I’m more and more in sympathy with RPGs that just accept that the backlog is absolutely overflowing. The Last Hour of an Epic TO THE MOON RPG has a particularly cheeky suggestion in this regard: just go straight to the final dungeon.
Neil, Eva, Roxie and Rob are all already maxed out (as far as the game is concerned) and there’s a fictitious 999-hour save to account for all that work. Someone has clearly been doing a hell of a lot of work while we’ve been playing all the other things.
Freebird Games have just released a free demo (which went live on Steam on 19th October). It’s a fully playable demo which serves as an introduction to a project with quite some narrative aspirations in its sights. Kan Gao has described Last Hour as the finale to the To the Moon series. That rather silly title is clearly being given a lot of weight.
An Endgame Party With Questionable Fashion Sense
The adventure takes us into a lighthouse-shaped dungeon with puzzles and bosses in the way of the party as they make their way up to the enigmatic figure at the top. That gives the fantasy scenario a very clear direction indeed: go through the various challenges of the tower and get to the confrontation that the whole of the imaginary adventure has been building up to. We arrive rather late in the day, when everyone’s already got their weapons in hand.
Combat is turn-based, with the four heroes each having their own ridiculously named skills. Eva has Corn Pop, Rob has Flowing Lotus, Neil has Take It To The Face and Roxie has the Minigun. At least one member of the party appears to have cracked the fantasy arms race.
The equipment screen in itself is worth a look. Eva is at level 99 and is wearing the Legendary Clog Helm (99 def, 50% Earth elemental bonus). Head, weapon, armour, offhand and shoes all have their own slots. Shoes clearly become even more sensible when you wear them on your head.
Other menus deal with abilities, talents and consumables. In the inventory screenshot a Purple Olive is restoring both HP and MP and the party’s resources are obviously visible in the same screen as the item selection.
The other menus provide a level of practicality to the rather absurd-looking outfits and snacks, though we still need a bit more detail on the extent of the character customization.
The setup is what I’m most interested in. Inheriting an established party would allow the game to move straight into situations which require a bit of thought about the tools you already have. There’s a real challenge in getting to know a group of ‘veterans’ as they hit their big moment.
Familiar Faces With Unfinished Business
The returning cast go to To the Moon, Finding Paradise and Impostor Factory with the familiar faces all under the influence of the antagonist up above. Freebird has also shared some concept art for the Colin and Sofia boss fight and a number of Faye designs, so the reunion is far more than just the four playable leads.
That reunion is intended to finish the series off. Gao has stated that Last Hour is meant to be the companion piece to Just a To the Moon Series Beach Episode and that he wants the overall story to be concise and impactful. The aim of this final episode is to bring the individual episodes back into line with the themes that have run through the series from the outset. There’s a very specific narrative reason for the fantasy costumes.
Perhaps the most interesting aspiration is that Gao also hopes Last Hour can act as someone’s first To the Moon game. In a developer response on Steam, he describes that as a potentially different but still achievable way to experience the series.
He also admits it would be a difficult thing to achieve. That leaves a rather interesting job on the finale then: how do you reward the audience who have followed these characters for so long, whilst at the same time giving the new audience a reason to care about them?
A Short Prelude Is Available Now
Gao puts the demo at about 15 minutes. The scenario was written specifically for the demo (separate from the main adventure), and Freebird intends to make it available as a launchable prelude within the full game. It’s a way of introducing the project’s feel without taking up any of the main campaign.
The demo is also a major production milestone for Freebird. Gao has specifically highlighted the pixel and character art as a big step forward and an earlier dev update did refer to the team establishing a new production base for future projects. The extensive amount of portrait art, equipment art and battle art all give that effort a real presence beyond just the names we know.
The Last Hour of an Epic TO THE MOON RPG is being developed by Freebird Games and published by Serenity Forge. The full release is due on PC (Steam) in 2027 and the free demo is available now.
