There’s no question that one of the earliest indie games I remember blowing me away was Stardew Valley, a farming sim RPG that wasn’t really even the sort of game I normally would get into, but somehow sucked up a surprising amount of my time. While series like Harvest Moon and some others had been around for quite a while, none had ever really demanded my attention. There was something about Stardew with its mix of things you could do, people you could interact with, and the town you could help revitalize that made the experience come together to be something special.

At first blush, Moonglow Bay absolutely feels like it’s headed in that same direction. Its voxel look is a bit refreshingly different, you get introduced to your character and their sad story which motivates you to go looking for answers, and the general goal of helping to revitalize a town that has been on the brink all feel compelling. Add in some of the consistently challenging but fair food prep mini games, plenty of people to talk to in order to get inspiration, and quite a bit of exploration both in town and on the water and you can see things coming together.

But then, a few days in, you begin to see some cracks in the cheery facade. Even as central to the game as fishing is, using your rod to pull in your catches feels lacking enough depth to make it satisfying. Worse, since most of the time what you need is simply volume to keep cranking out dishes to make money, using the net is almost always far quicker and easier when it comes to efficiency. Aside from just being in the daily grind, trying to catch fish and make money, I started to feel a bit aimless, not sure what I really needed to be doing to change things. Investing in the town and other things had some aesthetic benefits and increased my payouts a bit, but there wasn’t much keeping me on task or pointed in a specific direction, so I found myself floundering a bit. Finally, though this may just be me, the camera angle and field of view always felt a bit high and the view a bit tight, making it tougher to tell where I was going sometimes, and I’d get a bit lost.

The end result is a game that both feels like a warm hug in many respects, but that’s also frustrating and a bit inconsistent in others. Most of the elements for success feel like they’re present, but some refinements and better prioritizing of keeping things more fresh in the long run could go a long way. Granted, since Stardew Valley I haven’t played another sim RPG that has managed to capture that same lightning in a bottle mix of elements that made it so endearing, but despite what Moonglow Bay gets right you can still sense it isn’t at all in the same league.