Described as an “anti-RPG”, the Japanese game Moon (1997) is coming to Nintendo Switch on August 27th with (its very first) English translation. The creators of Moon (a studio by the name of Love-de-Lic) is made up of former developers who took part in games such as Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Romancing SaGa. As it was only a PlayStation exclusive title, Moon will retail for $19 USD on the Nintendo eShop.
The developer of Moon (Yoshiro Kimura) notably calls his game an “anti-RPG” because of the satirical nature the game holds with itself. Players find themselves in the shoes of a very unconventional hero (who takes the form of a young boy sucked into his video game) and follow his adventures as he tries to figure out how to get back to his own world.
The main attraction and notability from Moon’s fanbase is the attitude of the set NPC characters, who criticize the player for walking into their houses, taking their belongings, and slay creatures to gain experience points. The villagers in the Moon town follow a daily schedule (as well as daily dialogue) rather than waiting for the player to walk around and interact with them and even encourage the player to not kill any of the creatures found in their land. While there is no violence or fighting in the game, the player instead has to collect monster souls that have already died to acquire love.
As Moon and its creators take pride in their RPG style game, many other game makers have cited moon as inspiration for their own games and game ideas. Most notably, Toby Fox cited Moon as a big inspiration for his game Undertale.