Each character has their own unique charm, but few of them have any real impact outside of their initial quest [or eventual completion of said quest]. Aurora does most of the talking when encountering new villages. What brought me to accepting this is that Aurora has a very humble manner upon her. She wears a crown, but every time someone addresses her as “Princess” she immediately removes it and says “Oh, no. Call me Aurora, please”. The gaming industry is so full of arrogant, loud-mouth leads that it was refreshing to have a polite, young girl as the main character.
Overall, the story won’t take you very long to complete. It will last about 10-20 hours based on your difficulty, side quests taken, crafting, and others. While at first I was wary of this [I love long RPGs], the game fits perfectly in this time span. Nothing groundbreaking in the story, but the execution is where it wins the points and where I draw my rating from.
Gameplay:
If you were expecting an RPG like those made by Idea Factory with 14 different types of points spend in 35 ways to alter character growth, please go back and play Agarest War instead. Child of Light is all about simplicity in its gameplay. Battles and movement on the map are vehicles to get you through the true purpose of the game, which is the story as described above. That said, the gameplay is still very enjoyable.
Battles are controlled by a timeline at the bottom of the screen with a potrait representing each battle participant. As a character reaches about 80% of the way down the timeline, time stops and you choose their attack. From there, the attack charges until they hit the end of the timeline upon which time the attack is executed. The catch is that if an ally or enemy is attacked during this charge phase, their action is cancelled and they are sent back on the gauge to about the halfway point. This makes each battle about strategy. Some attacks charge faster than others allowing you to attack before an enemy that is charging and cancel their attack. Defending reduces damage and speeds up your next turn; always a good choice if you can see that an enemy will cancel your attack.
Child of Light is not a difficult game by any means. My large stashes of healing items were not even touched until I reached a boss about 6 chapters in. Each battle has glowing flowers that you can use your little, blue “firefly”, as Aurora calls him, to pick up extra HP and MP. You can also hold your blue companion over an enemy to severely slow that monster down on the battle gauge. That one move alone makes the battle system broken highly in your favor.
Outside of battle, it is fun to fly around the environment. You get great rewards for exploration in the form of permanent stat boosts and gems used for forging. The forging is very simple: combine 3 gems of the same color to make a bigger gem, or combine two gems of different colors to make an entirely new gem. These gems, or oculi, provide various battle bonuses such as elemental damage/resistant or XP boosts.
Leveling up happens frequently and you gain a skill point each level to add to a table of skills. Character builds only really matter early on as you will eventually get enough skill points to complete the board.
Simple, yet fun gameplay. I would have preferred some more options in terms of character customization, personally.
Graphics:
This game is beautiful! Characters look hand-drawn and towns look like they came from a pop-up book. None of it pushes graphic standards to new heights, but it fits well in their theme. This is a game that will still look good 10 years from now because it doesn’t rely on an art style that quickly becomes dated.
I played the PS3 version, admittedly; I was not made aware in any of my communications with users that had other versions of any significant differences between consoles.
Set in the magical world of Lemuria, Child of Light takes us on the coming-of-age journey of Aurora, a young girl struggling to save a lost kingdom and her ailing father. The daughter of the Duke of Carniola is transported to Lemuria, a mysterious world that needs her help. Identified as the Child of Light and granted the power of flight, she takes on the minions of Lemuria’s Dark Queen in her quest to recover the sun, the moon and the stars to return home. Along the way she’ll discover that her destiny may be far greater than she ever dreamed.
Child of Light takes place in Austria, in the year 1895, and you are following a little princess named Aurora. The story begins with Aurora falling asleep and waking up in the fantasy world of Lemuria. This world is actually in crisis, because the Black Queen has stolen its sun, moon and stars! At first, Aurora is scared of the world and wondering how she’ll get back to her world. Hopefully, Igniculus — a flying spirit — meets her and suggest to help her achieve what she was meant to do in Lemuria.
Child of Light – Launch Trailer
Gameplay Child of Light is a 2D side-scrolling RPG in which you wander through the world of Lemuria, fight enemies with a very pleasant battle system, help its inhabitants [via sidequests] and ultimately rid the world of the Black Queen. The enemies are always visible and depending on how you start a fight, you can get a pre-emptive strike or an ambush. A cool feature is that you can use Igniculus to scare the enemies on the screen to get pre-emptive strikes most of the time!
The battle system is dynamic and feels like a turn-based and active-time hybrid. The battle commands of a character are inputted when ready, and then enters a “casting†mode [which also applies for physical attacks]. Once in casting mode, if a character gets hit by an enemy, the attack will automatically be dispelled and will be sent back to “wait†mode. This concept also applies to the enemies, so carefully planning what type of attack can be executed before the enemy can cast its own is vital. A lot of enemies also have elemental weaknesses, so carefully selecting party members [up to two in battle at the same time] is also important, since each character has its own strengths.
Once a fight is won, experience is awarded to all party members [even if they didn’t participate in the battle], and when a character level-ups, it will gain one skill point which can be spent at the skill grid. A very cool feature is that each character has a different skill tree, and each skill point can be set as you please [the grids aren’t linear].
My biggest surprise with the game was when I discovered how kid-friendly the built-in co-op is. When a second controller is activated, the other / younger player gets the control of Igniculus, which can be moved around in order to collect HP/MP orbs, or to scare enemies. Outside battle, Igniculus can help you get pre-emptive strikes, but he really shines in battle as he can scare the enemies which will be slowed, and can then ease dispelling their attacks! As soon as I discovered that co-op feature, I played the entire game with my kids and they took a whole lot of pride in helping me through it [they would play rock-paper-scissors each day to determine who would be the lucky one to help me]. I highly recommend playing Child of Light with your kids!
Finally, Child of Light’s art style is gorgeous and feels as if you were observing a watercolor painting, similar to Rayman Legends [which is also hand drawn and built on the UbiArt Framework engine]. This allowed the developer to provide an amazing level of detail for the characters and the environments.
Final Thoughts
Child of Light is an amazing game from Ubisoft Montréal! With its battle system and story, its flexible skill tree and its art style, there is a lot to love about this game. I also mentioned how much I loved the co-op which can allow you to play with your younger kids, something that is always a nice bonus. Finally, take note that you can get all trophies for this game in around 10 hours, which might seem like a little short for a turn-based RPG. However, the budget price [$14.99] makes up for it and should convince you to play it right now!