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Child of Light |OT| Beware the Night

ngower

Member
Went ahead and bought the game tonight. In the third chapter and enjoying it so far.

That said, I heard the game can be obscenely easy so I started on Hard and I'm wondering if I'm going to regret that down the road? I'm not a filthy casual, but I'm also not the type of person that considers Dark Souls fun. I'm not struggling, but I've made a few mistakes that I know would cost me dearly if repeated in the later stages of the game.

Also, terrified of the corrupted save nonsense.
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
"What's inside? - Homicide!"

Haha that made me laugh.

First time playing it on my TV, looks even better than gamepad alone.
Though, I find it harder to play a bit.... Pad makes tough battles on Hard much smoother with touch controls for Ignaculous.

Just got to mouse village.
Adorable. Hope it sells more. Need dat word of mouth.
 
Went ahead and bought the game tonight. In the third chapter and enjoying it so far.

That said, I heard the game can be obscenely easy so I started on Hard and I'm wondering if I'm going to regret that down the road? I'm not a filthy casual, but I'm also not the type of person that considers Dark Souls fun. I'm not struggling, but I've made a few mistakes that I know would cost me dearly if repeated in the later stages of the game.

Also, terrified of the corrupted save nonsense.

I completed the game, went back to clean up two trophies... after one battle the game crashed and my save file was corrupted. You have been warned!
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Went ahead and bought the game tonight. In the third chapter and enjoying it so far.

That said, I heard the game can be obscenely easy so I started on Hard and I'm wondering if I'm going to regret that down the road? I'm not a filthy casual, but I'm also not the type of person that considers Dark Souls fun. I'm not struggling, but I've made a few mistakes that I know would cost me dearly if repeated in the later stages of the game.

Also, terrified of the corrupted save nonsense.

Do not fear,
You can change the difficulty on the fly...
So you don't have to cry,
Casual or Hard, victory is near!
 

zeopower6

Member
I'd say about 15-20 hours.

If you wanted to go for a maxed out skill tree, two playthroughs are definitely necessary and can add a few more hours to that playtime. (everyone gets their trees maxed out at 81 I believe and the grind from mid-60s onward without an EXP boost is... really really bad T_T) You're also able to get every coffer and stardust again in NG+.

"What's inside? - Homicide!"

Haha that made me laugh.

First time playing it on my TV, looks even better than gamepad alone.
Though, I find it harder to play a bit.... Pad makes tough battles on Hard much smoother with touch controls for Ignaculous.

Just got to mouse village.
Adorable. Hope it sells more. Need dat word of mouth.

It was advertised pretty well on the PS store.
 

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
Played 4 more consecutive hours of the game, has got quite the grip on me. Since the Troll boss, it's been getting more challenging (on hard).

Beat this triple serpent who is one great boss because it requires you to keep on switching your party since I had decked out my four party members with various elemental damage and resistances. The win felt great.

ihqD1bR8dVQ2n.jpg

I had to switch to easy on that boss
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
If you wanted to go for a maxed out skill tree, two playthroughs are definitely necessary and can add a few more hours to that playtime. (everyone gets their trees maxed out at 81 I believe and the grind from mid-60s onward without an EXP boost is... really really bad T_T) You're also able to get every coffer and stardust again in NG+.



It was advertised pretty well on the PS store.

Yah killing it on ps4. Could do better elsewhere.
 

Spaulding

Member
Yesterday my PS4 crashed several times playing that game. In the process my save was corrupted and I lost several hours :( Damn you UBI!
 

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
Really? I've been playing this casually and he didn't give me any trouble at all (Finn/Aurora) on normal. Took me a while to work out the vulnerability of the middle head, but other than that it was fine. :/
Well half of it was me not wanting to go into the occulus or whatever it's called and reorganize and reequip them when I had just got done doing it.
 

Number45

Member
Well half of it was me not wanting to go into the occulus or whatever it's called and reorganize and reequip them when I had just got done doing it.
I didn't do anything special for the fight. I used Light Ray from Aurora for the heads she was weak against and the relevant elemental attack from Finn.

No consumables and my eight year old daughter on Igniculus.

(note: I'm not trying to belittle you, I'm just surprised is all. I haven't come across anything in the game that's hard yet)
 
iO836xUetBIpF.gif

Maybe it's just me, but when a game allows me to spin myself, it gets extra brownie points. I just like goofing around. Plus, it looks like she just came out of a shower with her hair all wrapped up.

The new Helldivers game also allows that.
 

Lima

Member
Really? I've been playing this casually and he didn't give me any trouble at all (Finn/Aurora) on normal. Took me a while to work out the vulnerability of the middle head, but other than that it was fine. :/

That is because you are playing on normal which is easy in this game.

Try him on hard. I beat him first time anyhow but that was a tough boss on hard.
 
I bought this game for my wife two days ago and she absolutely loves it. She's playing it on normal and it's still pretty hard for her and I have to talk her through the battles because she is a filthy casual. The game is gorgeous though.
 
I bought this game for my wife two days ago and she absolutely loves it. She's playing it on normal and it's still pretty hard for her and I have to talk her through the battles because she is a filthy casual. The game is gorgeous though.

This is probably the second jrpg style game that I've ever properly played after FF 8 and I'm playing it on hard. I can now see why people like this kind of battle system as it allows more strategy than an action RPG.
 

Lima

Member
Is there no easy difficulty setting?

Normal = Easy
Hard = Normal

In this game. It's why the difficulty names will be changed to Beginner (normal before) and Expert (hard before).

If you have ever played an RPG before you shouldn't play this on normal. You can just walk through the game.
 

zashga

Member
Finished the game this afternoon, and I have mixed feelings about it. Visually, Child of Light is fantastic. The watercolor backdrops are phenomenal, and the penciled character portraits have that charming fairytale quality Ubisoft was obviously aiming for. The only thing that bothers me, visually, was how the
evil queen's portrait art looks a little bit like a Ctrl+Alt+Delete character
. High marks; it's the best-looking game I've played this year.

The sound design has a few miscues, but is still quite strong. The score relies a little too heavily on its main theme, so I got a little bit tired of hearing yet more same-y arrangements as the game wore on. It's a pleasant enough tune, at least. It also took me out of it a bit when the narrator would occasionally reappear to read a few lines. Since they were going for a storybook presentation anyway, I think they would've been better served leaving the game without any voice.

I'm not a big fan of the writing. The plot and characters are serviceable, but the rhyming stinks. I don't even want to make fun of it; it's just bad. I'm sure it would've been a huge effort to write the whole game in quality verse, but what they ended up with only diminishes the experience. There are a few decent couplets scattered across 10+ hours of gameplay. The rest of the script is painful to sit through.

Speaking of gameplay, Child of Light is a mess of an RPG. The combat system is fundamentally sound, but so many disjointed ideas are heaped on top of it that the whole thing feels barely functional. There are a ton of party members, but the distribution of stats and abilities makes no sense. (Character spoilers:)
Why, if there are eight playable characters, is there only one healer and two real magic attackers? I like Gen's design, but she feels completely superfluous when I already have Robert. Speaking of useless, did anyone actually use Tristis?
On top of that, you're asked to juggle eight sets of gems and eight three-pronged skill trees that follow the FF13 crystarium school of design, only without quite as much visual clutter and no actual branching. It gets pretty tedious having to periodically wade through the menus to manage everyone's skill points and gems, and the rewards generally don't feel super rewarding.

I played on hard mode, and there didn't seem to be much thought put into making interesting combat encounters. Everything is just faster than you, has a ton of HP, and hits hard. You're rewarded for exploiting enemies' elemental weaknesses, but trying to manage your own resistances feels pointless since enemy attack types change frequently and you can't swap gems in combat. The sense of attrition from one fight to the next is way over the top; usually I felt lucky just to survive each fight only losing half of my HP. You can't use healing abilities or swap active characters outside of combat, so it usually feels like you're a turn or two away from completely collapsing. The only thing that keeps things moving is the fact that you get full HP/MP when you level up, and leveling up is quite frequent. (This in turn makes managing skill trees more of a chore.) Boss encounters always consist of three slightly-harder-than-normal baddies with a little something to punish you for actually playing the game properly (i.e. trying to interrupt them).

The game doesn't work as a traditional RPG requiring resource management, so it might have been better served just restoring everyone's HP between fights and not even having MP to begin with. We already have a "casting" mechanic to distinguish between normal and special abilities (i.e. better abilities take longer to use), so MP feels pretty superfluous. Igniculus would benefit from some streamlining, too. It would make more sense just to have him speed up allies when you focus on them, and it would probably be better if the game was balanced around Igniculus not having an energy meter (i.e. if the game assumed you were speeding someone up or slowing someone down at all times). That would also let you dispense with a lot of redundant character abilities and make combat feel less clunky in general.

Overall I still liked Child of Light, but it could've been a much better game if someone had taken a knife to its RPG systems. Artistically, the game is top-notch. Mechanically, it's a shambles. I made it through to the end, but it was a much more uneven ride than it should've been.
 

TechnicPuppet

Nothing! I said nothing!
Thinking of buying this had a few questions if anyone could help. Trying to decide first if I want it and on what platform.

Is the demo representative of the game?
How is the co-op, would it be too complicated for a 4 year old child?
How is remote play on the Vita, specifically the buttons, is front or back touch required?
 

ngower

Member
Thinking of buying this had a few questions if anyone could help. Trying to decide first if I want it and on what platform.

Is the demo representative of the game?
How is the co-op, would it be too complicated for a 4 year old child?
How is remote play on the Vita, specifically the buttons, is front or back touch required?

Can't say anything about remote play, but I think the game (even as a co-op character) might be fairly complicated for a 4-year old.

And I think the demo is somewhat representative of the game. You have more options with party members and the ability to craft/equip occuli (magic defense, elemental damage to attacks, extra XP, etc) but for the most part it hits the nail on the head.
 
Try him on hard. I beat him first time anyhow but that was a tough boss on hard.

Took me two tries. That boss is definitely a skill check -- there isn't much in the game that really necessitates using the defend system effectively before that point, but there's no way you're beating the serpent on hard without.
 

Exentryk

Member
I played it on hard and the serpent boss was the first "Oh Shit! I can lose here" moment. But my party pulled through. The only boss I had a game over was the
Gryphon
. I was being lazy and not paying attention though, and I got him in the 2nd attempt relatively easily.

The game for me is better played on hard, with no grinding at all. The normal encounters you run into are enough for you to continue and be able to beat bosses. It makes the fights fun and engaging.
 

zeopower6

Member
Is the game cross-save (ie. can you import your save between PS3 and PS4)?

I think most of the cross-capabilities are only available outside of NA? Like cross-buy/cross-save.

The only time I ever game over'd in this was when I was flying through the spikes near the end and tried to also get all the items as I went up... :(
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Really surprised at the number of characters! Had no idea.

Also its a really nice touch that new party members chat with each other after combat when you pair them together for the first time. Very dragon agey.
 

Violet_0

Banned
alright, finished the game (on hard)

+ great visuals, great music, the dialogue can be pretty funny sometimes, getting the wings right at the start of the game was really cool

- terrible story, really disliked the battle system by the end of the game

all in all a fun game
 

daveo42

Banned
Finished up the game just now. Liked the simple story, but the rhyming bit got in the way far too often. Some of it was cute and funny, but they should have just left it completely out, even if they were going for the storybook feel.

Combat was good and I felt somewhat challenged on Hard, especially on a few of the boss battles. The final though was a bit of a letdown as the prior one felt harder. A few of the characters I didn't really use all that since some of the characters has spells and abilities overlap. Still worth it to use them all in certain situations, but more definitely got more use than others.

As for the story:
I assume the dark world was actually our own world and they are both somehow connected to 14th century Europe and Lemuria? Even reading the confessions didn't make too much sense outside of those points. I suppose the first part was from the Queen of Light's perspective coming to Lermuria and the war that supposedly caused all of this, while the rest is from some explorer from our time?
I wish they had fleshed out some of these ideas a bit more.

Overall, I really like the game. It was visually appealing, had some really fantastic music, and had a good combat system. The story could have been better, but the main story was pretty simple and fairy-tale like.
 

gruenel

Member
Game just crashed on me after 5 hours of progress today and now my save file is corrupt. PS4 version.

GG Ubisoft

Done with this game until that shit is patched.
 
Noooo!! The game just crashed on me and my save file is corrupt now! I had just beat
Norah(nox) and I feel like the final boss was just around the corner!
SO FRUSTRATING!

What do I do now?!
 
Just beat the game today and couldn't had enjoyed it more.

I had a crash near the end that somehow didn't corrupt my save. PS4 version clearly has some serious issues with stability. Sorry to hear about the problems so many others are having.
 

mmalto

Neo Member
Thinking of buying this had a few questions if anyone could help. Trying to decide first if I want it and on what platform.

How is remote play on the Vita, specifically the buttons, is front or back touch required?

Vita remote play works perfect. I played a good portion of the game this way. Do not recall using front or rear touch at all.
 

antibolo

Banned
Those two corrupted PS4 save posts in a row have freaked me out!

Have there been any reports of similar issues on the Wii U version? I may go for that instead, just to be sure.
 

Makonero

Member
Those two corrupted PS4 save posts in a row have freaked me out!

Have there been any reports of similar issues on the Wii U version? I may go for that instead, just to be sure.
Anecdotally, I had zero issues with the WiiU version and I played the game to completion.
 
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