Beaten: Moss Book II (PSVR)

 It’s the twilight of support for Sony’s PSVR platform, as PSVR2 is on the way and it’s not backward compatible. That leaves the PSVR platform through PS4 as its own world, so I’ve recently taken the ol’ headset out of storage for something special: Moss Book II. 

Moss Book I was amazing but short. As a proof of concept, it worked on every level and had a great ending, but the wait for Book II has been despairingly long.

Fortunately, Miss Book II picks up right after the end of Book I and from there it’s off to the races, expanding the lore, introducing new characters, and over the course of the game adding weapons to your cute mouse hero Quill's arsenal.

Controls are the same as Book I, with the player moving Quill around, jumping and attacking, pulling switches, and the like. Concurrently the player controls The Reader, able to move objects in the environment and even heal Quill. It might sound like a lot going on control-wise but it works until it doesn’t, such as when Quill is too far back or near the side of the screen. 

There are multiple sections of the world to explore after one arrives at the central hub castle. Each has its own challenges, from light-difficulty puzzle rooms to combat areas where Quill is sealed in until a certain number of enemies are defeated. There are also scrolls to collect along the way and figuring out how to get to them is one of the most challenging aspects of the game.

The new weapons are a real treat. One is a sharp disc boomerang thing that when thrown does damage and returns to the player. The other is simply a hammer, and by the time the player finds it, they've already passed lots of things that need hammered. Best yet, each weapon has a special function that can be charged up and used for other effects. Charging up the sword, for example, powers up a dash move that allows Quill to jump across platforms, opening up more of the world for exploration.

Using the weapons to fight as well as solve puzzles is a great design choice, keeping the inventory simple and easy to navigate. There are other outfits Quill picks up as well, but I could see no difference in their use, so I assume that they are simply a cosmetic choice.

I'll wrap this up by saying that Moss Book II is everything a sequel should be, but once you beat it, that feeling comes back that the game still could have been longer and more complex. It's so good one wants to see a full, all-out 100 hour RPG based around the kind of gameplay as Moss. On the other hand, Moss Book II never wears out its welcome and is such a complete package that any regrets about its length are just a compliment to how much fun (and how totally cute) the game is.