Quick Review: To The Moon

Total Recall meets Inception meets bedside manners.

That's lucky, they didn't arrive too late.

A production of Freebird Games released on November 1st, 2011, To The Moon is a game made on RPG Maker. It features two doctors who specialize in a very odd form of service for dying patients: Implant in them a memory of a wish they never actually lived, so that they can die happy believing they’ve actually lived it. For that, doctors Eva Rosalene and Neil Watts use a machine to enter the memories of the patient, and work their way backwards in time through those memories to understand where that wish came from, so that they can implement it in line with the patient’s history. Their latest client, John, is a day or two from passing. His wish? To go to the moon. And yet, his memories are more closely linked to the lighthouse near the house where he lives…

I haven't seen visuals this impressive in an RPG Maker
game in a long while.

Unlike a lot of RPG Maker titles out there, this one does not focus on combat, but rather on exploration and taking in the story. Everything can be done with the mouse, moving and interacting with the surroundings in particular. (The menu can be accessed with the right-click or by pressing the ESC key.) Before the procedure itself begins, the characters meet the patient and investigate their home to gather information.

Sometimes, they even have to "roleplay" a
bit with the memory-people around them.

River? Probably her wife.
That's an unusual - but pretty - name.

In the memories themselves, things are a little more complex: In each scene, Eva and Neil need to gather five memory links in order to activate a memento that will let them travel further down memory lane. “We need to go deeper” and all that. Most of the time, they’ll simply have to find items that serve as memory links, but other times, merely exploring the surrounding area or listening to the characters will do. The doctors have a plethora of abilities provided by their machine while in the world of memories, like a God Mode where they can do use any effect on themselves or other characters.

When the memory links have been collected and used on the memento, the two must activate it through a tile flip puzzle. It’s the first time I see those in an RPG Maker title, and I’m impressed. Then, Eva and Neil can travel backwards in time to view older memories. And, from there, they can piece together the mysteries of this man’s life, so they can make him believe he went to the moon.

These puzzles aren't too tricky, but the further you go, the
more squares they cover, and the tougher they get -
not to mention that diagonal, which can make things tricky.

Also, several scenes are just beautiful.

Ah, this is such a good, good game! It speaks volumes that it’s often cited as the pinnacle of what can be achieved with RPG Maker. On the design side of things, every environment has a ton of details, more than what would be needed – and as a result, they’re interesting to explore, whenever exploration is encouraged. The music also helps a lot, with the soundtrack composed of original pieces that complement the story very well. Since the focus is on telling a story, there is no combat (barring a parodic example early on), and most items are limited to plot flavor. One element I like is the system of Notes, in which the scientists write down notes about the things, people, and settings they meet during their journey through memories, and regularly update those as details become clearer.

Ah yes, the mightiest attack of all.... "other shoe".

Wasting note space on this? For shame, Eva.

The focus is on emotion, as can be expected from the concept; the main characters travel to significant events of the man’s life, several of which are heart-wrenching. One gut punch after the next. It's also a very spoiler-heavy game that I want you to check out, hence why I give so little details about the story itself in this review. The two scientists we follow aren’t on their first assignment, far from it, and as such are either clinical and aloof (like Eva) or jaded and cynical (like Neil) about their approach, which gives them a lot of personality and banter. To be honest, there are times where banter happens where it shouldn’t, causing a bit of a mood whiplash. Sure, those moments are good to alleviate the mood, but they’re often jarringly-positioned. (Though Eva writing Neil down into the Notes as the “village idiot” after he does something particularly stupid in one memory will never not be funny.) 

You even get a moment where you get to ride a horse!

In the end, a very good game that I heartily recommend. Not necessarily a master class in game design, but most definitely an example to try out if you’re interested in RPG Maker and want to see what can be achieved with it. This game comes with two playable mini-episodes, and has had two sequels thus far. Oh, and there's also apparently a movie based on this game in production.

To The Moon is available on Steam for 9.99$.