Playing A Game Child of Light PC

Child of Light's story continued being obtuse, and obfuscated by unnecessary rhyming, for most of its running length. The ending moments worked well enough, but it really feels like this story could have been told a lot better than it was.

It was the RPG gameplay that kept me coming back. And I wouldn't say that it was quite perfect, either; but it worked, and the ideas it presented (particularly around the timeline and interruptions) were uniquely compelling.

If Ubisoft were to give Child of Light the franchise treatment, my biggest request would be to enlarge the in-combat party sizes. Being limited to two party members in battle made it a little too easy for the three-member enemy party to overwhelm me from the start; I would have been a lot happier with three-versus-four battles. It also felt unjustly restrictive toward combinations of party member specialties -- it's hard to justify using one of only two party slots for a "red mage" buff/debuff archetype.

I had a few frustrations with the UI as well (I accidentally combined a bunch of Oculi that I didn't want), but overall the game's systems worked very well. Character progression, both through skill points and with Oculi gems, struck a great balance between power and simplicity. Although you could argue that there are more types of gem than really seem necessary.

The difficulty level did end up biting me a few times. Some encounters in the game's second half were ... really hard, especially in instances where the whole enemy party was faster than me, repeatedly interrupting my attempts to survive. Fortunately, the game makes it easy to try again; when you die, you get all your HP and MP back, and are restored just before the encounter that killed you.

So, yeah. Enlarge the battle parties, and get rid of the obstructive rhyme-based storytelling, and baby -- you've got a stew going.

Better than: Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
Not as good as: I guess... classics like Chrono Trigger? (Has it really been so long since I've played an excellent 2D RPG?)
Also better than: Valiant Hearts, that other debut UbiArt game.

Progress: Finished on Expert.

Rating: Good