A Maze Full of Covens & Curios: A Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society Review

By J.D. Kelly

​Player(s): 1
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC (via Steam)

Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society is a new dungeon crawler RPG from Nippon Ichi Software, and the spiritual successor to their 2016 game Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk. In the game you play as the spirit possessing the Laterne de Fantasmagorie AKA Fantie. Your job is to lead a party of puppet soldiers through the titular labyrinth to find the mystical Curios d’Art for your summoner Eureka de Soleil whose parents must have foreseen that she would have a career finding things.

The majority of gameplay takes place in the labyrinth as you navigate its twists and turns, deal with the monsters residing in its depths, and take its treasures for your own. All of the floors of the labyrinth have a set layout that is mapped for you as you explore. This allows you take to your time over multiple trips without worrying about the map changing up. Over time you gain special abilities called "Fantiebilities" that allow you to do things like traversing the cursed mud without taking damage, retreat from anywhere in labyrinth at the cost of some of the mana you have collected, or my favorite, break down the walls of the labyrinth. I love destroying walls to find new paths and treasures hidden behind them. Danger also lurks in these corridors though, and you’ll find no shortage of monster roaming the place.

Out of battle, monsters are represented by giant floating eyeballs and colliding with one will trigger a battle. Regular enemies appear as red eyeballs, purple eyeballs are super strong enemies, and certain events will trigger boss fights as well. Battles are standard turn-based battles but with the possibility of a much larger party than you might be used to. Instead of having slots for individual characters, your party has slots for Covens. Basic Covens contain one slot for a puppet soldier but more advanced Covens have slots for up to three puppet soldiers on the front line and up to five as support. Combine this with character creation that gives you multiple style and color options for the available characters classes and the possibilities are almost limitless. Covens grow stronger along with the characters and gain new abilities to use in combat.

Back to the combat itself, it is serviceable, but not very stylish. It’s mostly static images of the monsters with little in the way of animation. Damage types for your attacks, and which ones the monsters have weaknesses or resistances to, can be difficult to follow because your basic attacks have their damage type represented by little squares on the character portraits in the HUD. This means for the first 20 hours or so I found myself just mashing the attack command hoping for crits and good damage. I hate to compare it to a different game but playing Persona 5 Royal at the same time with its easily read menus that had big symbols for damage types and let you know which ones the enemies were weak against leave this game’s options feeling lacking.

This ultimately led to a sense of monotony in battle for me that was helped by their brevity in all but the boss battles. Once you get high enough level, even the strongest monsters only take a turn or two of every Coven attacking them before they fall. Additionally, the battle speed is an adjustable option and increasing it made things much more enjoyable for me. Sadly there are still fights that drag on for far too long. These were when I encountered a very powerful enemy, or group of enemies, that I knew I couldn’t defeat. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, it was impossible to escape these battles so I just had to fight until the party finally died and got sent back to the surface.

Speaking of the surface, that’s where the rest of the gameplay takes place. In between journeys into the labyrinth, you have time to create new puppet soldiers, buy and sell items, improve your gear, and take on other small requests. This all allows you to tweak your puppet soldiers’ stats to a great degree. If you love squeezing every possible bonus you can, you’ll probably love all these options. After major events there are cutscenes called "Witch’s Reports" that advance the story of Eureka and the search for the Curios. These scenes are done in visual novel style with voice acting available in both English and Japanese. These come off as a bit too static, with limited animation mostly given to characters mouths, but only on occasion. They also drag on both before getting to the point, and then usually afterwards as well leaving me waiting for ten minutes to learn that yes, I have received a new ability that lets me access an area of the labyrinth I couldn’t reach before. I understand the need to set up plot points for later on in the story, but this just breaks up the flow of the gameplay loop too much for me.

On the other hand, the art of the game is good. I don’t think the style is going to wow anyone but it gets the job done. As I mentioned before, the enemy design is excellent with a variety of things like giant bugs, living statues, and giant king dog heads. I never saw one that stuck out as not belonging amongst its peers. This also applies to the main characters as well. The Puppet soldiers are all nice and distinct. I haven’t played too many of NIS’s other RPGs, but the designs seem familiar at least in overall aesthetic. I just wish there more color options available for them.  The music of the game is similar. It's mostly used to set the scene, but when you do remember it’s there, it is very nice to listen to.

In conclusion, Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society is a good game let down by pacing issues in both its gameplay and its storytelling. I have no doubt that this game will find a dedicated fanbase and if you’re looking for a new dungeon crawler with that NIS flavor, this may be the game for you, but I don’t think I’ll remember them after I stop playing.

For More Information on Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society:
​https://nisamerica.com/labyrinth-of-galleria/

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Story: C
Gameplay: C
Graphics: B
Sound: C
Value: B

OVERALL RATING: C

Pros:
+ Cool exploration and abilities that change up how you traverse the labyrinth. 
+ Great enemy design.
+ Lots of options for customization and getting all the bonuses for those that want it.
+ Battles tends to be on the shorter side, negating some of the tedium of the grind.

Cons:
- Short battles aside, hopeless battles can drag on.
- Cutscenes are overly long.
- Functional, but not really stylish.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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