Have you played...? Minoria
By now you know I love indie games, but I have even more consideration when they’re made by my fellow Brazilian compatriots. Brazil isn’t known as a big game making country, but we do have some gems here. I wouldn’t call Minoria a gem, but it’s a nice game overall.
Perhaps you’ve already heard of the Momodora franchise, a series of well-regarded platofrm/metroidvania titles, of which the most famous is probably Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (I’ll call it RUtM from now on). I guess we could call Minoria a spinoff of the Momodora series: it’s also a metroidvania, takes place in the same universe (I think?) and shares many of the same themes, such as religion, nature, shamanism and a cute priestess nun protagonist.
The story is not the game’s strong suit, but it serves as a motivation for the action. The game follows two nuns, Sister Semilla, the protagonist, and her companion, Sister Fran, sent to the Kingdom of Ramezia to rescue its princesses who were kidnapped by witches. As the story progresses and witches are exterminated, Fran starts to question the Church and whether witches are really evil. I’m pretty sure the parallels between the game’s Church and the real world’s Roman Catholic Church are not mere coincidences.
I remember the first impression I had when starting the game was how beautiful it looked. The graphics are not ground breaking or complex, but the pretty scenarios and the 3D cel-shaded look for the characters left a lasting impression on me. The visuals feel like a modern animation, and the characters look very charming and anime-like. All animations are smooth and well executed.
It’s a big departure from the previous Momodora games, which were all 2D with a pixelated, old-school style. Don’t get me wrong, I love the older games’ graphics and think they’re beautiful, especially RUtM which had amazing graphics and animation, but Minoria did surprise me positively with it’s 3D graphics.
Of course, since this is an action game, being pretty doesn’t matter if it doesn’t play well. Thankfully that’s not the case of Minoria, which has tight and responsive controls. Controlling Sister Semilla feels great. You can attack, jump, dodge, equip incenses that let you use magical attacks and improve stats, and also parry. If you parry an enemy’s attack at the right instant, you’ll counter-attack automatically with a cool and powerful attack.
However, despite controls being tight, battles themselves are very repetitive and I feel that’s one of the weak points of the game. In a battle you basically attack an enemy with your weapon, dodge or parry when they attack and repeat until they die. The healing incense is also useful and you’ll need to heal sometimes during a fight, but that’s pretty much it. You can find some different weapons, but they are all basically the same, with slight differences in animation. You also find incenses with offensive magic, but they were almost useless - melee attacks are much more effective.
Then there are the bosses, of which there’s only a handful. They’re more interesting and challenging fights, but even those boil down to the same pattern of attacking, dodging, healing and repeating. There’s not much strategy to it and they’re easy when you realize it’s not that hard to dodge their attacks.
Another weak point is that the world feels small, especially when compared to RUtM. There are a few different areas with very distinct and beautiful looks, but the progression felt quite linear for a metroidvania game. In Minoria, you gain basically 2 new abilities that open new places to explore; most of the rest of the world is gated by locked doors, which doesn’t make for very interesting progression or level design.
It’s been a while since I played RUtM so my memory might be deceiving me, but I feel that was a much bigger game in terms of length, abilities and overall scope. It felt more vibrant and alive I guess: it had more interesting power-ups - I remember you could turn into a cat, which is always neat - and also had more interesting and varied bosses (I’m sure everyone that played it remembers the big-boobed giant lady).
In conclusion, Minoria is not a bad game and I think if it was a stand-alone title, it would be mostly well-received. However, it’s impossible not to compare it to its predecessor, and Minoria falls short of it in most aspects. I’d definitely recommend Reverie Under the Moonlight over this for anyone.
Minoria felt like the developer was experimenting how Momodora would be as a 2.5D game and what the reception would be. As much as I like the graphics and characters, the repetitiveness and small scope of the game hold it back. I’d give it a 6.5 out of 10. Although if you’re a fan of metroidvanias, I think you’ll still have a good time with this one. It can be beat in around 5 hours, so it’s a short investment of time.
Misc
The last entry in the series, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell ⤴, released at the beginning of 2024, seems very promising, and I hope to play it sometime this year. It won the award for best Brazilian game at the BIG Festival of 2024 ⤴.
Details card
- Name: Minoria
- Genre: Metroidvania
- Developer: rdein / Bomb Service ⤴
- Year: 2019
- Available on Steam ⤴, GOG ⤴, Playstation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch