Violet Saint has a vivid and graphic imagination. That’s the most prominent takeaway I can come up with after having a chance to play a bit of the developer’s grimdark fairytale action-adventure Moroi. This game is weird, and it only promises to get weirder, but underneath all that weirdness is also a menagerie of bizarre imagery, grisly combat, and puzzles that could mean life or death, whatever that means in this terrifying space.
A crime beyond comprehension
In Moroi, you play a mysterious amnesiac who wakes up in a ghastly prison. You have no name. You have no memories. Nothing but the clothes on your back. There’s something else… a wretched crime. It weighs on your soul and tells you that you must atone for it no matter what. Unfortunately, the prison doesn’t intend to let you do that easily.
Every cell in the prison was a new experience in a mix of body horror and puzzle-solving. In one corner of the prison was a witch toiling over a brew she says will show us something amazing, if only she had some salt. A monk-looking fellow in another cell will happily produce salt, if you give him some bone dust. In another was a sentient meat grinder that wants to mince some meat, no matter what it is (he’s there for mangling his chef), but it hates bones and will spit the grinded up dust. Finally, it just so happens there’s also a cannibal in another cell that’s lopped off his arm and is trying to eat himself for the ultimate irony. You might have guessed where this is going and, yes, the series of transactions that followed was immensely creepy, yet sensible.
Moroi isn’t one-note grimdark either. There is a very strong sense that wherever our unfortunate hero is trapped is an amorphous place that defies reason. It might very well be hell, and our main character might very well be there for some serious offenses. I battled through the prison and fought my way to what I thought might be freedom, but instead, it teleported me to a strange and different place: A vibrant garden where I took on the role of a doll boy hanging out with his doll mom and some very mean trees. As we talked to the trees who continually demanded we offer something of ourselves to them, it became very clear, very quickly that this happy and pretty place was not meant to last.
That’s one of the coolest parts of Moroi. This game’s environments, storytelling, and twisted inhabitants aren’t just senselessly violent and disgusting. It felt like a tapestry of vibrance and grime, telling a story of a tortured soul who may or may not deserve what they got, and the twisting and amorphous punishments that push their very drive to escape and atone.
But nothing is ever easy
We’ve touched a little bit on the puzzle-solving of Moroi, but there’s an action element there too. It wasn’t long before we got our hands on a sword, and after that, a chain gun, giving us a melee and ranged option. It plays a little bit like a twin-stick shooter for the fighting. Enemy soldiers and monsters came at me and I’d slash them up or shoot them, building up a meter which, once full, allowed me to execute an enemy. This is the only way I saw to get health back in combat, so dodging enemy attacks, striking when you won’t get hit back, and making sure to watch your execute meter felt critical to survive in this unforgiving world.
Our short time with Moroi also introduced us to a unique upgrade system. Eventually, we got some loose teeth for our inventory from a willing donor. For what reason? Why, to augment our weaponry. See, those teeth could be attached to our sword to make a teeth sword. And not only did that make it do more damage, but it also allowed us to break obstacles that would otherwise block our way. We could also detach the teeth at will and have a normal sword again. It seems we’ll find a few different implements that can augment our gear to open paths forward and dispatch foes more efficiently.
Down into the void
Moroi is one of the weirdest things I’ve played in a while, but I also can’t help but want to see where this journey goes. In our short time, we were introduced to a disgusting prison full of horribly tortured inmates, and the next we were in a verdant garden of greedy trees. In between were all sorts of small messages and teases of even darker journeys ahead. Moroi might be a bit morbid, but it also teases a mystery that begs to be unraveled. It feels like it will twist my insides further to find out more… but I still kind of want to see how it plays out.
This is based on an early PC build supplied by the publisher. Moroi is currently slated to come to PC.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Moroi is feeling like a stabby pyschological mix of fairytale & grimdark aesthetics
