Child of Light

 PC
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 567 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 423 out of 567
  2. Mixed: 98 out of 567
  3. Negative: 46 out of 567

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  1. Fuz
    Jan 8, 2015
    6
    I was pretty amazed at the beginning. Poetic and likeable fairytale-y setting, gorgeous art (except for the horrible flash-style animations), beautiful music (it kinda gets boring and repetitive FAST, though) and a nice mix of exploration and tactic combat. My first instinct was to give it a 9.
    Sadly, it gets old pretty quick: the exploration becomes a chore, as does the combat, which    I was pretty amazed at the beginning. Poetic and likeable fairytale-y setting, gorgeous art (except for the horrible flash-style animations), beautiful music (it kinda gets boring and repetitive FAST, though) and a nice mix of exploration and tactic combat. My first instinct was to give it a 9.
    Sadly, it gets old pretty quick: the exploration becomes a chore, as does the combat, which shows potential but remains shallow throughout the whole game, due to lack of options and onluy two characters at the same time, and becomes a grind.

    It's charming, but there is no gameplay. Shame.    … Expand
  2. laurasilveira
    Oct 29, 2014
    7
    The game is about a princess that saves her dad from her evil sisters and her evil step-mother, and is made by a French-Canadian studio.

    The story is a little boring, because is too melodramatic. And the rhyming is terrible! Battles sometimes could become too repetitive… The game looks like a water painting which is amazing. The game is made for those that love nursery rhymes, and    The game is about a princess that saves her dad from her evil sisters and her evil step-mother, and is made by a French-Canadian studio.

    The story is a little boring, because is too melodramatic. And the rhyming is terrible! Battles sometimes could become too repetitive…

    The game looks like a water painting which is amazing.

    The game is made for those that love nursery rhymes, and I give it 7.5.    … Expand
  3. augh18
    May 1, 2014
    6
    Overall a good experience for $15.

    Difficulty is either too easy on "Normal" or an archaic grind on "Hard", where everything takes 5x as long because it's simulating the grindfest difficulty of something like the original "Dragon Quest". HP regeneration system out of battle could be better, can't use party members abilities out of combat to heal so left gathering wishes for maybe 10hp    Overall a good experience for $15.

    Difficulty is either too easy on "Normal" or an archaic grind on "Hard", where everything takes 5x as long because it's simulating the grindfest difficulty of something like the original "Dragon Quest". HP regeneration system out of battle could be better, can't use party members abilities out of combat to heal so left gathering wishes for maybe 10hp per plant or using your cursor to heal your character for 1% of their HP every 3 seconds.

    You only have two active party members during combat and a larger cast to choose from than the average "Final Fantasy" title (excluding FF6 here), so I think it would've been better if they'd bumped the party size up to 3 and added an extra enemy or two to make the difficulty scale.

    Graphics are gorgeous and so is the soundtrack.

    No world map to explore or shops to buy equipment/items in. Outside of the grindy leveling system (only if you're playing on hard) and the classic JRPG battle system with a twist, this is really just a lip-service JRPG with some modern 2d indie adventure elements thrown in.

    Every line of dialogue in this game rhymes, and more often than not the writing is cringeworthy because of this. It'd be different if they wrote it as a poem to make sense, as it is it's like they went out of their way to make everything rhyme, even if it didn't make sense, it just had to fit their agenda. It isn't nonsensical in a "Doctor Suess" way, it's nonsensical in an "average kindergarten student writes their first haiku" way.

    Not a "must buy" by any means, but if you're a fan of JRPGs it's worth checking out because not only do we rarely see games like this these days on consoles, we hardly ever get something like this on PC. Doesn't instantly make it an outstanding game for being a few drops of rain during a drought, but it's a welcome change of pace nonetheless.    … Expand
  4. TitaniumDragon
    Feb 11, 2015
    6
    Child of Light is a turn-based roleplaying game with a very distinctive pseudo-storybook graphical style, written entirely in rhyme. Many of its mechanics are reminiscent of Final Fantasy X – including some painful dialogue.

    The game’s combat is actually reasonably sophisticated. The player controls two characters in combat, and faces off with up to three enemies at a time. It is    Child of Light is a turn-based roleplaying game with a very distinctive pseudo-storybook graphical style, written entirely in rhyme. Many of its mechanics are reminiscent of Final Fantasy X – including some painful dialogue.

    The game’s combat is actually reasonably sophisticated. The player controls two characters in combat, and faces off with up to three enemies at a time. It is somewhat reminiscent of Final Fantasy X in many respects; the player can switch out their characters at any time during combat, including replacing KOed characters with another character, and different attacks have different speeds. However, unlike Final Fantasy X, there are two different speeds which matter: the base speed of the character, and the speed at which the character acts.
    There are two portions of a gauge at the bottom of the screen; the first portion represents the time spent between turns, while the second, smaller section represents the time spent charging up to attack or perform some other action. Each action has its own speed through the second portion of this, and if someone is attacked while they are charging an action, their action is interrupted and their turn is reset into some random (or semi-random) portion of the between-turns section of the gauge. As such, the player can interrupt enemy attacks, or the enemies can interrupt player attacks. There are some means of protecting yourself from such things, and some monsters will automatically counterattack against certain types of attacks (physical or magical) or against attacks made while they’re charging their actions.
    The characters are actually quite varied, with each character having their own skill-set which is unlocked via a character-specific skill tree. Each character has their own set of abilities, and there are two characters who are primarily magic users, a warrior who can force enemies to attack him, a character who focuses entirely on speeding up or slowing down allies and enemies, a couple of physical attack characters, and some support characters. Gauge manipulation, interrupting enemy attacks, exploiting enemy elemental vulnerabilities, and applying the right status ailments while keeping your own party healthy are all important. The ball of light you control while navigating the levels also appears here, and can be used to slow down enemies or heal your allies – it is almost always better to slow enemies, though, as that prevents them from doing damage (and makes it easier to interrupt them) much more than healing yourself does.
    Unfortunately, after a while, the battles become a bit routine; while the first set of enemies in an area are new and fresh, after a while they become very routine and can be defeated via a very samey set of actions in the same way that Final Fantasy X fights often went. This makes many of the fights in the game fairly dull, and while they’re skippable, the bosses, which are much more difficult, basically require you to beat every other enemy in the game so that you’re the proper level to face them.

    The game is reasonably well-presented; the game tries to go for a sort of storybook style, with the characters appearing almost like paper cut-outs or things from a storybook, and the monsters having a similar stylized character. The music and sound are both reasonable enough, but a lot of the dialogue – delivered entirely in rhyme – is pretty awful. Sometimes it works well, but other times it falls down and is kind of painful to read.

    Child of Light is not a bad game, but it isn’t exactly thrilling either. Everything about it is a decent enough idea, but in practice, it only shines on rare occasion. The game takes on the order of 20 hours to complete, and has no replay value; while there is a new game + mode, there is little reason to play it.    … Expand
  5. IndieLover
    Apr 8, 2015
    5
    Quickly gets boring, no real depth to exploration or storyline, in fact the forced attempt at rhyming the story gets annoying very quickly. Combat has its moments, some of the bosses are interesting to fight on the hard difficulties. Overall a very average game.
  6. SherlockHolmess
    Feb 16, 2015
    7
    This game brings together, a great fantasy world with a sad but beautiful art along with kinda interesting characters, an active intelligent battle system and on top of that, all dialogs are spoken as poems or rhymes.
    There's not much to say left except that the graphics and the music are strong and this game is great for anyone who enjoys RPG like games.
    Update: One thing bothers    This game brings together, a great fantasy world with a sad but beautiful art along with kinda interesting characters, an active intelligent battle system and on top of that, all dialogs are spoken as poems or rhymes.
    There's not much to say left except that the graphics and the music are strong and this game is great for anyone who enjoys RPG like games.

    Update: One thing bothers me... there's only party with 2 people at once, this hurts much. Very sad that it has to be this way. Also the game progress turns out a bit too unexciting and linear in therms of character evolving and story telling.

    Another game which is very similar (imo also much better) but a bit more action oriented is called Aquaria which i also recommend highly.

    All in all, great game, great work.    … Expand
  7. camptownrangers
    Dec 9, 2014
    5
    It's charming in almost every way, but the dreary turn based combat drags it down, unfortunately. The entire combat system is incredibly boring and feels so crowbarred in, as does the accompanying upgrade tree. This could perhaps have been a 9/10 if it had stuck to being a puzzle platformer with much more simple combat, like Bastion's for example. Unfortunately it's just too grind heavyIt's charming in almost every way, but the dreary turn based combat drags it down, unfortunately. The entire combat system is incredibly boring and feels so crowbarred in, as does the accompanying upgrade tree. This could perhaps have been a 9/10 if it had stuck to being a puzzle platformer with much more simple combat, like Bastion's for example. Unfortunately it's just too grind heavy with boring elements to be worth getting to the best parts.… Expand
  8. Clean
    May 2, 2014
    6
    Well, for a price of $15, its quality is acceptable. However, it brings nothing new to the table. I will not comment about the story and art style, as you will only either like it or not.

    It is really a strange idea to mix rogue platform jumper with turn based combat which appears in tradtional rpg. In the end, both edges of the corresponding genre just lose. As a platform jumper game,    Well, for a price of $15, its quality is acceptable. However, it brings nothing new to the table. I will not comment about the story and art style, as you will only either like it or not.

    It is really a strange idea to mix rogue platform jumper with turn based combat which appears in tradtional rpg. In the end, both edges of the corresponding genre just lose. As a platform jumper game, you will not have a chance to finish off opponenet by fast jumping and reflex action. As a rpg game, you miss the open world experience you will generaly expect.

    In the end, you are playing a platform jumper game only to solve puzzle without threat, and a rpg game progressing in a linear fashion. It is just too boring. Mixing genres of game may not always be a good idea if the elements in the genres can't resonate with each other. What a waste of potential.    … Expand
  9. SylaxSYN
    May 3, 2014
    7
    Definitely has nice visuals and music. It definitely captures a somber fairy tale feel. However, the game is incredibly short for an rpg. The battles quickly become tedious and annoying. Because you level up almost every battle, you're practically forced to fight every single battle so that you're not under leveled for bosses. And the final boss fights were the easiest in the entireDefinitely has nice visuals and music. It definitely captures a somber fairy tale feel. However, the game is incredibly short for an rpg. The battles quickly become tedious and annoying. Because you level up almost every battle, you're practically forced to fight every single battle so that you're not under leveled for bosses. And the final boss fights were the easiest in the entire game. My least favorite aspect to the game was all of the leveling/skill/oculi. After every battle you had to deal with adding new skill points or managing your oculi which became incredibly tedious and frustrating. It broke up the flow of the game when you had to constantly stop to do maintenance.… Expand
  10. Amphotericin
    Jan 22, 2015
    7
    *Graphics* The best part of the game. Everything is smooth and soft, but can also be strong and powerful, creating a nice contrast. The environments are varied and quite polished.
    *Sound* The rhymes in the dialogues create a pleasant musicality, even though they become too solemn at times. The soundtrack is very relaxing, and it plays and important part in the story.
    *Game* Usual cliché    *Graphics* The best part of the game. Everything is smooth and soft, but can also be strong and powerful, creating a nice contrast. The environments are varied and quite polished.
    *Sound* The rhymes in the dialogues create a pleasant musicality, even though they become too solemn at times. The soundtrack is very relaxing, and it plays and important part in the story.
    *Game* Usual cliché of "Good vs Evil", it's not surprising nor unprecedented. The fighting system is nice, being turn-based, and one has to choose the best two characters among many to fight certain enemies. Playing on "Hard" is actually hard only in the very first fights, becoming way too easy as the game progresses. It's possible to play with another person from the same computer, which is nice.
    Overall I think I would recommend this game.    … Expand
  11. Korriban
    Apr 30, 2014
    7
    I saw the trailer on steam and I fell in love with the graphic style of the game, I read it was hand drawn and this is enough to buy it, it simply stunning.
    I've been playing for 3 hrs and it seems really good so far; however, in my opinion, it lacks some basic RPG mechanics, like equipment choice and a wider range of abilities of magics and skills, but i don't expect it to be very long,    I saw the trailer on steam and I fell in love with the graphic style of the game, I read it was hand drawn and this is enough to buy it, it simply stunning.
    I've been playing for 3 hrs and it seems really good so far; however, in my opinion, it lacks some basic RPG mechanics, like equipment choice and a wider range of abilities of magics and skills, but i don't expect it to be very long, so this might not even be a bad thing. The trailer said it was a jrpg, but apart from the combats, which reminds me of some Final Fantasy games, CoL is just a simplified version of a rpg; still, the game strength lies in its beautiful graphic and in the rhymed dialogues.
    Is it worth 15€ ? more yes than no.    … Expand
  12. MetalDude185
    May 26, 2014
    5
    There's a lot of interesting art and atmosphere, but the story is largely (though not completely) cliché and unexciting, and the inconsistent pacing between frustrating combat and kinda boring exploration just completely breaks any flow the game could have had. Not the mention that the poetry is excruciatingly forced and usually of pretty bad quality. I think it could have been much betterThere's a lot of interesting art and atmosphere, but the story is largely (though not completely) cliché and unexciting, and the inconsistent pacing between frustrating combat and kinda boring exploration just completely breaks any flow the game could have had. Not the mention that the poetry is excruciatingly forced and usually of pretty bad quality. I think it could have been much better with better gameplay-design and a consistent quality in the artistic atmosphere.… Expand
  13. curzon_dax
    Oct 5, 2018
    6
    It took itself way too seriously. It would be a solid 8 if it didn't overdesign the RPG aspect of it (it's a simple indie game, no need to have 80% of the time having to do lengthy RPG fights) and the poetry was way too corny. This game would be much better if it kept it simple with the RPG design and if the writing was more organized and less gloomy.
  14. Iimonster297
    May 14, 2014
    7
    Child of Light starts off as being Game of The Year that has one of the most superb accomplishments of trails in the RPG genre that essentially presents what all games have perfectly accomplished in a better way even, A game that I haven't been complaining upon the beginning. but unfortunately ends up towards a meaningful word of true disappointment - Avoids its gorgeous, overtakesChild of Light starts off as being Game of The Year that has one of the most superb accomplishments of trails in the RPG genre that essentially presents what all games have perfectly accomplished in a better way even, A game that I haven't been complaining upon the beginning. but unfortunately ends up towards a meaningful word of true disappointment - Avoids its gorgeous, overtakes saturation of balance; regardless.

    The great combinition Ubisoft Montréal has built with Child of Light of beautiful art design, wonderfully developed gameplay, music that plays feelings....build up a game that obviously inspires sorrow emotions. A masterpiece given world to players that contains amazing fantasy creatures. Levelling up system which is sort of traditional of theory more than satisfying though. Crafting which I felt a bit of 'unnecessary much' from the plenty amount of same items encountered with each random and every chest. howerever, satisfying for a small add.

    Although Child of Light is great, recovers some elements of Journey and confidently overcomes games attempting to make this approach. but it doesn't seem that worth playing towards 'ending up' somehow unfortunately left me with disappointments that it can very simply avoid rather than. indeed.

    7.4/10 Good    … Expand
  15. Giacomo_
    May 7, 2014
    6
    Difficulty is either too easy on "Normal" or an archaic grind on "Hard", where everything takes 5x as long because it's simulating the grindfest difficulty of something like the original "Dragon Quest".
  16. deviantdizzy
    May 15, 2014
    7
    I really love the flying in this game.. the storyline is ok, the fighting/movements/puzzles simplistic and the graphics (while very pretty- this is coming from a watercolor artist) are basic... I'm not really sure what happened and why games are being shuttled into these simple graphics/characters that are so unsatisfying to play lately.. Maybe I'm a graphics ..searching for non-offensiveI really love the flying in this game.. the storyline is ok, the fighting/movements/puzzles simplistic and the graphics (while very pretty- this is coming from a watercolor artist) are basic... I'm not really sure what happened and why games are being shuttled into these simple graphics/characters that are so unsatisfying to play lately.. Maybe I'm a graphics ..searching for non-offensive term here.. um, buff--- but this just doesn't do it for me, too simple- found myself finishing a few chapters and quitting bcs it was just eh..when thinking about loading it up.… Expand
  17. LolLimewire
    Jun 2, 2014
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I would give it a 10 if it hadn't been for two reasons
    1. Too short
    2. It's called Child of light, not Child of light that eventually grows up by some sort of power    … Expand
  18. tranxhdr
    Jun 5, 2014
    7
    I have to say the animation in this game is fantastic and yet so simple. It's quite entertaining but does get repetitive along the way. If you like games like A Tale of Two Brothers, this game is for you. I really like the small addition of skill points/tree and crafting system. Gives it a little hint of an rpg for such a simple game. Although it was quite short.
  19. Adalaide78
    Jun 21, 2015
    6
    Decent game with unique gameplay. I'm not sorry I paid for it or played it. That said, it simply does not live up to the hype. The battles, while avoidable are necessary to level up for bosses and really break the flow of the game. The battle system was interesting and fun, but the ability to just sit while waiting to choose an action healing seems a little silly. Not nearly as many feelsDecent game with unique gameplay. I'm not sorry I paid for it or played it. That said, it simply does not live up to the hype. The battles, while avoidable are necessary to level up for bosses and really break the flow of the game. The battle system was interesting and fun, but the ability to just sit while waiting to choose an action healing seems a little silly. Not nearly as many feels as expected, but still a few here and there. The rhyming crap gets old fast.… Expand
  20. daemondream
    Mar 21, 2016
    6
    Great art and battle system ultimately disappointing in the context of terrible writing, poor pacing, uninteresting gameplay, and poor character design.
  21. rodfeal
    Mar 6, 2017
    5
    Rhyming storytelling gives me sleep, horrendous characters and tiresome dialogs. Exploration is also bad...
    Graphics are excellent, but that's the least important thing on a good game to me.
    Game plays okay, but not my style. Seriously, many characters appear just out of nowhere and they are so boring that you couldn't care less... In my heart, I'd give it a three or 4 or less score,    Rhyming storytelling gives me sleep, horrendous characters and tiresome dialogs. Exploration is also bad...
    Graphics are excellent, but that's the least important thing on a good game to me.
    Game plays okay, but not my style. Seriously, many characters appear just out of nowhere and they are so boring that you couldn't care less...
    In my heart, I'd give it a three or 4 or less score, though I can admit that it's not that terrible.    … Expand
  22. Matusiowo
    Aug 20, 2020
    7
    + Great and interesting battle system with compelling companions to fight with
    + Vivid scenery with sort of sense of warmth radiating from the landscapes and characters
    + Interesting combination of 2D exploring with two characters at once + Good tree of abilities +/- Somewhat poetic, somewhat talentless writing - Enemies' abilities seems repetitious - Dull plot with no appealling    + Great and interesting battle system with compelling companions to fight with
    + Vivid scenery with sort of sense of warmth radiating from the landscapes and characters
    + Interesting combination of 2D exploring with two characters at once
    + Good tree of abilities

    +/- Somewhat poetic, somewhat talentless writing

    - Enemies' abilities seems repetitious
    - Dull plot with no appealling arcs
    - Repetetive music
    - Encountered puzzles are not challenging    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

100
#100 Best PC Game of 2014
55
#55 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
71
#71 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 16
  3. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. IGN
    Aug 29, 2014
    93
    Every aspect of Child of Light has an unmistakably artisinal, organic feel to it.
    Read full review
  2. Hyper Magazine
    Jun 7, 2014
    80
    Gorgeous and captivating with a great combat system. [Issue#249, p.57]
  3. PC PowerPlay
    Jun 6, 2014
    80
    Gorgeous graphics combine with a fantastic combat system to deliver a pretty unique experience. [June 2014, p.60]
See all critic reviews »