Moon Diver is a hack n slash platformer developed by Feelplus and published by Square Enix. At first glance, it’s easy to see where this game gets inspiration from. Back in the days when arcade cabinets still had relevance and the SNES and Genesis were popular, there was a game called Strider by Capcom. Strider is the first thing that comes to mind the moment you see the game in motion. Concept-wise, the game is simple. It also has similarities to a game called Osman (Cannon Dancer in most of the world). Run through the stage while slashing through enemies until you find and defeat the stage boss. It’s not like they were trying to reinvent the wheel.

Now, in terms of the story, there are aspects we’ve seen a boatload of time over the years. Such as fighting to save an apocalyptic war-torn world. You fight against a being known as Faust. Faust has the power of Mephistopheles, which can save or destroy the world (guess which one he picks) After centuries of Faust’s evil, the world is nearing the end times. Humanity sends the Moon Divers to reclaim the planet before Faust’s plans come to fruition. To be honest, it’s clear that not just the gameplay is like Strider, but the story is too. Just replacing Faust with Grand Master Meio and Moon Diver with Strider would make both games’ stories mirror each other.

Now for the gameplay. This is where it puts some distance between itself and Strider in a few ways. For one, this game doesn’t have the same responsive level of speed. More often than not, you’ll find yourself having to stop and slash enemies a number of times. In Strider, you could just slash through most enemies without having to lose a step. But it does add a few things. First off, you have 3 stat bars HP, MP, and Pow. You can build each of these stats as you gain levels. These are self-explanatory but they’re health points, magic points, and power. Each level increase gives you 1 point that you can use for 1 of the 3 aforementioned stats. It goes without saying the more you level up, the easier the game gets. Another addition to the Strider and Osman formula is that you can use magic spells. These spells vary from attack, character buffs, and enemy debuffs. These actually prove to be really useful as just trying to get by with just hacking and slashing stops cutting it in the later levels of the game.

You can choose from four Moon Divers initially, the fifth is actually a dlc character. Each character grows his or her own stats differently. For example, one character is better at building MP while another could be better at building HP. Outside of that and physical appearance, the five characters aren’t too different from each other. In a way, I’m a little shocked there wasn’t more put into making the characters play a little differently from each other. But I guess the Stider/Osman formula can only be evolved but so far. Now there are twelve levels in all for the Story mode. The early levels are pretty short. But once you get to the later in the game, the levels get bigger complete with alternate paths. The highlight here is being able to play this from start to finish in 4-player coop. You can do this online or offline, which is a boon for those of us that still like playing with friends in the same room sometimes.

Besides the main Story mode, there are Score Attack Mode and Chain Kill mode. Score attack is actually pretty tough. It’s straightforward, just score and eliminate as many enemies as you can. The difficulty is in the fact that the level scrolls to the left. So you don’t have much time to plan strategy as the level just keeps pushing you forward. And let me tell you, it gets really tough, really fast. Chain Kill mode is literally all about combos. Just try to keep raising your combo chain while trying not to waste too much time between the chain. If too much time goes by between chains, your combo counter starts over. Unlike Story mode, however, Score Attack nor Chain Kill don’t allow you to play with others. In all honesty, it makes sense. Chain Kill mode would be way too easy with one extra player let alone a full group of four. And Score Attack can’t be played with a plural number of players properly given how it’s set up.

Overall, this is an average game. Not good, not bad. Playing with people definitely adds to the enjoyment. But then again, almost every game is better when you have people to play with. What would have helped make this game better was if the game had a faster pace like Stider and Osman. Who knows, maybe that aspect of the game had to be sacrificed in order for it to be a multiplayer game. In theory, playing games like Strider or Osman moving that fast while sharing a single screen would be tough since it would probably be easy to lose track of yourself. I guess it’s subjective which would the player rather have, speedy gameplay or multiplayer. In the end, as a game to play with friends, I’d recommend this. As a solo effort, it’s just a slower Osman or Strider game with a few tweaks.

You can still find this game on the PS3 version of PSN. A physical version of this was never made.

See our playthroughs here