As Will you successfully defeated all the otherworldly gates situated right outside the small town of Rynoka in the game Moonlighter. However, just as the curtain was going to fall on a happy ending you and many of the other residents got warped to another reality and the town of Tresna. This is where your story resumes in Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault. You’ll be tasked once again with running a store in town as well as adventuring into other worlds to gain items to sell in your store.
There is one thing in Tresna that wasn’t there in Rynoka and that is a mysterious item that destroys the town square called “The Endless Vault”. It will talk to you and give you your main quest line, sort of. You see it's going to give you monetary goals that you have to achieve and then it will open and gift you an item. The item will not be for your character, but for someone else in town. They will then use that item to improve their abilities. So for example when an item for the blacksmith comes out he can do more for the range of weapons you’ll get to use.
When adventuring you’ll eventually have access to 3 different locations, and each will have a secondary version once you’ve beaten the first one’s boss. You get to choose what location you’re headed to from the warp gate and you’ll then be given choices after completing each section of that location. Some locations will have treasure boxes that have relics that you’ll turn around and sell, and other locations will have boosts that will add effects to your attacks (main, special, gun), or some other aspect of your current adventure. You will be able to warp back at anytime during an adventure, but if you don’t survive the adventure you’ll simply be taken back to town and relics will be “damaged” which of course will hurt the value you’re trying to get when you put them up for sale.
One other thing that needs to be talked about is the backpack mechanic. You’re going to have a set number of spots in your backpack, don’t worry every relic only takes one spot, however some of the relics have effects that may affect other relics. For example, some relics, once placed, will set another relic on fire, and destroy said relic. There are other relics that sacrifice themselves to protect or change other relics. You will have the chance, later in the game, to expand your backpack so that you can sell more relics during your day running the shop.
Speaking of the shop, you’re going to start with a small shop that you’re going to have to restock the relic pedestals repeatedly and quickly in order to make money. You’re also going to be setting the price on EVERY relic, at least the first time you place it up for sale. One of the mechanics of the shop is that the relics have a cheap price, a good price, a terrible price, and a perfect price. You’re going to have to either cheat and use a wiki, or you’re going to have to attempt to guess the price either by large increments or tiny increments.
I’m not going to lie, there is a ton of rinse and repeat in this game. There are quite a few enemies I really hated having to deal with. There were also locations that I greatly preferred over others. The thing is, though, I enjoyed this game from start to almost finish. I say that because that monetary requirement’s difficulty ramped up in an insane way for the last 2 goals. That change definitely took a ton of wind out of my sails, but at the end of the day I’m glad that I played the game, and that I saw it out to the very end.