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Game: Child of Light (2014)
I picked up Child of Light for free from the Ubisoft store a few weeks ago, and I just finished it last night on April 20.
Story: Fairytale-inspired portal fantasy
Graphics: Beautiful 2.5D watercolour-style art
Gameplay: RPG with platformer elements, 2 difficulty settings
In short: I finished this game, so it was clearly fun and absorbing enough to keep me occupied, but I don't recommend it as a cheerful isolation distraction.
It has two difficulty settings: "Casual" and "Expert". I chose "Casual" because I am far from an expert at turn-based combat tactics, and it was very easy (even for me, who tends to forget about the existence of buffs and debuffs for hours at a time). I think it's the strategy that makes turn-based combat fun so I wish there had been some middle ground.
Wikipedia calls it a platforming game, but you learn to fly pretty early on, which makes the actual platforming redundant and the closest you do after that is carefully navigating a tunnel of spikes with a generous time limit.
I was expecting a straightforward "hero's journey" fantasy story drawing on fairy-tale tropes, with some gentle background tragedy, but (spoilers) it turned out to be a lot more tragic than that. To be honest, it was a bit of a downer and I wouldn't recommend it as a pick-me-up isolation distraction.
The rhyming dialogue was a cute concept but I struggled to find the rhythm in it, so I can't say it really worked for me.
All in all, I don't regret playing it, and it's a pity that Ubisoft hasn't made any other games like it since (and is unlikely to).
- I was digging the "protective big sister" dynamic between Norah and Aurora, although there were enough hints (eg. Norah's disgust whenever the party recruits another non-human character) that the betrayal was not entirely unexpected.
- Other than that, it was nice that the side characters had their own little quests and would occasionally exchange dialogue with each other, but I wanted more somehow.
- They really needed to address how disorienting it would have been to Aurora to suddenly transform from a child to an adult in more than a single throwaway line about being taller. I mean, adulthood is more than just having a mature body, it's life experience too... (Adult Aurora was super pretty though, not going to lie.)
- Plus she's now queen of an entire country! While mentally being a little girl!
- On that note, I was not expecting her father to just up and die of grief when Aurora decides to help in Lemuria before returning home, yikes.
- Did it really end with the entire country of Austria flooded and its people relocated to Lemuria? Or was it just her duchy's people? Either way this was unexpected.
- The soundtrack and ending song were by Béatrice Martin AKA Cœur de pirate, which would have been less surprising to me if I'd remembered it was developed by Ubisoft Montreal.
Story: Fairytale-inspired portal fantasy
Graphics: Beautiful 2.5D watercolour-style art
Gameplay: RPG with platformer elements, 2 difficulty settings
In short: I finished this game, so it was clearly fun and absorbing enough to keep me occupied, but I don't recommend it as a cheerful isolation distraction.
It has two difficulty settings: "Casual" and "Expert". I chose "Casual" because I am far from an expert at turn-based combat tactics, and it was very easy (even for me, who tends to forget about the existence of buffs and debuffs for hours at a time). I think it's the strategy that makes turn-based combat fun so I wish there had been some middle ground.
Wikipedia calls it a platforming game, but you learn to fly pretty early on, which makes the actual platforming redundant and the closest you do after that is carefully navigating a tunnel of spikes with a generous time limit.
I was expecting a straightforward "hero's journey" fantasy story drawing on fairy-tale tropes, with some gentle background tragedy, but (spoilers) it turned out to be a lot more tragic than that. To be honest, it was a bit of a downer and I wouldn't recommend it as a pick-me-up isolation distraction.
The rhyming dialogue was a cute concept but I struggled to find the rhythm in it, so I can't say it really worked for me.
All in all, I don't regret playing it, and it's a pity that Ubisoft hasn't made any other games like it since (and is unlikely to).
- I was digging the "protective big sister" dynamic between Norah and Aurora, although there were enough hints (eg. Norah's disgust whenever the party recruits another non-human character) that the betrayal was not entirely unexpected.
- Other than that, it was nice that the side characters had their own little quests and would occasionally exchange dialogue with each other, but I wanted more somehow.
- They really needed to address how disorienting it would have been to Aurora to suddenly transform from a child to an adult in more than a single throwaway line about being taller. I mean, adulthood is more than just having a mature body, it's life experience too... (Adult Aurora was super pretty though, not going to lie.)
- Plus she's now queen of an entire country! While mentally being a little girl!
- On that note, I was not expecting her father to just up and die of grief when Aurora decides to help in Lemuria before returning home, yikes.
- Did it really end with the entire country of Austria flooded and its people relocated to Lemuria? Or was it just her duchy's people? Either way this was unexpected.
- The soundtrack and ending song were by Béatrice Martin AKA Cœur de pirate, which would have been less surprising to me if I'd remembered it was developed by Ubisoft Montreal.