Screenshot by Bonus Action
Over the past several years, the cozy farming sim genre has amassed countless new titles. These games have been cozy, comfortable, and familiar, but have largely stayed within the boundaries of what had come before. Moonlight Peaks challenges the farming sim genre as much as it courts it, including all the familiar elements that players love, but with refreshing new angles that make the game stand out amongst similar options. Deep narratives, thoughtful systems, and constant surprises turn what may have been a flat clone in vampire paint into something unique and incredible.
Moonlight Peaks draws attention with a cozy town dressed in goth-adjacent pastel colors. You take on the role of Dracula’s disobedient offspring, set on exploring the world and forging a new path. The town of Moonlight Peaks is filled with curiosities, from strange farm animals to magical plants that must be fed bugs to grow properly. Werewolves, witches, seers, and vampires call the town home, with newcomers regularly adding their own special talents to the community.
While Moonlight Peaks has a few hiccups, these quirks come from pushing boundaries, and it is exciting to see something so entirely new.
Key Details
- Developer: Little Chicken
- Publisher: Marvelous/XSEED
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PC via Steam
- Price: $34.99
- Early Access: No
- Review Copy Provided: Yes, for Nintendo Switch 2
A Story Driven By Characters
Right from the minute you arrive in town, Moonlight Peaks hammers home the importance of the NPCs. Orlock is passed out on your doorstep. Your uncle is living in the crypt next door. The town mayor and his brother are arguing about how disorganized things have become. There is a story here that sinks its teeth into your ankle like a rabid Blood Tomato.
Outside of Fields of Mistria, the depth of the characters and the importance of their involvement in the player’s own journey feel like something that has been missing from farming sims in recent years. It has become commonplace for NPCs to fill a trope instead of providing something to the story. This makes them nothing more than trophies to marry and place in your house.
Moonlight Peaks has taken each character present in the story and made them unique in a way that is fascinating and terrifying. The desire to get to know each person is fueled by strange mysteries, struggles, and secrets. Why is Orlock’s life a mess? Why does Luna live in the forest? Is Fiona ever going to smile? The character depth is compelling in a way that makes engaging with each story feel rewarding. No daily interactions feel like a chore. It’s incredible.
Additionally, it is the first cozy game I have played where there is a robust diversity in the age of romanceable characters. Younger options like Saga, Ludo, and Elvira appear in their early twenties, while Orlock, Fiona, Ridge, and a few surprise characters read as somewhere in their 30s to 50s. The fact that most of these characters are likely immortal helps a great deal.
However, this is the first cozy game I’ve played where you can romance and marry characters with grown children. This is an exciting change of pace, and one that I have greatly enjoyed. There is something wonderfully immersive about romancing characters that feel close to my own age. It’s immersive and makes me feel more connected with the narrative.
A Unique Take on Farming Mechanics
Moonlight Peaks wastes no time putting players to work. I was farming Blood Grapes on day one at Orlock’s request, and my garden became a colorful patchwork of fruits and veggies in no time. However, Moonlight Peaks doesn’t just throw bags of seeds at you and tell you to dig a hole.
After a few weeks of in-game time elapse, you will be introduced to magic crops. These bizarre plants require buckets of water to be dumped into their barrels, bugs to be fed to their sticky fingers, and magic water to be offered to keep the soil healthy.
Watering is done with magic spells cast from a wand, and crops can be extracted for Mana, sold, or cooked up into strange dishes.
Additionally, Moonlight Peaks prevents gardening fatigue by overlapping seasons on the vast majority of crops. This is a huge relief for anyone who gets worn out reseeding a whole garden every time the seasons change. While a select few crops are exclusive to their season, these are typically rare or high-value, making them worth the extra effort to plant and care for.
Incredible Pacing & Extras
When I first started playing Moonlight Peaks, I was nervous that it would suffer from Year 1 fatigue. That everything would unlock, the grind would kick in, and that moving forward would be done more out of a desire for cozy game grinding than exploration.
Boy, was I wrong. Moonlight Peaks is an enormous game that continues to add new content as relationships with NPCs deepen. Timed events dole out new areas, crafting tables, and cutscenes, while interactions with characters lead to new minigames, exploration opportunities, spells, and abilities.
This rewarding system keeps the gameplay loop fresh and prevents the numbness I can sometimes experience with Stardew Valley or older Story of Seasons titles. There is so much to do, all of it feels fun, but very little of it is required as a daily task. You can make bouquets, forage in the forest, cross-stitch, dig in caves, or visit shops.
It’s a wealth of options with no pressure, giving players the ability to really shape how they want to spend each day.
A Few Little Hiccups
A game as fleshed out as Moonlight Peaks isn’t without a few little issues. The first, on Switch 2, was a handful of performance problems. Occasionally, I would run into an issue where I would experience lag while inside buildings. Restarting always fixes it, but it still isn’t pleasant to run into.
Additionally, a lack of manual save and the absence of a mini-map are really hard to ignore while exploring. Saves only happen at the end of a day, and there is no way to create multiple saves for one playthrough. This means starting from scratch if you want to go back and do something differently.
The lack of a mini-map and quest markers is very frustrating, especially when exploring the forests. I get turned around and regularly have to open the map in the menu to remember where I am going.
Also, from a personal perspective, I am sad that the developer has decided not to add children and does not plan to add them in the future. In this game, a child mechanic would really shine, and it feels like a missed opportunity.
These little headaches haven’t stopped me from playing or wanting to play, but they are something that would be good to see fixed in a patch. The improvements would make an amazing game that much better.
Final Score – 8.5/10
Moonlight Peaks is an amazing farming sim with wonderful, rich writing, complex progression, and satisfying character interactions. It is a game that every cozy fan should play, and I could see it becoming a cozy gateway for players new to the genre. The character writing really makes everything about Moonlight Peaks shine.
While there are a few little things that would improve quality of life, I am so excited to keep playing and discovering everything Moonlight Peaks has to offer. It is exactly what the genre needs, and the care that went into its development shines through in every element of gameplay.
**Bonus Action was provided with a Nintendo Switch 2 code of Moonlight Peaks for the purpose of this review**
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