Anyone else played this sucker yet?
I bought it almost entirely because it looked pretty. And it really, really does look pretty. I often hear about games going for "a painterly visual style", but this is the only game (except perhaps for Dishonored) that I've seen pull it off to my satisfaction. The music is also lovely and complements everything well.
All the prose in the game is done in rhyme. And I do mean all the prose. Dialogue, narration, lore, quest descriptions, the lot. It's endearing at first but often feels like it's trying a bit too hard. I expect some people would find this unbearable. There's also this one joke with a party member who can't rhyme properly that gets repeated literally every time she talks. Funny the first eight times, less so by the fifty-eighth time.
The combat is more fun than I was expecting. It does the JRPG routine where you line up and take turns selecting actions and targets. Usually this is not my thing. Turn-based games should take advantage of their naturally slow pace to reward carefully thought out plays, not just boil down into taking turns twatting one another over the head with your stats. Child of Light adds a real time element with a sort of "roundless" turn system that allows you to manipulate turn order and interrupt enemy actions (and be interrupted yourself). Thankfully, it pauses proceedings while you select actions, so it's not making you navigate menus on the clock. It's difficult to explain in words, but works well in practice. There's also a simple crafting/upgrade system and a rock-paper-scissors of attack types.
Really, when all is said and done, there isn't a great deal of depth to it all. Folks who demand stat-heavy systems will be disappointed. Success relies on correctly chosen and timed actions rather than optimally configured builds.
Oh, and the game has something of a difficulty problem. There are two difficulty settings, normal and hard. Normal is a cakewalk once you get even the vaguest understanding of the mechanics. Hard will do a better job of keeping you on your toes, but requires that you kill damn near every enemy you meet in order to be sufficiently levelled. You can easily bypass 99% of combat, but do so too often and you'll run into a boss and find yourself woefully underpowered.
Non-combat gameplay is mostly just navigating the world and collecting items. Personally I would have liked to see some more engaging platforming, but flying about the place is fun enough in its own right.
The story is clearly and intentionally fairytale-ish. Lost princesses (who technically aren't princesses), magical lands (frequently overrun with monsters because video games) and a villain that may or may not be somebody's evil stepmother. Once again, usually not my thing, but there an undeniably delightful earnestness about the whole thing.
It might sound like I'm bashing the game, but mostly I'm just trying to be balanced about it. Really, any complaints I have are generally overridden by just how downright charming it is. The combat works, the dialogue is cute - if occasionally tiresome - and
it's fucking beautiful to look at (have I mentioned that yet? Maybe I should throw up some images to drive that point home). It gives the distinct impression of being a "labour of love" type of deal. I'm the first to admit that passion isn't everything, not even close, but it certainly helps.
So yeah, would recommend at least taking a look.
