To the moon is a small indie game, made by one person, made in RPG maker, has basically no gameplay, and is aiming to be an emotionally connecting, character-driven story that attempts to be about grey, deeper ideas of the human existence. All of this makes it sound like this game should be horrible, and in most cases on steam you would be right, yet here is the glowing, golden exception.
The best praise I can give this game is that it stays with you long after you finish playing it. There are so few games out there that leave an emotional connection, and this is one of them. What is so surprising is that it is a tiny little pixel game.
The characters are great, there is mystery, intrigue, love, loss, and above all melancholic and sad. It only takes around 4 hours to beat, but that is a good thing in my mind. With all the factors going against it, If the dev tried for anything more, it would most likely leave the game a sub-par experience, but as it is, it is the perfect length, and hardly drags on.
This game is proof that anyone can fulfill their dream of making a massively successful and well liked game by themselves if they put enough time and effort into it.
The last praise I can give the game is the soundtrack, because if nothing else this game has beautiful, beautiful music. It helps evoke emotion to such a high level.
Now for the criticism:
The game can drag on in one or 2 parts. There seems like there is extra stuff or places that didn't really add anything to the game. You just have to slosh through it to get to the end. By the time you get to the end, it loses a bit of it's impact because you feel fatigued from going through so much extra game. for that reason I would highly recommend breaking up your play sessions into smaller increments to alleviate this issue.
The graphics are cute and pixel-y, but the menus and text boxes look rather ugly in comparison.
The controls are a bit janky in terms of movement. They don't respond right away, and seeing as 90% of the game is moving, this is not insignificant.
The story can be hard to follow if you do forget any little detail. There is mystery to it, but in some cases I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing or what the point of an area was. Sometimes an interaction only had meaning later on after you learned new information, but it took so long to learn the information that you forgot about the encounter or it made it meaningless/pointless feeling. There wasn't a huge amount of this though, otherwise it would be a critical flaw with the game.
The comedy attempts seem kinda lame/fall flat sometimes. It interrupted the mood/pacing more than once.
Overall, this game is emotionally moving, the characters are great, it has a twist ending, and the music is phenomenal.
Definitely worth the buy, at any price. (It's so cheap, just buy it)
Do note that there is a sequel that just came out, Finding Paradise. I can do a review on that later if there is interest, just let me know.