Review Lunar Axe – Xbox series S/X review

São Luís, a small island in northeast Brazil, is best known for its folklore about a giant enchanted serpent that purportedly resides in the underground galleries of downtown. According to the myth, different parts of the reptile are believed to be located in various areas of the island’s center. Legend has it that when the head and tail of the serpent finally meet, the island will be doomed and destined to sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Brazilian folklore

Brazilian game developer Ops Game Studio brings us a story based on this folklore with their newest game, Lunar Axe. You play as a silent, unknown protagonist who becomes trapped inside the ruins of a collapsed building after a giant earthquake. As you progress, a ghost appears, and without hesitation, you decide to follow this entity, who eventually explains why he is haunting this house and reveals the story behind his death. He sends you on a quest to find pieces of an axe to save the city from a lurking disaster beneath. Although the story is short, it offers a fun experience. Throughout the game, you can discover hidden wooden objects that provide extra background information about the myth and the island Lunar Axe is based on. These discoveries are both entertaining and informative to read.

Fun but not to hard

The puzzles in Lunar Axe are not very difficult, and even a newcomer to the genre can easily solve them without too much effort. They vary from finding items and combining them to puzzles that allow you to solve a book where items mentioned in the story are misplaced throughout the page. There is even a typical music puzzle (which I personally dislike because I’m very terrible with those). In addition to these, you also have hidden object types where it’s your job to search for the items listed at the bottom of the screen. So to speak, there is a nice variety to keep this short game interesting.

Hand-drawn

To enhance the enjoyable puzzle experience, Lunar Axe comes with beautiful hand-drawn scenery. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought some of these scenes could have been part of a Van Gogh painting. Lunar Axe’s scenery takes you through old abandoned houses, churches, and the whole sewer system where the legendary serpent should be. To top it off, the music adds to the nice atmosphere the game has to offer.

Once you have finished the game once, you can opt to play through it once more on a harder difficulty setting. However, apart from the end puzzle, I didn’t feel there was a significant difference. It could have been improved if there were some added puzzles or something.