Moolander is about an alien in a flying saucer who must explore a hostile planet and replenish your civilization’s milk supply, as all of their technology apparently runs on milk. While I had initially assumed this would just be a goofy game that would make for a good chuckle or two, I was pleasantly surprised by a demo that showcased a surprisingly polished game with beautiful graphics, entertaining voice acting, and most importantly, fun gameplay.
The demo took me roughly 40 minutes, and during that time, I had a blast flying my saucer through various tunnels filled with spiky vines and bizarre enemies. I even unlocked several new abilities, including a milk shield, milk bullets (for shooting), and a milk sword (for a melee attack). The game is described as having “Metroidvania elements”, and this is likely due to the fact that the game resembles a 2D Metroidvania on the surface, while having fairly minimal exploration.
With that said, Moolander was a pretty fun game that fully embraced its goofiness without skimping on quality. As I mentioned before, the graphics are pretty nice, the variety of moves on offer was cool, and the voice acting and writing was appropriately over the top in a campy sort of way. Also, I decided to play Challenge Mode, as this was described as the best option for experienced Metroidvania players (though I was tempted to just go with Cheasy…), and the game was mildly difficult without being overly so.
The biggest annoyance came in the form of the cow boss, Berta, at the end of the demo. The battle involves you dropping “non-lethal” bombs on the cow so that you can capture it, but the fight is really tedious and boring. The cow can send out these shockwaves that knock back most of your bombs, leading to a drawn out fight that I really didn’t enjoy.
With that said, Moolander otherwise exceeded my expectations. And with an 88% on Steam, it seems most people agree that it’s a surprisingly good game (though someone did confirm the cow boss fights are all annoying and tedious, so…that’s a shame). In addition to Steam, the game appears to be available on XBox and PlayStation, but not Switch. The game costs $18.99, which seems a bit pricey, however, for the 6-10 hours of gameplay.
All screenshots taken by The Duck of Indeed; the health and milk meters are cut off due to strange laptop dimensions…