Moss: The Forgotten Relic Review

First Impressions

Moss: The Forgotten Relic is a timeless story about heroism, bravery and connection.

Help Quill, a little mouse with a big taste for adventure rescue her Uncle and fulfil her destiny as the latest protector of the kingdom. Solve environmental puzzles in crumbling ruins, sprawling towers and ancient lands. Discover hidden paths and secrets. Learn the value of teamwork and companionship and uncover the history of an ancient land as you experience an epic tale that is full of heart.

Firstly, let’s be totally honest here, this game is both visually and musically beautiful. With every location, scene and character intricately detailed and full of personality. Considering this is a game from a relatively small team, it’s amazing to see and experience what they’ve crafted with this world. Already critically acclaimed with over 100 nominations and awards so far, this game deserves all the praise it’s been getting.

The Achievement list for Moss is both varied and challenging for those who are going for 1000G. Some achievements are easy, for example story related and collectable ones. However, be warned as there is one achievement for a ‘no deaths’ run of the whole game. So, there’s one I definitely won’t be unlocking personally.

Plot

The plot for Moss: The Forgotten Relic is classic tale of a little hero doing big things. It’s an isometric adventure game were you, the ‘Reader’ embark on a quest with a heroic little mouse called Quill. When her Uncle Argus disappears and a great foreshadowing evil returns, Quill must travel the forgotten parts of the land, solve puzzling puzzles, unearth hidden secrets and face ancient arcane enemies, all to find her Uncle and discover her destiny as a protector of the land. All along the way meeting new friends, allies and dangers in the forest, fallen ruins, sandy beaches, wintery mountain areas and the mythical land beyond.

The story unfolds as the Player reading chapters in a great book, Neverending Story style, telling the tale of Quill and the land she lives in. The story is read aloud throughout as you play by a female narrator (no A.I. generated voicework here thankfully), who also changes her tone and speech depending on what character she’s ‘voicing’. It’s a neat touch as, as a parent, I remember when my children was younger and I read them bedtime stories and changed my voice according to the character I was reading at the time.

This fantasy adventure sees Quill forging a bond with you as you travel together. Gradually showing her begin to trust you to support and protect her, as well as unlocking the way forward for you both.

Fun Fact: This game originally was a VR game split into 2 ‘Books’ that has been lovingly brought together as one reimagined and complete experience for the Xbox: Series S/X.

Gameplay Overview

Gameplay in Moss is a rather unique concept. You play as, and control Quill as she embarks on her quest. You control her with a mixture of the Left Stick and the standard layout of the buttons on the controller. So far, so normal for a game like this.

But also you play as a ‘blue spirit’ shall we say, overlooking Quill on her travels. This is actually the Player, or ‘Reader’ as the game calls you, accompanying Quill on her adventure and helping her along the way. This is achieved by the Player using Right Stick to control a little blue light that resides in a magical stone in Quill’s backpack and, upon, being moved onto a particular piece of the scenery, you can interact with it using a combination of RT and RS. This usually involved moving blocks and other objects either out of the way, or to create paths for Quill to continue progress. RT can also be used to interact directly with Quill to also heal her when she suffers damage from the environment or enemies.

Think of a mix of ‘Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons’ with a splash of ‘Max: The Curse Of Brotherhood‘ puzzle solving and control schemes and you’ll be on the right track here.

‘A’ allows Quill to jump (no double jump in this game though I’m afraid), with careful timing often needed before making a death-defying leap. With certain edges, Quill can clamber up (with a cute tuck and rollover animation when she pulls herself up), or shimmy across gaps using them. Then the ‘B’ button is used to drop from a ledge whilst hanging (no fall damage to see here), ‘B’ is also to dash and dodge incoming attacks from the varied enemies encountered. This is essential as you’ll often face mechanical bugs called ‘Forged’ which can be either destroyed with a few well-placed sword strikes or controlled by the Player and used to overcome puzzle sections. Usually with well-placed and convenient pressure switches in the area.

The ‘X’ button is to attack with the old ‘one-two-three sword combo’ made popular by games such as Zelda. Your sword attack is also used to smash objects, as well as to interact with certain objects such as levers and switches. Plenty of pottery, barrels and crates are around just waiting to be smashed open in each area. Smashed objects often contain glowing particles of energy known as ‘Relic Dust’ which can be used to not only unlock achievements, but to also open special doors to gain extra outfits for Quill.

Each area is laid out like a simple, often interconnected puzzle, requiring you to navigate both Quill and use the Guardian Spirit to help her traverse the path. Often over several areas that’ll require backtracking as you open up new parts to explore. It’s a clever symmetrical control dynamic that is simple, smooth and easy to use. You as the ‘Reader’ can move, push, pull and even rotate items within the game world that glow blue when you move your blue cursor over it. As mentioned earlier, you can even use this to control enemies that glow blue too deeper into the game.

However, at times were there’s a lot going on in the section you’re in it’s very easy to forget which control stick you need to use to do a particular move or part of a puzzle. In the heat of battle for example, it’s all too easy to forget yourself and move Quill INTO harm’s way, when you really meant to use your light to rotate a column or something. Often leading to frustrating deaths. It’s like the classic ‘rub your belly while patting your head’ trick. Some people can easily do it, whilst a lot of people including myself have to stop and think which hand is doing what sometimes.

Fragments Of Fate are this games’ primary item to collect. And can be found as scrolls, either on the main path as you progress, or tucked away hidden in short alternative routes.

The path between locations is often very liner, and if you wander too far you will almost certainly hit an invisible wall. Also, the camera is fixed throughout Quills journey, which can often lead to some fiddly segments of platforming and traversal were you’re not quite able to line up a jump to a platform, not to mention getting stuck behind scenery. However, if Quill disappears behind something, her outline will be shown allowing you to get her back on track easily enough.

The musical score for Moss is by the acclaimed award-winning American film composter Jason Graves. Who has also worked on other musical soundtracks for games such as Dead Space, Until Dawn, Evolve and Alpha Protocol. Along with his work on TV and films too. His music for this title fits the aesthetic perfectly in my opinion, with plenty of haunting melodies, rising orchestral and upbeat song lyrics to truly immerse you in the world.

Presentation

Each location in Moss: The Forgotten Relic is amazingly detailed and feels ‘alive’ with leaves falling, branches swaying the breeze, mystically powered stones floating mid-air and strange creatures everywhere. Quill can leave tiny footprints in the sand and cut grass steams with her sword swing. Little touches like this really make a game more immersive for me. There’s no in game dialogue as such between characters, the voicework is handled by the aforementioned narrator within game cutscenes. This in my opinion works well to keep the feel of a story coming to life as it’s being read.

Quill is brilliantly animated, with her having some little quirks and mannerisms that bring her more to life. She will even directly look and attempt to interact with you as the Player if you let her stand idle for too long, evening going as far as to sometimes point in the direction you should be going. Little touches like these, make her seem more than just a character you’re controlling, and more like a companion on this quest.

Enemies are varied, starting off simple with mechanical bugs before moving onto larger creatures. The boss battles you experience also are suitably epic in scale and each encounter requires different tactics to defeat them.

The Bottom Line

To be honest, I went into playing Moss: The Forgotten Relic just to play for a couple hours to write this review. However, I found myself continuing to play even after I had everything I needed to finish. There’s something about the world, or maybe it’s how lifelike and adorable Quill is that makes you want to keep playing and seeing what’s in the next section. The game is brilliantly paced and the difficulty curve feels just right, as the sections adds new puzzles, enemies and challenges rather organically as you progress through them.

At the time of writing this review, I had only finished Book I of the game, so roughly fifty percent through the whole adventure but I thoroughly intend to keep playing to see the end of the tale.

With this title being only the quite random price of £16.74 on the Xbox Store at the time of writing, there’s definitely a good few hours of epic gaming goodness to be had here if this genre is your thing. Hardly ground-breaking, but with enough neat touches and unique ideas to keep you playing and seeing the story though to the very end. Well recommended.