Moonlight Peaks was provided by XSEED Games for review. Thank you!
Moonlight Peaks continues to build on the massive trend in the farming-sim genre. For someone who enjoys a little murder in his video games, I’m surprised by how much I’ve been liking farming simulators lately. Between Coral Islands, Tales of Seikyu, Stardew Valley, Fields of Mistria, and Starsand Island, I have been gorging myself. Moonlight Peaks might not feel like it does much to stand out initially, but the setting sets itself apart from its rivals. It’s not revolutionary by any means, but it might just be what you are looking for if you want a refreshing change of scenery from the usual setting.
The setting of Moonlight Peaks is by far the greatest draw the game has, and it comes with a surprisingly intriguing story. You play as a small vampire lass who has run away from home due to your annoying and overbearing father, retreating to a small, old family home near the village of Moonlight Peaks. I got a little bit of Serana family dynamic vibes from the Dawnguard DLC in Skyrim, although this involves less messed-up vampire lore. Upon arriving and meeting up with your eccentric uncle (who is now permanently a bat), the classic gameplay loop unfolds.
With nights spent up exploring the countryside outside the spacious village, the setting really makes this farming sim stand out. The game favors a chibi-esque visual palette for character sprites, which might not be my preferred style, but the NPCs blend well with the cozy surroundings. This is coupled with some lovely music and sound design, and I rather enjoyed myself, watering crops to owls hooting in the background.
I also rather enjoy the characters. There is a wide range of NPCs to interact with and befriend, and Moonlight Peaks does a great job of making them feel real. The dialogue is pretty funny, and the characters range from being wonderful to talk to to ones you want to punch repeatedly in the face with a brick. Looking at you, Noel. The writing and characters might not be on the level of Fields of Mistria, but they are above average for the farming sim genre.
Moonlight Peaks feels like a jack of all trades within the farming sim genre, as far as the core gameplay goes. If you have played any farming sim in recent years, the classic gameplay loop tends to stay the same. There is always a home village with a collection of characters to befriend, do odd jobs for, and often romance. Farming is usually the main focus, but other hard-labor jobs are part of the package, such as crafting, fishing, mining, and some combat in mines.
What matters is that things are done right, and Midnight Peaks has a good grasp of the fundamentals. The stamina and time management were fairly well done, as it never felt like I was being rushed, and I did not run out of energy after chopping four trees. Being a vampire is probably part of the latter, which is nice for lore design. All the other mechanics do their job nicely enough with the usual minigames.
Some aspects of Moonlight Peaks are a little old-fashioned in today’s market, though. It has my hated mechanic of the game saving only when you go to sleep at the end of the night, which can be annoying. Coupled with the slow movement and lack of a jump button, it can feel slow just exploring the map. This is a pretty large world after all, so things can feel a little sluggish. You also cannot run, which is an odd design decision. The movement is resolved as you unlock more spells, but the early game can be a slog.
I also ran into a few bugs (not the cute kind). Occasionally, my little vampire person got stuck, forcing me to reload my progress. Twice, I had a full crash, forcing me to reboot the Deck. While none of these are dealbreakers, they are things to take into account. Also, expect a lot of loading screens. Moonlight Peaks has loads of them, and they can take a while. It might not be Starfield level, but it was something I noticed the more I played.
Moonlight Peaks is Verified on Steam, with ProtonDB holding a Gold rating. Overall, the game plays fairly well on the Steam Deck, although the lack of options means it is not as smooth sailing as I would like.
The good news is that the game has full controller support out of the box and that it works great. The bad news is the lack of options for managing performance, so it gives us little room to work with. Fortunately, the game is enjoyable enough on the Deck.
Moonlight Peaks will feel a little rough around the edges. Hopefully, the dev team can work on the optimization in upcoming patches, because the game will eat up a lot of power. Even with the TDP uncapped, I sometimes found the game struggled to hit 60FPS. I recommend keeping a 50hz refresh rate to smooth out the framerate and improve the battery life, as this is the best balance to go with. There is no way around the tiny text size, however. With no UI scaling options, some dialogue and interface text will be difficult to read on the Deck.
I kept all the settings at default, as I found that dropping the resolution scale did not help much with performance. I also kept the TDP uncapped for the best experience and saw an average power draw of 11 watts. This gave me between 4 and 5 hours on the Steam Deck OLED, which is pretty good. I did try to lower TDP settings, but I found the game suffered horrible input lag past a certain point. For peace of mind, just leave the TDP uncapped.
Moonlight Peaks is currently available in English, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese, including full subtitles and achievements.
The game comes with some accessibility options, including toggling vsync, controller vibration, interaction labels, and text animation. You can also change keybinds, lock framerate, and render scale in the graphics menu. Unfortunately, this is all we get.
In a saturated market, it is hard to stand out. However, Moonlight Peaks has a lot of things going for it. I love the exploration and atmosphere, and the worldbuilding is impressive! The core guts of the game are solid enough while offering some nice twists with the spells and unlocks, and the characters are well designed with some great dialogue.
Slow movement, a couple of archaic design choices, and a lack of UI scaling are only minor pitfalls. If you like farming sims, Moonlight Peaks is up there with the heavy hitters.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Moonlight Peaks oozes charm with its magical world, great characters, and solid farming sim fundamentals, although it is a little old fashioned. It runs well on the Steam Deck.
