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!

[review pros=”Great turn-based/active-time battle system
Art style and soundtrack
Kid-friendly co-op experience” cons=”Game is relatively short for a turn-based RPG
” score=88]

Cost: $14.99

PSN Game size: 2GB

You can purchase Child of Light on the PSN (PS3, PS4) or on other platforms (Windows, Xbox, Wii U).

Disclaimer

This review is based on a digital copy provided by Ubisoft.