none are taxing enough to become frustrating. The exception was a late game area that sees you following the orders of a powerful Djinn who insists that you find something within a strict time limit but the location appears to be an empty circle of rooms. Once I figured out the trick this was relatively simple to complete but there perhaps needed to be some clearer signposting here.
Combat is the core of much of the game, with regular battles, arena fights and some disgusting bosses. You begin your journey unarmed, but as you work through the world you’ll find an assortment of melee and ranged weapons. Despite the ostensibly medieval setting your first ranged weapon is not a crossbow but instead a minigun. This is powerful but overheats quickly so must be used tactically. Later weapons are just as out of place but also fun to wield. Your starting sword is relatively puny, though this can be powered up by using the teeth you are given by a talking duck – did I mention this game was weird?
Boss fights are memorable, but not always for the right reasons as there are some frustrating difficulty spikes on the standard setting. Some of these were due to having to learn the patterns and attacks but other times I seemed to take very little damage for no obvious reason compared to previous attempts. The same is true for some overly long arena battles and both of these are exacerbated by the combat not feeling that great. This wouldn’t be such a problem if it wasn’t such a core component of the game but sometimes it felt like I was enduring the combat just to get to the next character interaction.
There are various secrets and written pieces of lore scattered throughout the game and I found probably around 75% of these in my playthrough of just under 6 hours. The replayability mostly comes from the different endings that are hinted at by the achievement list and I do want to revisit Moroi to find out whether these hidden endings provide more answers.
