Okay, so recently, my boss posted a status in our Facebook staff page stating something along the lines of “always start your reviews positively” and I’m all like “okay, let’s get down shall we”. So I opened up the new word document and do you know what happened? I stood there, 20 minutes, staring at the blank word document (and of course distracting myself with other stuff), because all I could think of was, how to diss this game … because that’s how bad it is. Okay, okay, calm yo-self devs, I know I’m being a little harsh here but when 5 minutes into the game I feel like as if my period just knocked on my front door … then we have a problem.
I feel like Moribund is the type of game everyone can enjoy, like despite everything I am about to say beyond this sentence, I still had a laugh or two in the 50 minutes I spent raging at this game. However, and hear me say this loud and clear, Moribund is like the little mermaid, swimming up to the top of the sealine being all like “imma ready to get down with ma prince, yo”, but then Ursula (which are pretty much all the parts of the game) is all like “girl, you get your skinny ass back down to the sea bottom, okay”.
But for real, though, Moribund is a 2D brawl game and I don’t really mind such games, because I’ve tried a bunch with my homies and straight up, even if none of that ish lasted, we still had a blast playing them. And to be real, most of the stuff wrong with Moribund could have been ignored, IF IT WASN’T FOR THE DAMN CONTROLS, OKAY. Like straight up, controls make this game unplayable. This is the main reason why I can’t have nice things in life. This is the reason why there is global warming. And this, right here my friends, is the reason why I was goddamn PMS-ing so much, even though I wasn’t on my period. Like straight up, while I was trying to figure out how to function in this game, I was simultaneously CAPS LOCK raging to a friend over skype and then if you ask him the question “how often does she CAPS LOCK?” his answer would be “not that often” … yeah, this is how mad I was about the controls.
So here is what’s wrong with them, let me tell you a story. I opened up the game for the 1st time and I was ready to get jiggy with it, but then when the game started, it actually opted to show me controls, before putting me up in the main menu and I was like “okay, let me check out the controls”, so I went down eye to eye with the controls menu and examined the controls very carefully. But let’s be real, nobody actually pays attention to controls in the first place, because that’s what tutorials are about, so what did I do. I started randomly clicking the usual buttons to proceed forward, but after a few failed attempts and my brain getting all nervous, because nothing was happening, I stopped and legitimately read the controls again and I saw that apparently this game did not use the standard button to proceed forward, which is Enter or the less common ones like X, F or E. Oh, no, no. Moribund uses C. Okay and I’m all “it’s fine, I get it” then when I look down to that line that says “A confirm/proceed”, I pause in confusion. I was baffled as to why the game was showing me controls for a controller, when I had none. Okay, but see I am not a shallow person, I was all “okay, it’s showing me the keyboard controls above, so it’s all good” and then I actually got to the main menu (by the way, for those of you who are curious, yes I did get the controller controls as well afterwards). So I told myself that it was a good idea to try out the tutorial, because let’s be real, I did totally not remember those controls and I even forgot that I had to use C to proceed forward and it took me a second look at controls to remind myself of that (how did I reach it you ask? Well let’s just say that all those button mashing fighter games were not played in vain). So it’s all good, I get into the tutorial to see what the eff is this game gonna be about only to be SLAPPED ACROSS THE FACE BY CONTROLS AGAIN. MORIBUND HAD THE AUDACITY TO SHOW ME JOYSTICK CONTROLLS DURING THE TUTORIAL AND HEAR ME WHEN I SAY, THERE IS NO WAY TO CHANGE THAT!!!!! So did I know what the f*ck was going on? NO, I HAD TO OPEN THE MENU AND CHECK THE CONTROLS DURING THE TUTORIAL EVERY TIME I HAD TO DO SOMETHING, BECAUSE YO, LAST TIME I CHECKED MY KEYBOARD DOES NOT HAVE A LEFT TRIGGER … and now you have me caps locking all over the place, because I get angry just by remembering the experience I had with this game’s controls. Oh, you’re asking me why didn’t I change them then? Well, to all of you who asked yourselves this question, I laugh in your face, because you see, if Moribund was a pizza shop, it wouldn’t offer those custom made pizzas, because, guess what, you can’t change controls.
So, after a good 15 minutes of me opening and closing the controls menu from the main menu on every tutorial move, just to check what was going on, I went on to multiplayer and started a game. I proceeded to pick my character and I was getting suspicious yo, because I could not start the game when I picked my character. Then I saw that “player 2” above my head and a few minutes later … issue number 2 slapped me across the face with a broomstick. The presence of an AI in Moribund, is exactly like my boyfriend, sitting right next to me … oh, what’s that? You can’t see him? THAT’S BECAUSE HE DOESN’T EXIST! So I sat there … thinking to myself … how am I supposed to review this game as an individual, because let’s be real, gamers have no real life, therefore gamers have no friends. No, I’m kidding, but seriously, I did not have the option of having a person next to me to sit and help me out with this. So what happened? I entered a game, yeah, both as player 1 and player 2, yeah, only to be smacked in the face by déjà vu. Why? Because I did not know the controls for player 2. So I was all like “okay, I’ll just fidget with my character a bit, because, I already know what this game is all about, so just to get my game time up a bit” and then the most ridiculous thing happened. I accidentally pressed something and paused the game as player 2. So feeling all confident, because I remembered that I had to use C to resume the game, I went on and pressed C with my newly found confidence … aaaaaand nothing happened. So I continued pressing C, just like a fly bumping into a window, thinking something will change only to realize that when player 2 pauses the game, only player 2 can unpause the game. And again, mashing my way to the controls menu, off I went key hunting for what I have to press in order to unpause the bloody game.
After overcoming this, I proceeded to play against my sad self, where I would just go on killing player 2 for a number of times, until the game was over and I won and so I started evaluating this experience. Moral of the story, for all my male readers out there, let me tell you something. Next time you wanna pull up that snarky comment to a girl when she is angry “are you on your period?”, shhhh … just shush. Get Moribund. Play Moribund and reflect … because PMS is exactly like this, the only difference being that instead of messed up controls, we have messed up hormones.
So then I tried a different approach. I called a friend and asked him to help me out with this game and he agreed so we went on team viewer and tried playing Moribund co-op like this … yes, in times of desperation, people tend to do stupid things, DON’T JUDGE ME, OKAY! Instead implement bloody online. Well, we ended up having a good 15 minutes of fun, just by randomly doing crap, because neither me, nor him, remembered our controls correctly (like, let’s be real, they were so awkward, it was confusing) and in this randomness was the “fun” that I mentioned earlier, but when the game was done, and I quote, he said “ugh, never again”.
And honestly the other bad stuff don’t even matter, because controls, lack of AI and online (though I am not allowed to downgrade for the second one) overshadow them enough as it is. Like the roster of characters for example. Basically in the game your goal is to kill the other player with your gun and because the gun has a charge time to fire, it’s easy to dodge, so you have to shoot spores at them 1st in order to immobilize them and then shoot the gun. But here is the thing. The roster of characters is just there so you can pick what to look like. Do they all have different moves? No. Do they have different attacks? No. Okay, even if not different attacks do they at least have a different theme to same attacks? No. It’s basically the same character copied over to 8 different appearances. Lazy! Like bro, look at Brawlhalla for example. It’s a free game, but it has waaaaaaay more character variety and moves than Moribund. And you’s here charging me 10 euro for this?!? Allow me to be blunt, because I am an honest person and I straight up cannot sugarcoat when it comes to games. I will not play this game even if it was free and you were paying me to do it. Because, yes this game can be entertaining, even if for a little while, but the above pointed out flaws, straight up bash the whole experience from pleasant to horrifying. I hate it.
The only thing I probably liked about Moribund and cannot complain about are the stages you can fight on. You have quite the few to pick from and all of them are unique and varying and each of them feature different obstacles and stuff that can kill you. And also if you can’t pick, there is a randomized option, which mashes up all stages and picks one up on random each round, which I think was super cool. And also, pick up buffs add to dynamic in the game, which is a good thing too. However, this alone does not improve experience at all.
0 story (I honestly don’t even expect one from a brawler game), repetitive music (which, to be fair, I wasn’t even paying attention to, with all the rage going on) and decaying replayability value. Honestly, I realize that this review contains exactly 6 lines of positive stuff (I don’t know how many they will be on the actual website, but it’s 6 on the word document) and I understand that I was raging and ranting a lot and it’s not like constructive criticism, rather than just pure rampage, but in all honesty, I am here to break it down to you as it is, as much as I wanna be a game designer, I am not here to do your job, rather than educate the players how you did yours. And to be also honest about this too, you are not giving me anything positive I can lean on.
As you might have guessed by now, Moribund is a game I cannot recommend … unless you are a masochist … with issues … or you own a controller and you have physical friends. And also I give this game a 2/10. Honestly it takes so little to amp up this score, by just allowing the player to customize their controls or if you’re going to make them set, at least don’t eff them up so much and also, don’t bloody show me joystick controls when I am on a keyboard. I am not even considering AI into all of this. Like straight up, but seriously, it’s 2017, like what the eff, at least put online mode. I am being very serious when I say that controls are fucking up your game. Straight up, if we had the lack of control issues and online at least, I’d probably give this like a 5/10 or 6/10, due to lack of character diversity and all, because it can be entertaining. But here me when I say this. I DO NOT WANT TO OPEN MY CONTROLS MENU EVERY 5 BLOODY MINUTES TO CHECK WHAT THE EFF IS GOING ON. And I am not even going to mention that some controls didn’t even perform the action they had to. Taunt? Knockback? What, I don’t see no taunt or knockback, what is that? Do you eat it? Do you drink it? And all of this considering the 10 euro charge I need to pay, when there are FREE games out there that are way better. Nah-ah. I ain’t doing this sh*t. I’m sorry if I am too blunt or salty, but it’s just this is what it is. Oh, oh so you are expecting me to just play the game long enough to learn the controls by heart and get used to them? Well let me be the first to tell you that my nerves cannot handle that ish.
Moribund was reviewed on the Steam Platform for PC
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