Child of Light Review for PC

Reviewed on: PC
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Rated: "M" for Mature

CHEATfactor Game Review
by Joe Sinicki

Presentation	8/10
Child of Light is a fantastic looking game. It's fairy tale inspired visuals jump of the screen and oddly enough shine best when the action on the screen is most hectic.
Gameplay	6/10
Child of Light is a fine RPG, it's just not necessarily an interesting one. Underneath the gorgeous visuals is a pretty basic RPG that, beyond a few cool ideas, never really turns into anything more
Lasting Appeal	6/10
It's short for an RPG and once you get past the gorgeous visuals, it's pretty run of the mill. Fans of the genre will love what's here since it get's at least most of the basics right, but there's not a lot new here.
Overall	7/10
Child of Light is not a bad game, in fact it's very good - it just doesn't do much of anything interesting beyond it's fantastic visuals and the result is a breathtakingly beautiful but ultimately boring RPG.
CHEATfactor	8/10

Playing through Child of Light feels an awful lot like talking to a drunken former beauty queen. Sure, there's a lot of beauty there (and it's intent on making sure you know that), but once you really spend some time with it; you'll see there's not much past that. Child of Light is sure to wow a lot of people with it's stunningly gorgeous visuals and animations but those looking for more from their RPG than run-of-the-mill might leave their time with Lemuria a bit disappointed. Child of Light is a game that gets most of the basics right, and even tries a few new ideas but they never feel fully executed and the result is a more of a mixed bag than the epic masterpiece it presents itself as.

Child of Light tells the story of Aurora, a girl from 18th century Austria who dies at the very beginning of the story - or at least that's how it seems. While everyone mourns, Aurora wakes up in the mysterious Kingdom of Lemuria, a strange place that's had its sun, moon and stars stolen by an evil queen. It's up to Aurora to defeat the evil queen and return the light to Lemuria, naturally. The whole thing is presented as a brand new fairy tale, which is interesting and all; except for the developer's insistence on telling the whole thing in excruciatingly painful rhyme. There are times when the characters use words that don't even rhyme, they just sound similar and as a result the dialogue and the story are a pain to get through. I get that the developers wanted the classic fairy tale feel but the rhyme scheme comes off as nothing but forced.

"...one of the most interesting and remarkable games - at least visually."

There's no way around it though, the fairy tale tone lends itself perfectly to Child of Light's gorgeous ascetic. The game uses the Art Framework developed for Rayman Origins and Legends and it shows; the 2D watercolor art style is a complete joy to explore. For a world stuck in the shadows, Lemuria seems to pop right out of the screen with amazing visuals and animations. The game also benefits from neat little tricks like animations in the background that pull your eye towards them, making the game seem much bigger than it is. Child of Light is easily one of the most interesting and remarkable games - at least visually.

But here's the problem, once you get past the visuals; Child of Light often buckled under the weight of it's own expectations. For how much the game tries to make you believe it's the next big thing in the RPG world, it all feels pretty run of the mill once you really start to dig in to the gameplay. Child of Light simply feels like it's often just going through the motions, like it knows what an RPG is supposed to be and is merely trying to achieve that.

In truth, Child of Light is built to be different than other RPGs. It's built to be a game that adults and their kids can play together with no regard to ability or experience. It's an interesting idea but it often feels like it's towing the line between accessibility and being incredibly easy and not doing that great of a job at it. Combat is turn-based and represented by a scrolling timeline at the bottom of your screen. The last fourth of the bar is red and when a character's icon gets into the red it's their turn to attack or move. Certain attacks and moves will either speed up or slow-down the bar and it's a neat little strategy element that's added to the established formula but it's quite easy to figure out and experienced players will find it to be more of a burden than a new feature.

"I felt challenged for maybe an hour while playing Child of Light..."

Child of Light is also very slow more often than not and this combined with the easy nature of the game makes for a lackluster experience. Even though you can only take two of them into each battle, you'll be running six deep by the end of your ten-hour journey and it's easy to switch a low health character for a more viable one at almost any moment. What's more, each character - regardless of if you use them in battle or not gains XP after each encounter so there's almost no risk of who you're using and who you're sitting. I felt challenged for maybe an hour while playing Child of Light and as a result the game became even more slow.

Child of Light is not a bad game, in fact it's very good - it just doesn't do much of anything interesting beyond it's fantastic visuals. Don't get me wrong, Child of Light gets a lot right, especially the basics, but beyond that, this is a pretty standard and run of the mill RPG. It tries some interesting stuff, but it never get's it all the way right and the result is a breathtakingly beautiful but ultimately boring RPG.

CHEATfactor

CHEATS USED: Infinite Mana, Infinite Health, Edit Skill Points, more

The Child of Light trainer from Cheat Happens is incredibly useful for playing the game your way. You get access to the ability to edit almost anything in the game. Want infinite health or Mana? What about the ability to edit levels and skill points freely? It's all here. The problem though is that it also makes one of the game's biggest problems even bigger; Child of Light is easy enough without the cheats, but with them it's laughably easy. The cheats are mostly useful when you're trying to get past a certain spot you may be having trouble with.

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