Child of Light is a beautiful fairy tale of an RPG developed by Ubisoft using the UbiArt Framework, the engine that also powers Rayman Legends. All of the characters and artwork are painted watercolor style, and the game is gorgeous in all of its wonderful 2D simplicity.
This screenshot created using in-game footage.
And Lemuria is a refreshing break from most other RPG settings, with their orcs and elves and dwarves. The characters all feel like they had their own personal artist working to make them as endearing and distinctive as they could be, and no one exemplifies this more than the heroine herself, Aurora:
Large sword not pictured.
The combat is simple but very fun---each character moves up the preparation meter until they reach "cast," at which point combat pauses while you choose what you want them to do. They then charge up until they're ready to execute. The enemies do the same. Get attacked between choosing a move and casting it, and you get "interrupted," meaning you're bumped down on the meter. Your little floating light buddy Igniculus plays a role too---you can shine him on bad guys to slow them down or on allies to heal them. The benefits of doing so can be subtle, but mastering it can give you a huge advantage in battle---which, as it happens, can be quite challenging if you aren't paying attention and managing your limited supply of potions effectively.
Aurora in combat.
Child of Light came out yesterday and since then I have been enjoying it immensely. The game is really quite wonderful.
The art is gorgeous. The music beautiful. Combat is the not the most complicated, but it is fun and engaging.
Best of all is the title character. Not a muscle-bound hulk or cleavage-y slut-bomb, like in 99% of AAA games. She reminds me a little of Korra, if she were ten years old.
I think this is best enjoyed as a long movie or a good TV series.
For such a whimsical game, the story develops some serious pathos. I'm pretty sure I'm about halfway through and I couldn't stop thinking about it last night...
I'll put this in spoilers because it comes a ways into the game and right after a pretty big reveal, but that part at the Forgotten Tower where + Show Spoiler +
you fight Crepusculum/Cordelia, it sunk in right after she died that Aurora had just killed her sister. Then she gets older... It was a surprisingly painful moment.
I'm about 2 hours in and totally digging it. For me it just has all the right hooks in terms of the interlocking systems, and how they all play out once you're in combat. It's the kind of game where as the various mechanics show up, I become increasingly scared of just how addicted I'm going to be. Stick a painterly, watercolor art style on top of that, and you've got a winning formula in my book.
I've spent a lot of time on this game already, and I still can't get enough. There is so much love for detail in this game, it's amazing. Look at the background. There's more to find than a first glance can reveal.
I'm very sad that I can't really fly loopings myself as Aurora sometimes does in cutscenes. That's probably my biggest issue with the game.
As for combat, it's an awesome twist to chrono trigger's combat system. Mindlessly slowing down an enemy isn't the best option, you might end up missing an interrupt on him. Or you might end up with him interrupting you when he could have attacked before you started your cast. There's a decent amount of planning involved when you want to make sure that your own attacks aren't interrupted while your enemies' attacks are. Unless you're facing a boss, then you might not want to interrupt him at all.
Potions are fairly useless, except for the occasional HP/MP heal out of combat if you have no wishes nearby. I guess you could use them as a replacement for a character with a heal spell, but you'd quickly run out, at least on hard mode. Otherwise, I don't see the point of spending a whole turn on using a potion to recharge Igniculus. So I have a huge pile of assorted potions lying around...
Heh, just watched the combat video posted above; it seems like in-combat bushes also spawn HP/MP restoring wishes in Normal mode. They don't do that on hard mode.
What's the deal with the confessions? Backstory I know they do provide But it seems that there's something I still have not spied A "Secret" whose location I never did find A "Rift" to be mended Some interlopers apprehended The Queen's last words left behind
Finished the game, with it was longer. One of the few games which I don't mind the story being so very straightforward and simple.
Only a few complaints, side characters are really just side characters, I wish there were more focus between them (I think I actually skipped one side character)
Loved the music and I thought it would have a bigger part in the story. A bit disappointing, a light + music theme would work great with this game imo.
I wish it was a 3 v 5 combat rather than 2 v 3. We have so many size characters and only able to use two at a time is a big disappointing
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TE2U710.jpg)
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