34 years ago, Konami released a game in Japan called GetsuFumaDen for the Nintendo Entertainment system and now, we finally have a sequel. With such an incredible gap between the first game and its follow-up, does the core of the series have a place in today’s gaming landscape?

The story of this game is a little different, in as it is connected to the games roguelike gameplay, you are going to experience parts of it, in a different order to other players. However, there is a basic story that is provided at the very start, which does an ok job of explaining why you are constantly diving into the lands of hell and beyond, over and over again. You are Getsu Fuma, the 27th leader of the Getsu clan and while known for true acts of heroism and incredible talent, you are not the only member of the clan. 1000 years after the events of the first game, the seal that kept Ryukotsuki at bay in hell has broken and with his escape, monsters and evil spirits are now invading the land and while attempting to stop them, your brother went missing. So, the goal is simple, re-establish the seal and find your missing brother, oh and don’t die while trying.

However, you will die and die often, because GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon is a brutal game at times, not in an unfair way, just with the level of challenge it provides. Each time you venture back into the lands of hell and beyond, everything has shifted, which as a roguelike means that you have to explore the lands over and over again. This is one of the things that I can either love or hate in any roguelike, if it is done well, then it feels natural and thankfully that it the case here. The first world is one that you will visit a lot and with each visit you will start to learn some of the patterns of how things are assembled, but even with the general layout being something you can learn, the enemy placement and the level of the enemies can vary, which should keep things fresh. By the time you start to breeze through the first and second worlds and start exploring the peaks of a mountain, shrouded in fog, exploration should become second nature and again, it is the enemies that are going to test you.

The enemies are the same in each region, the first is a lot of fallen warriors, while the second is Ravenous Demons and Triclop Heads. Each location will test your combat skills, as there are countless threats to be aware of and while the combat isn’t that deep, it can still cause you pain if you don’t take it seriously. Combat is broken up into two parts, your main attacks and then your secondary options and while the main is where you going to spend a lot of your time, the secondary offerings can help you turn the tide of any encounter. As far as main attacks go, you can carry two weapons and they range from katanas to clubs, and fans to twin daggers, no matter which you elect to take with you into battle, you can constantly be picking up new weapons as you go, you are not locked into a single weapon for your entire run. At any point, you can also swap to your secondary main weapon, so if the katana is not cutting it, pun intended, you can swap to a long-range weapon like the chain and while slower, it can keep you out of range of some of the enemy attacks. As for the secondary weapons, you can make use of them at anytime as well, and each weapon has a limit of uses, before it has to recharge, so while some like the bow might carry six shots, the explosives may only have three, because one shoots straight and the other can be dropped onto enemies below, their usefulness will vary, depending on where you are at.

The other aspect to take into consideration for all the combat, is that each weapon, be it main or secondary, has a damage level, along with other bonuses, so even picking up the same katana, might have slight differences in their perks. As you explore the worlds, there are portals that you can take to a safe zone, where you can upgrade the stats, letting you deal more damage and such, these upgrades require resources, that you can find while exploring, but you can also use the coins to buy different weapons as well. Before the start of each run and at the end of each world, you can also use some of your monster parts to upgrade your abilities, letting you have more health to start off with, or retain some of the items you have collected when you die and they are only some of the many skills you can unlock. Each level gives you more gains, but the cost grows higher and higher and that means you will need to constantly dive back in, even if you only want one or two skills upgraded. While you are actively attempting to push forward though, you can upgrade yourself by collecting souls, though the way in which you can upgrade the parts is a little weird. With the collection of your first soul, you can make use of it and upgrade your health, but if you want to upgrade the damage of your weapons, then you have to wait until you collect a second. Because you can only move along the upgrade path, as you collect more souls, so while the game only requires one soul to upgrade later options, the reality is that you need multiple in order to get there first and if you collect five without using any of them, it loops back around to the start.

The main reason that this game caught my attention, was due to the insane visual style, there really isn’t anything else like it around, sure there are countless cel-shaded titles, but nothing like this. While the specifics of the art style were not known to me at the time, with the release of the game I had to learn more about it, known as ukiyo-e in Japan, this is a style that is most associated with traditional Japanese drawings and even went so far as to be early inspirations for artists like Vincent Van Gogh. Within the style itself are countless sub-styles for the way that some characters are drawn, or backgrounds painted and that same impact can be felt here as well, no matter the stage or space you are on, if you stand still, or better yet take a screenshot, the game looks like a painting. While the characters themselves are all 3d, they do blend well enough, that they still look like they are part of the image, instead of disconnected from it, sadly though the backgrounds, whilst detailed, suffer from a perspective shift or rather the lack of a decent one, which does cause them to stand out.

There are also times when the game gets overloaded with visual noise, that is layered upon the top of the action, the best example of this is with the rain in the opening stage, that is so forceful, that it really takes your attention off the rest of the visuals. The same can be said of the fog or mist in the third world and while in that instance you can clear it away, until you do, it really puts a blemish on what otherwise would be a great image. The other thing is the lack of variety in the design of the enemies and those that support you in your quest, the support is probably more noticeable in that the person willing to help you out at the clan’s estate, has the same look and pose as those in the rest areas, the only difference is the colour of their clothes. They have the same pose and don’t move, making it something that comes across as cheap, even if they were slightly different poses, it wouldn’t be so bad, but without that it isn’t great. As for the enemy design, there is a lot more good than bad with it, but by the dozenth time you visit the first world, there is just no real visual wow from the enemies, even if they had different colours, it could be something more.

On the audio side of things, there isn’t any spoken dialogue, which could be seen as a negative in some games, but here it helps immerse you into the world and does pair well with the visual style. On the games musical front, the tracks are honestly easy to listen to and forget, by that I mean that you can just let it fade to the background and focus on the action, but if you take a moment to listen, it fades back in. The only thing I would caution with the music is that when you are at the clan’s estate, the track there seems very short and if you are going to level up your self and gear, before you venture out, you are going to hear the same score over and over again.

GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon is a game that is perhaps brimming with more visual style than gameplay substance, but if you are willing to commit time to learning the intricacies and taking the time to upgrade your character, there is a lot to enjoy. Restarting from the start after dying does suck, no matter the game, but here it feels more like a progression of your adventure, rather than a restart of it. If you are in the market for a game that will test you, but not punish you to much, then this is one to give some time too, I promise it is well worth it.