Momodora (PC)
A young girl named Isadora lives in the land of KoHo, a place where women are routinely sacrificed in the hopes of recreating the world into a more peaceful and prosperous place. The young child can’t help but miss her mother after she’s sacrificed though, so Isadora sets off into a monster-infested land in search of a sacred item that may be the key to bringing her mother back.
This is the story of rdein’s first Momodora game, and while future titles in the series would have it develop a stronger identity for itself, the original Momodora is certainly best described as an Orpheus in the Underworld type tale presented by way of Cave Story’s gameplay. In fact, the Cave Story comparison runs incredibly deep, with the graphical and gameplay style being so similar to one of indie gaming’s first darlings that it wouldn’t be hard to convince an uninformed player that Momodora was a hack or mod of that game. However, copying excellence often pays off with maintaining what made the original enjoyable, and while rdein might consider their first game a bit rough around the edges, it is still a surprisingly well put together game, perhaps in part because it was trying to so closely carry over what made Cave Story so well-loved.
Momodora is a short platforming game where you plunge ever deeper into a twisting underground cave system, new enemies and deadlier traps appearing as you make progress. Isadora begins only with a leaf to use for attacks, but she swings this leaf like a sword, able to take down even the stronger enemies with just a few hits. It does have an oddity where it alternates between a short range swing and a longer one, but this only really impacts your battle effectiveness when you reach the final boss. By then though, you’ll have plenty of better weapons to use, Isadora quickly finding a gun that gives her a much needed long range option. The ESP Gun fires at a decent pace and with decent power, making it a go to for dealing with things effectively, but you later get options like homing rockets that fly towards enemies but are weak and a bit iffy in their tracking but are perfect for dealing with annoying enemies from outside their attack range. Swapping weapons is easy enough too so you can cycle through options like the powerful Colt Single Action Army or the constant spray of the Karst Gatling to suit the situation. On top of these though, Isadora can also find secondary weapons, a boomerang and four rotating energy shields giving you something that can supplement your main gun without needing to swap them around as often.
Even with plenty of weapon options, Momodora manages to achieve a pretty enjoyable difficulty level where you need to be smart in how you fight enemies to avoid damage. You only have five hearts and healing is usually only found either before areas where the difficulty is about to crank up briefly or at the spaced out save points. You likely will die a few times as you learn what’s ahead and what you’ll need to watch out for, but the short game length means its easy to push on and the save points feel just far enough apart to make it a relief to find the next one without it feeling like you’re being unfairly restricted from these revival checkpoints. One aspect that helps things from being too overwhelming or tense is that you’re rarely made to move too quickly. There are areas where enemies will attack you as soon as you enter or you might have to run through a hazardous area to avoid the results of triggered traps, but you can always sees what’s up ahead well enough and can deal with the challenges one at a time. There are blind drops in Momodora due to some of its vertical areas, but nothing where you endanger yourself by doing so, and while there are cases where an enemy might be too close to a room entrance, for the most part you do have a grace period to figure out what the new challenge is before moving ahead to fight.
Momodora borrows from the Mega Man style of combat where enemies are dangerous to the touch and mostly have one set behavior that is meant to deny you forward progression. Enemies might do things like stand in place and throw deadly projectiles in an arc, move around a single platform to discourage jumping to it until they’re killed, fly towards you the moment they spot you, or open fire from afar. When enemies do start getting long range attacks that can even pass through walls, your gun options really start to show their different levels of usefulness when it comes to dealing with these little threats. The machine gun can whittle down a high health baddy if they’re close enough, but the Colt is great for heavy damage from afar but only if the shot is lined up right. They’re all as easy as just tapping a button to shoot in this sidescroller, but deeper into the game Isadora will face rooms where there are many enemies bunched together and the penalties for missing jumps end up being spikes or areas where enemies can easily gang up on her. The jumping is smooth and responsive so the platforming works well for both navigating these harder areas and dodging the more capable enemies you’ll find there.
Most of Momodora is about fighting back simple enemies and navigating around the areas safely, with only a final boss asking for more involved long term combat. The save point spacing perhaps fails Momodora a little here though as getting to the boss involves first going through a dangerous area and then fighting a multi-phase foe with deadly attacks, but at least there is healing before the fight and the boss follows patterns with tricks you can learn to overcome them. The closest thing to puzzles on offer are simpler things like hitting a boomerang switch, so it’s definitely an action platformer through and through, but there are a few collectibles and Easter eggs to find along your journey, some secrets just a bit off the beaten path. They do not really provide any benefit or influence the ending at all though, they’re just there as an optional task and for the occasional injection of quirky humor.
The Time Attack mode though is a more difficult version of the game and an addition that makes a fair bit of sense. The save point spacing already likely leads to a player learning a few tricks like which enemies can be run past, how to get around a certain area quickly, and what troubles lie ahead waiting to ambush them. What could be between 1 and 2 hours of action on your first run will be honed naturally through the save point spacing into something that could potentially reach the 18 minute default record set for clearing the game, although this mode also reduces you down to 3 hearts so it could just be thought of as the game’s hard mode instead, just with a ticking timer to add even more pressure to the affair.
THE VERDICT: While the Cave Story influence may be blatant when it comes to the art style and gameplay of Momodora, rdein’s first title shows a solid understanding of what makes an action platformer satisfying even when it’s relatively short. The weapons Isadora collects gives the player better options and a greater sense of power as they progress, but skill is still needed as the enemies and environment grow harder to overcome. The save point placing actually helps the player train up their skills without feeling too far apart save perhaps the final one being placed a bit early before the end section, but they help establish a sense of danger to the trials you face. Fair but challenging enemy spacing and hazard placement means Momodora rarely ever dips too far into being easy or hard, and while it is a simple overall experience in the end, the solid core design ensures it’s enjoyable for what it is.
And so, I give Momodora for PC…
A GOOD rating. Momodora has room to grow, but the potential of rdein is apparent even in their first work. Sure, much of what makes a superior game like Cave Story enjoyable is essentially here in a smaller form, but good level design can make even the simplest styles of play enjoyable, and the layouts really help Momodora stay enjoyable. New enemies and room layouts keep things moving along, your power increasing but still being matched well by what it takes to get around new enemy types. The final boss perhaps departs a bit from the rest of the design and feels a little odd for it, but it’s still not a bad fight once you begin to learn it in the same way you learned the areas up to it by finding out what works and what needs to be avoided. Smart pacing and element arranging helps Momodora leave an impression even if its secrets are a bit shallow and its story not as emotionally impactful as it could be if there was more time getting to know any of the players.
Momodora feels like a game that could have been better if it just kept going and growing. More of a good thing is a usually a good thing after all, but perhaps it was the right move to move onto making sequels instead of dwelling on a game that would probably still be hard to fully separate from its inspiration’s shadow.