“Come, tuck yourself into bed. Let me tell a story. Of Lemuria, a kingdom past. And a girl born for glory.”Child of Light is a beautiful piece of poetic artwork that stands as a solid nod to traditional RPG gaming yet with its own clear sense of identity. It’s not a joyful tale as the artwork suggests but instead an incredibly moving and deeply saddening story of a lost young girl and a grieving father.Through the use of the fantastic UbiArt Framework, an engine that helped to create the stunning ‘Rayman Origins’ and ‘Rayman Legends’, Child of Light now stands proudly as Ubisoft’s latest artistic masterpiece. The game boasts an unusual, but curious, combination of turn based RPG and 2D side scrolling platformer gameplay that gives it an immediate edge over the competition. Somehow the blending of these two genres have led to the creation of something incredibly creative and incredibly original but which suffers from a lack of any real challenge and a very predictable, short storyline. Regardless, this is a tale that unfolds itself before you with such grace and beauty that you simply cannot abandon it before its time. This casual game carries itself with such style and confidence that it doesn’t take long for you to fall victim to its charms and, before you know it, you’ve been pattering around the beautiful landscapes of Lemuria for hours.
Gameplay and plot
The true nature of this game is revealed in its earliest moments when a young girl, the daughter of a powerful ruler, is stricken down by some unexplained illness. The close relationship this girl had with her father is not only apparent but utterly destroyed when, one morning, she doesn’t wake. The king is thrown into despair and, rather than care for the kingdom that needs him, instead chooses to shut himself away in his grief. But he is not the only one who is lost; somewhere else his daughter has awakened only to find herself in an unfamiliar place, far away from the comfort of her home. This beautiful but haunting land is called Lemuria and it has lately fallen victim to a mysterious character known only as the Queen of the Night. This evil queen has stolen away the sun, moon and stars of the land and it now falls to Aurora, aided by her ethereal companion, to not only recover these stolen celestial bodies but to also be reunited with her father. This is a coming of age story with a difference that will show the lengths this young princess needs to go to become the woman she needs to be to tackle adversary and save the ones she loves.
Taking on the role of this lost young girl you’ll be transported into a beautiful hand drawn world that seems to exist entirely from a child’s perspective, from its poetic narrative to its picture book appearance this waking dream will leave you feeling utterly enchanted. Feeding into the undernourished concept of artistic gaming Ubisoft have bucked the trends of traditional gaming and instead veered down a route usually only travelled by indie developers such as Thatgamecompany, Playdead and Giant Sparrow. Not only this, the game has been designed with a cross-generational appeal in mind in order to fight back against the negative stereotype that video games damage children. What with the media trotting out the idea that games are harmful, violent and something to be avoided ‘Child of Light’ has instead produced a game that parents would be proud to, not only give to their children, but to play with them too. You can immediately see the appeal to parents and their children however as the storybook design, rhyming verses and lack of complicated menus means that even very young children will find this game engaging.
A bit problem with these sorts of co-op RPG games is that they can often result in a restricted second player who can do no more than exist as a spectator and maybe even grab some coins or experience during battle, such as in ‘Super Mario Galaxy’. Rather than this though the developers have ensured that the supporting character of Igniculus, Aurora’s firefly companion, is able to help at every stage of the game from exploring the environment to aiding in battle. Whilst Aurora is the one doing most of the fighting Igniculus is also incredibly useful and thankfully doesn’t just sit around on the side-lines. Igniculus can slow down enemies during battles by hovering over them and slowing down their personal timer which delays their attack. Igniculus can also heal party members by absorbing magic and energy from the surrounding environment making Igniculus more of a supporting role than a defined party member. Outside of battle Igniculus can also access certain treasure chests, switches and also help Aurora progress through some very simple puzzles.
The battle system of Child of Light is very familiar to those who play RPG and JRPG games. The combat is turn based with active time, meaning that a lot of tactics are involved in order to use your time efficiently. The battle system is very similar to what you’d find in a Final Fantasy game with your standard levelling up, increasing your stats and also an upgrade tree. The upgrade tree is fairly problematic with far too many choices that all offer more or less the same minor bonuses that you can achieve by simply levelling up. Your party has a maximum size of six members by the time you reach the end of the game but during combat you are limited to just two of these characters, though you can switch them in and out which is handy. Prior to battle enemies are encountered in a very standard JRPG manner; battles trigger whilst exploring the environment and coming across an enemy but with Igniculus’ help you can bypass these encounters entirely. If Igniculus runs ahead and shines his light on the enemy he can temporarily blind them, allowing Aurora to run through unscathed.
The battles themselves generally boil down to the individual resistances and vulnerabilities of each character so whereas one may be particularly resistant to fire characters another may be weak to them, requiring you to bolster their fire defence or just switch them out entirely. What this results in is quite a bit of character juggling as you move through the areas but it’s still a manageable amount due to the limited number of party members. The means in which you can buff your party members falls down to crafting special gems called Oculi which are really the games only crafting resource. Oculi are used to buff attacks, defences and also provide other benefits like additional experience and an increased chance of dodging. There are ten base gems such as sapphire and rubies which all have their individual properties so, diamonds increase your speed, earn additional experience from battle and also increase your casting speed. You can then combine gems of roughly the same quality, be that rough, tumbled or faceted to then create other gems of higher quality. Three rough gems of the same kind, for example, will produce one tumbled gem. Unfortunately there’s no in game recipe chart or any form of guide so it can be quite difficult to remember how to make a particular gem without the use of pen and paper or just having to memorize everything .
Graphics and audio
The first thing you immediately notice about this game is the stunning visuals. Whether that’s the beautiful and intricately hand drawn environments or the simple but delicately tailored HUD and font that compliments the overall feel of the game. The environments and landscapes are incredibly varied with some very lovely visual elements such as droplets of colour rising from the ground to the sky as though a wet watercoloured painting was turned completely upside down. The game holds classic fantasy imagery everywhere you go and the childlike picture book quality does wonders for the atmosphere of this strange place. You really only need to look at the screenshots to see what a visual masterpiece this game truly is but what the screens don’t show is how beautiful the game not only looks, but sounds. The music is striking but gentle and provides a wonderfully relaxed, almost whimsical sense to the entire game though it can often dip into the melancholic and subdued as the story addresses more saddening issues. It is clearly apparent that much loving care and craft has been poured into making sure this game punches you with the right visuals as they uplifting your spirits, swell your heart then drop you back down again with its melancholic, orchestrated melodies the leave you feeling emotionally tied up with the story.
Overall
What let this game down was the simplistic gameplay and overly predictable storyline. It may be unfair to dismiss this game as far too easy because, and the developers have admitted as much, it’s aimed at parents and their children. The rhyming structure of the game, whilst intriguing at first, quickly becomes more of a limitation on narrative than an enhancement and sometimes you can sense that the writers struggling to keep in pace with this difficult task. The game is also very short with only about 12 hours of gameplay within it and though it is an enjoyable 12 hours it could have done with a lot of additional content. Despite the spattering of side quests alongside the main storyline the game still feels a little barren. With a game that looks and sounds so perfect and which provides such a promising concept and storyline it's hard not to feel let down as you realize the game is already drawing to a close after just several hours of play time. Despite its problems the game is a nice addition to artistic games, especially considering it’s from such a well-known developer. I can only hope that, in the future, Ubisoft try again but with something a little more fleshed out and with more effort put into the actual structure of the game. For a game that costs just £12 though it's very difficult to see these complaints through and, honestly, I only wish there was more of it because what was there was so enjoyable and so endearing.
Score: 8/10
