Child of Light

Child of Light begins like this, with the death of the red-haired protagonist and the subsequent awakening in the fairy Lemuria, a magical and variously inhabited land in which the little Aurora will have to fight, grow, and more generally become an adult.

When it came out in 2014 on all the platforms then available (with a detour on PS Vita with a few months of delay), Child of Light seemed the first determined step of Ubisoft in the massive use of its UbiArt Framework, which had given birth to Rayman Origins and after to the touching Valiant Hearts, demonstrating without fear of denial that even if you are a giant who tends to triple A titles that speak of murderers, dancers or machines, when you put in it you can also be very delicate and deep, talking a lot about a red-haired fairy as much as the First World War.

History then told us that that era of experimentation ended the following year with Rayman Adventures, but it still left us this little gem that even after many years retains all its softness and delicacy.

Child of Light is in fact an indie produced by a giant studio, which manages to be respectful of the genre to which it belongs without however renouncing a strong dose of personality and grace. The playful structure is that of the role-playing game with a strong exploratory component, which is however stripped of different elements (the equipment, the infinite hours to complete them, the extreme grinding) in order to create a game that is so rewarding but that does not require a dedication of the classic genre productions.

Aurora twirls around Lemuria accompanied by her guiding spirit Igniculus and creating a party of adventurers and friends fights a discrete variety of evil creatures in an attempt to understand who and what forced her to search for this scale.

The story, although simple in its substance, is delightful in form: every dialogue, every passage told and every line of text is written in rhyme, finesse that accompanies a melancholy and dreamy soundtrack that will inevitably make you read every single box of text with a singsong gait, immersing you in the world of Aurora and her complex research. The artistic direction is also applause and perfect for the tone of the game, with the hair of the protagonist, always fluent and always in motion, acting as a brush to the palette of pastel colors that are Lemuria and its inhabitants. Everything is not always coherent and homogeneous, but enough to be highly effective.

However, there is not only form in the title of Ubisoft Montréal, but also substance: always keeping in mind that it is a small production, more focused on delicacy and immersion than on the need to fill it with useless content, Child of Light is a role-playing game with a fairly tactical combat system, mostly focused on interruptions and the use of Igniculus. In fact, that kind of firefly, which in the exploration of the game world is indispensable for illuminating dark areas or reaching inaccessible resources, in combat becomes your primary distraction weapon: if in fact placed close to an enemy, and illuminated by day like a stadium , this will be able to slow down the opposing action, giving you time, among other things, to make more attacks or heal you more easily.

The central element of the fight is in fact an indicator that shows the speed of action of the characters (two at the same time, plus as many, sometimes even three, enemies), which divides the turn into two moments, that of action, which is in fact the wait between one action and another, and the launch, which is the time that the action takes to be completed. Hitting an enemy in this second phase involves blowing an opponent's turn, which makes the launch phase the "sweet spot" in which to concentrate the actions.

The level of challenge is adequate for the production and its intent, so no, it is not at all difficult, however demanding it may be in some passages. The four areas to be explored have a pleasant and well-studied design, and take advantage of some of the peculiarities of Aurora and Igniculus. The Oculi, the only element of true personalization of the characters, close together with the skill table a playful offer which is obviously not like the huge genre productions, but which manages to be in its essentiality perfectly functional to the game system and the spirit of adventure. Too bad for some drop in frame rates here and there, which while not minimally affecting the scope of the game annoy just enough to make the Switch version lower than the others currently available.

MODUS OPERANDI
I played the Switch version of Child of Light, which also contains the DLC and all the additional content produced at the time, a few hours to understand the goodness of the operation, since I had already had the opportunity to finish it first on PS4 and then on PS Vita. I said "just a few hours", but now I'm more than halfway through and Aurora ends up saving her this time too.

Light in the dark

When Aurora opens her eyes for the first time in the fairy tale world of Lemuria, she only wants one thing - home. But the girl with the fiery red hair is given a task that will determine the fate of the world. The sun, moon and stars must be returned to their original location, the Dark Queen stole them. How Rayman runs and hops (and flies) Aurora through the levels; if it meets opponents, the game switches to a round-by-turn role-playing game.

Fortunately, the girl is not alone on her long journey. At the beginning she meets the friendly firefly Igniculus, who not only resembles Murphy from Rayman Legends in terms of appearance. It helps us move forward in the 2D world, solving simple slide puzzles, collects life and mana points and stands by our side in battle. And: A second player can control the flying ball of light. But it is also possible alone, then we maneuver Igniculus - like Murphy - with the right stick of the controller through the area. If we play with the mouse and keyboard, Igniculus becomes a mouse pointer - the more precise control variant.

Over time, other characters join our little group, such as the court jester Rubella or the bearded magical dwarf Finn. But they are only visible in the text field dialogues and during the fights.

Death to the shadow

There we stand: the slender Aurora with her sword and the spiky rubella. Their fool's costume doesn't exactly make opponents pale with fear. The appearance of our counterpart for us - the three fearsome heads of a hydra look at us aggressively. About as high as a house. And almost as superior. On paper.

Every action, whether attack, defense or spell, needs a certain amount of time from the time it is selected before it is carried out. We therefore use the preparation time of opponents to interrupt them with a weak, but quickly executed offensive action. The time advantage gained from this, in turn, to let Finn rain down his elaborate monsoon magic on one of the hydra heads.

That brings us to the point of "knowledge": the fiery skull reacts extremely allergic to water, the lightning skull to earth magic. Each type of enemy tolerates one type of attack particularly badly, but is in turn almost resistant to others. This applies to the Hydra as well as to all other adversaries.

Helping flare

Igniculus can help us in a fight, for example by holding one of the opponents and thus slowing down the time until his next move. He can also search the arena for mana, which may allow us to make the decisive spell attack.

Once you've got the hang of it, the opponents - apart from large intermediate and final bosses like the three-headed Hydra - are not a big challenge on the »normal« level of difficulty. So if you are already a role-play player, choose the level of difficulty "difficult" right at the beginning.

Character tuning

Even if we cannot equip Aurora and Co. ourselves, there are some ways to influence their development.

For example, through the skill system in which we improve a character's skills using three trees each. For example, we strengthen Aurora's evasive reflex, her magic values or raise her flash of light attack to a new level.

In addition, we equip our characters with collected crystals, which then increase our maximum HP values or add lightning damage to a melee attack. If we fuse three crystals to form an »Oculi«, even more will pop out for us.

Wonderful

Child of Light's art design is fantastic, with the hanging clouds in the background, the occasional rain and withered flora lending the game a sleepy melancholy that is broken up here and there by brightly glowing trees or other objects. Just beautiful!

But the world is not really varied. Although the sections differ from one another, this is hardly the case within the areas, because a lot is repeated, too many corners look the same. The enthusiasm for the artistic style evaporates the more you see of the game.

Child of Light is most fun with two people: We coordinate things, plan the next attack, take tactics. We also solve the occasional puzzles - usually it's about projecting light into the right place through a template - together. Child of Light is also entertaining on its own, but it is not so motivating because of the somewhat monotonous levels over time and the fact that the skill trees are a little small compared to other role-playing games.