Nayu's Gaming Time #21 Child of Light 9/10E

It is on other consoles too. 

Made by Ubisoft, 2014 original release, I played for 15-20 hours according to my Switch log. 

 

I only heard about Child of Light in 2018 because it came out on the Switch, a console I now have and keep a close eye on games that come out. At first I dismissed the game because it looked quite dark and not my kind of graphic style. That still is a bit true, for the first few chapters of the game I played only in short bursts, with lots of cuter games inbetween. Something happened the other week and I felt like playing more - the story then hooked me in. 

This is the final puzzle that stumped me.

There are plenty of places which will tell you how the game play is (kind of cool!). I liked finding the treasure chests, and solving the mostly simple puzzles using a novel system of shadows and light to unlock locked doors. There's still a few doors that I haven't figured out how to unlock post game. Speaking of unlocking, I forgot until I finished it that Aurora had a variety of outfits to change into: they are absolutely gorgeous! I'm not putting them here, go discover them for yourself!

Child Aurora finding the sword (from my game play)

Teen Aurora looking gorgeous!

I liked how her little spirit Ignatius (sp?) could help heal her in battle. I loved when she was in child form, with an overbig crown and a sword she could barely lift. Small spoiler: events happen and she grows into a teen: she matures, becomes more graceful, although I didn't like how her skirt was no longer free flowing. I loved her in battle poses because they remind me so much of one of my favourite anime, Aikatsu, and one of my favourite character's special moves: 

Mizuki's Double Moon Jewel special appeal

Mizuki's moon appeal, can't remember the name.

I know a fair amount of people didn't like how she was 3D and the world was 2D. I loved the difference, it was fun to play at her flying around because she reminded me so much of Bloom from Winx Club that I'd play the game, humming the various theme songs like Bloomix (yes Bloom's power helps her friends out in a later season). 

Mess with Bloom at your peril! This is season 4 Believix form.

The song is so you know what I was humming. The game's soundtrack is good, a little too gloomy at times for me, but certainly atmospheric. 

Apart from Aurora, Ignatius, and Finn, I found quite a lot of the characters creepy looking. However I had to look past that because they cared in their own way (or hated Aurora, depending on who they were), and I used the blue jester a lot. Once I learned the spell to protect users from being interrupted when spell casting, I'd use that, followed by a shield and haste.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead! Me with protection spells around me. Sadly some enemies could produce them too!

  I mostly focused on Aurora as the main attacker. Any item I got that could boost stats I automatically gave to the princess. Those of you on Twitter know I posted quite a few tweets while playing the game. Including the fact that the last few puzzles were so hard I looked up how to do it online. I never would have guessed the correct order!  

As for the story - it's complicated! At it's simplest it's good versus evil. I was intrigued to play it because I'd heard it talks about depression. I've played Meh a game that handles depression with gorgeous illustrations, so it felt only natural I checked Aurora's tale out. I thought it might be a bit like Sleeping Beauty, given Aurora's name, but it wasn't that much. I was so confused by the end it took looking through screen shots of the start and end of the game, reading a few reviews and several posts on gaming forums to begin to get the whole story straight. I didn't like the end. I thought it would be happier. I was extremely disappointed by one sad part, so much so I pretend that the scenario was how I imagined it. 

This in game moment is funny, and shows what it looks like when the characters talk to each other. The woman isn't Aurora...

Will I play Child of Light again? Yes. Not for a while, as many other games are calling my name, but I did enjoy, I want to try and find all the item boxes, and I think I've a memory or two to collect (they are poems). I managed to complete all the quests, with only a tiny bit of internet help. I liked how the entire game was a huge poem with characters speaking in verse. It was quirky, and not annoying despite me not being fond of poetry. There isn't a game like it that I can recommend, it's definitely in a league of it's own for now.