If you’ve ever played “Dark Souls” (or other similar FromSoftware titles), some elements of “Moonscars” will probably feel familiar. Granted, the story here is presented more overtly in comparison, but it’s a similarly surreal tale of a doomed world, madness, suffering, and so forth.
A warrior named Grey Irma is compelled to find an entity named “The Sculptor,” who acts as both her creator and possibly the reason for the world being thrown into so much chaos. It’s one of those types of stories where the protagonist doesn’t remember everything clearly, allies may be enemies, enemies may be allies, allies that may be enemies may actually be allies, and so on. Blood, viscera, the moon, maybe Irma is the real bad guy — if you’ve played these kinds of games before you know the drill.
That’s not to say the story in “Moonscars” is completely derivative, though. A particularly interesting wrinkle is the consistent theme of clay and molding. Some of the beings you encounter are made of clay (which itself may have used human bones as part of its chemical makeup), others are made of flesh, and some might just be a bit of both. Humans were supposedly using these clay vessels as surrogate selves, like a kind of temporary clone, but then things went wrong somehow.
Are these clay beings really monsters intentionally unleashed by the Sculptor? Did the vessels tire of being used as tools despite possessing a sense of self? Why does Irma really want to find the Sculptor, and does she even know?
It’s not the most fascinating story, but it’s enough to get me to keep pushing forward.
