Stories of Bethem: Full Moon is a 2D RPG similar to old Zelda games. You play as a young boy named Khoma on a quest to save his father who is cursed by the Blue Witch. At first glance, the game seems to be a charming title with a lot to potentially offer. However, I learned quickly that this was not the case.
The story itself is one that is used too often, but can be engaging when done right. Unfortunately, there is nothing special about the way that it is presented in Stories of Bethem. Most of the characters are forgettable and the narrative itself is unimaginative. After Khoma’s father is cursed by the Blue Witch, he ventures to the Red Witch for help as she is the only one that can break the spell. That’s about the extent of the story as nothing really interesting happens.
Exploration is a cornerstone in Stories of Bethem, and that is both a strength and a weakness. In short sittings, exploring the world can be fun. Walking through different areas to admire the visuals is relaxing. When navigating a dungeon, however, the exploration becomes tedious. Dungeons, and some other areas of the game as well, require enormous amounts of backtracking to complete. So much so that it severely impacted how much fun I was having with the game.
Near the beginning of the game, puzzles basically only consist of moving a balloon into a fire or pushing boulders like in Pokémon and this slows down gameplay tremendously. Puzzles by nature need to be engaging and fun because there are many times where players will need to just sit back and stop playing to try and figure out a solution. In Stories of Bethem’s case, I just wanted to stop playing altogether. As you progress, the puzzles thankfully do get a bit better with more variety to them. There are fun and challenging puzzles to be found, provided you get that far into the game.
Like its puzzles, I have mixed feelings about Stories of Bethem’s combat. To start off, you are given a magical bracelet that lets Khoma cast spells to attack monsters. You do not get a melee weapon, which I believe would have helped immensely. Combat usually becomes a game of cat and mouse where I chase a monster aimlessly and hope that my attacks don’t miss before I run away to dodge their attacks as well. If I was stuck in a room with several different enemies who were always in motion, this “strategy” was the best course of action. While you get more advanced spells later in the game, which are helpful, they don’t drastically change the combat all that much.
Its saving grace is that the further you get in the game, the better it gets. It’s not fantastic, but it does actually become fun if you stick around long enough. Once I made it to Central City, the world opened up and I actually found myself enjoying some of the game. I could travel to more areas and really get a feel for Stories of Bethem.
This enjoyment was cut short when I encountered another problem, a man blocking my way in Central City. Not by design of the game, but because I happened to leave a house when an NPC just so happened to walk in front of the entryway. I’m not sure if it was a glitch, but the NPC, who had previously been walking about, would not move from his position in front of the house, and there was no way to get around him. Essentially, I was stuck. After ten minutes I had to exit the game and load an old save. While this is a very specific example that people may not encounter, it is little issues like this that add up to make playing a frustrating experience at times.
As much as it may sound like I think the game is terrible, that’s not the case. It’s just painfully average. The mechanics are solid, although not innovative. The story is competent, but not incredible. There are many aspects of the game that are just decent or good, and not necessarily great. The art style and nostalgia you get from playing are probably the best qualities about the game. Fans of Game Boy era RPGs will enjoy Stories of Bethem the most.
Summary
Stories of Bethem: Full Moon has the looks of a classic Zelda game, but unfortunately, it falls quite short of being just as fun. The entire game feels rather uninspired. Stories of Bethem never takes any risks. Instead, it seems content to rehash old mechanics. You are thrown into a world that never really becomes interesting, partly because most have played similar games done much better.
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.