Child of Light has been on my radar for quite a while. A JRPG combat system, stunning 2D art, and an all around fantastic sounding score — it’s a lot to be excited about. After spending some time with it, I can honestly say that the hype doesn’t disappoint.
The combat system is unique and familiar at the same time. You can see the order everyone attacks in, but each character and enemy move at different speeds. Also, each attack takes a different amount of time to use after you have selected to cast it. As usual, different enemies are susceptible to different elements of attack, finding out which element to use is part of the flow of battle. In a lot of ways, the battles brought me back to playing Final Fantasy X — you knew when your characters and the enemies would attack, but you could adjust that somewhat by taking different options. It was flexible enough to allow a great deal of strategy and Child of Light feels the same way in that regard.
Character dialogue is handled by character silhouettes on the screen and text appearing at the bottom. The twist in Child of Light is that all the character chatter is in rhyme. While it isn’t a huge deal, reading the small bits of text put a huge smile on my face, as its flow was top notch.
By now everyone should know that Child of Light is running on the same engine that powers the last two Rayman games. Knowing that, Child of Light had a lot of high expectations to live up to. To me, Child of Light was easily the most stunning game at PAX East: from the way to different layers of art scrolled across each other, to simple things like the main character’s hair flowing as you glide across the air. The attention to detail from the team at Ubisoft blows my mind.
Child of Light’s release date is April 30th on every current and last gen console imaginable. Who else will be picking it up? I know I will.
