Game review: Child of Light

Here's a fairy tale for the modern dreamer.

Child of Light follows Aurora, a spirited young lady from 19th-century Austria who has been taken from her noble father to an otherworld where the sun doesn't shine. Neither do the moon and stars.

The malevolent force behind this stellar switch-off is Umbra, queen of darkness. Fittingly then, our champion's guide is a firefly, capable of lighting paths, dropping hints and stunning enemies during Aurora's quest to restore the celestial bodies and reunite with her dad.

The side-scrolling platform action switches to a Final Fantasy-type active time battle when Aurora encounters enemies and while the battles aren't too hard, there's work to do in managing your party with one thumb while using your other to have your firefly run interference. Enemies don't crowd your world and you can avoid most of them if you wish, but at the cost of your development.

Finding the balance between exploration and confrontation is a mildly jarring experience but once you realise you're free to set your own rhythm, the experience really opens up for you.

Child of Light implements a levelling-up and progressive skills upgrade system which is similar to that of another Ubisoft smash, Far Cry 3. That's not the only common element; this game is a head-trip too, but it's packing more awe than shock.

The music aims for dreamlike quality but, through being overly repetitive, may actually send you to sleep. Most of the game's dialogue is delivered in rhyme, so as to create the illusion of a nursery story or lullaby, but the rhymes are pretty average - in fact they work best in absentia, such as when the firefly calls out a party member for repeatedly using non-rhyming synonyms.

They are fair supporting acts to the visuals, which show off next-generation capabilities like nothing else so far. They're somewhere between cartoon and watercolour - vivid, beautiful, crisp and rather trippy. Precious minutes have been lost making Aurora turn left and right because that animation is like watching a shampoo commercial in Narnia.

And, a bit like a shampoo ad might promise, you'll fall in love with Child of Light. Not overnight, but it will happen.

Platform:

PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Rated:

PG

-TimeOut