Child of Light is a RPG developed by Ubisoft but it’s not like any of their other flagship games. It’s on a smaller scale but feels a lot more personal. One of the first thing that strikes you is how beautiful the game looks. It’s a 2D sidescrolling RPG and the art is amazing. It’s similar along the lines of Rayman and Valiant Hearts: The Great War. The PS4 version is no different to the PS3, Vita or any version on other platforms.
The combat system is turn based, which is a surprise. Encountering an enemy on the field will transition to the battle screen. Along the bottom is a line where an icon representing the characters and enemies move along, the pace at which is determined by the speed stat. Once it is your turn, you can use an item, attack, defend or swap party members. Not all attacks are instantaneous, as casting magic will take a bit longer. This is also the point where the character is vulnerable, if they are hit while in the middle of casting or attacking, they get interrupted and you lose the turn. This adds a strategic element as the same is true for the enemies.
Unfortunately you can only use two characters in your party at any one time. Three character parties would have been perfect. On the flipside you will only ever encounter a maximum of three enemies at once. To help combat this restriction, you are free to swap party members during your turn, and you won’t even lose that turn if you do. Characters earn experience after battles and you actually level up really quickly throughout the game. In addition to increasing your stats you also gain skill points upon level up to further boost the character’s stats or learn new moves.
On your travels, you’ll encounter a shining spirit name Igniculus. Not only is he a central character to the story, but he has a core gameplay element attached as well. You can move him along using the right stick, and holding down the trigger button will light him up. During battles, lighting him up against an enemy will blind them, slowing down the rate at which they get their next turn. Coupled with the interrupt feature and battles just became a lot more interesting and frantic even though it’s still turn based.
Each party members have their own specialties: one has high attack, another has a good variety of magic and yet another might focus on buffs. This is where you do feel that having only two members in your party can be limiting. There are a lot of characters that you’ll end up recruiting. Since the game is relatively short for a RPG (only ten hours long for the story), it feels like you’re constantly getting new ones. Every time a new party member joins, there is a lot of dialogue after battle, not too bad early on but towards the end, that’s a lot of dialogue.
The story is basically a fairy tale and in this aspect, it’s done extremely well. It’s a simple story that follows Aurora, an Austrian princess in the real world. After seemingly dying she wakes up in another world, Lemuria. In order to get back to her own world, she has to recover Lemuria’s light. She finds a sword to arm herself, guided by Igniculus and eventually collating a big party, she sets off. Another unique thing with the story is that it is told in rhyme. Yes, the whole thing and that goes for every single piece of text. It’s quite impressive that they managed to keep something like this for the duration of the whole game.
While in the earlier parts of the game it is a stock standard 2D sidescroller, Aurora soon learns how to fly and this opens up the game a lot. The areas you were travelling before that seemed so restrictive on foot suddenly have tons of nooks and crannies to explore, filled with treasure chests. Enemies are easy to avoid or attack depending on your preferences. There are simple puzzles scattered in each area, which are basically lever puzzles.
There are a lot of optional areas, so you’ll be split at times when deciding on which way to go. You’ll be backtracking if you think you are progressing to the next area and haven’t fully explored the previous one. It’s all part of the fun though and since traversal is so quick, while enemies don’t respawn that quickly after you defeat them, it’s balanced quite well. What helps is that the music is also sublime, holding a mystical and fantastical element in its melody. Coupled with the artstyle, and the atmosphere is amazing. Although this also does lend to the slow pacing of several sections.
There are two difficulties: Casual for a good balance between combat and story progression as you’ll probably churn through the game, and Expert for a tougher time during combat. What’s also nice is that you’ll heal and regain MP if you collect certain glowing orbs on the field, so you don’t have to worry about conserving moves. It can get annoying in some parts of the game near the end where you are outnumbered by fast enemies, so you keep getting interrupted no matter what. They hit hard and have high defenses, and this can lead to a bit of aggravation.
There’s also a touchy encounter detection where even when you hit the enemy face on, you end up in a disadvantaged “ambushed” situation. Nevertheless, it’s a wonderful ten hours before you finish the story. While you’re free to roam and get all the treasure chests you might have missed the first time, there are no post-game dungeons or superbosses, which feels like a missed opportunity. There are optional sidequests that you might want to clean up though.
Overall, Child of Light is a fabulous game. It looks beautiful, the gameplay is an innovative twist on the classic turn based formula, and the music is sublime. You really feel as if you are playing through a fairy tale and with the focus on exploration in the huge and wide levels, this is a unique game and a surprising hit.
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