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One of These Days, Alice...

Hola, lunatics and lunachicas.

I've sometimes found that a game, when faced with a self-imposed challenge to continually raise the stakes with its narrative, usually settles on one place in particular that's sort of in the local vicinity but really not. That would be our only natural satellite worth talking about: the Moon.

The Moon. Luna. Selene. Ol' Mooney McMoonstein. It has many names, but we can all agree that it's a very big rock that just kind of floats there. Taunting us. What plans does it have for us? Why doesn't it do anything?

Anyway, there's a few games that will, at some point during their story, take a sojourn to the moon so the protagonist can do moon things for a while. It's not particularly common to have a moon mission apropos of nothing, and it's usually limited to the sci-fi and fantasy settings where such journeys are possible. Still, though, it always makes an impression.

(To keep things focused, I'm only listing games that briefly visit the Moon for perhaps one mission or boss or sidequest. There's just way too many moon lander sims and such to include them all.)

List items

  • I'll just get this out of the way, since it's the first thing everyone invariably thinks of when you talk about moon stages. I'm onto you, comment people and your ideas.

  • The inspiration for this list, Destiny lets you visit the moon. For verisimilitude, it looks like a gray desert with regular Earth gravity and Earth structures. Just like the fake moonlandings! Wake up, sheeple! Chemtrails! That wizard came from the grassy knoll!

  • Mass Effect lets you visit the Earth system in each game, but there's not a whole lot you can do there. Humanity's already scanned, surmised and strip-mined everything on the local planets by Shepard's era. Still, there's one memorable mission on the moon in the first Mass Effect that lets you decide Shepard's "prestige class". Coincidentally, given that this list was inspired by a Bungie game, the mission involves fighting an AI that's being a dick.

  • Destiny's not the only new game this year with a moon mission, but from all accounts the one in Wolfenstein is a lot more insane and fun. I might have to track this game down at some point.

  • The only good Super Scope game (besides its sequel), Battle Clash ends with a climactic battle in a Luna base after climbing the immense Tower of Babel into high orbit. Japan called this game Space Bazooka, if you can believe that. Why change it?

  • Whether it's the moon or a lesser planetoid, the battle with Raphael Raven may well have been the inspiration for the Super Mario Galaxy games. Definitely something vertiginous about running around that rock.

  • Asura meets his old mentor Augus for a climactic battle at the only venue where they can fight in peace. That a duel on the moon isn't nearly the weirdest part of that fight, let alone the whole game, speaks to Asura's Wrath's dedication to absurd spectacle.

  • Final Fantasy IV famously heads to the moon for its final act, as the secrets behind the Lunarians come to the forefront and an ancient enemy behind everything needs dealing with. The moon is also where Bahamut lives, for some reason. It's probably like a summer home.

  • It's kind of hard to miss the moon in this game. Its ever-present rictus grin in the sky makes for an intimidating time whenever you're on Termina's overworld. It's a lot more pleasant when you get up there though. Well, aside from the eldritch horror lurking within the titular facewear.

  • Much of Infinite Undiscovery's plot revolves around the moon and the blessings it brings. Turns out, these "blessed" brands are nothing more than a means for the deity living on the moon to control humanity remotely. It's partly why the party is running around severing all the chains holding the moon in place. This... it's a weird game, don't ask.

  • Duke visits the Moon, naturally enough, in his quest to kick some (read: a lot of) alien ass. He doesn't have a spacesuit at any point, but he can hold his breath for a real long time and that's probably sufficient.

  • At least Mario has a damn spacesuit. He might stomp on sentient turtles, punch floating cubes for power-ups and occasionally grow twice as tall, but he's serious about realism in all other respects.

  • Dark Cloud's moon people are highly advanced yet adorable rabbitmen (the Japanese have some folklore about a rabbit in the moon) who quietly monitor the world to see how the irascible humans are getting along. Sometimes they wipe us out, but it's nothing personal.

  • Killer is Dead, among other insane moments, takes the occasional trip to a moon mansion for I don't know why. It's a Suda51 game. I could write more but I probably don't need to.

  • I mean, ideally, landing on the moon is something that you could potentially do in Kerbal Space Program. Whether or not your little bug-eyed astronauts actually ever make it off the launchpad is kinda up in the air. Up in the air, spinning in concentric circles while parts explode and others fall off, to be more specific.
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