[GAMING/MIDGAME] Child of Light

Following up my post the other day (read it here first if you haven't yet), now I've had the chance to play around with this game for a few hours, and at what seems to be roughly halfway through the story, it feels like a good time to make this post. This post will be all about gameplay mechanics with my thoughts on the story saved until the final post when I've actually completed the game. Before I begin, I feel I should make a correction. I said in the last post that igniculus (the blue sprite) was a fairy, but he's apparently actually a firefly. He's also much less annoying than navi.

First off, a few mechanics I really like:

Igniculus: although his use is more limited than I thought, only being able to heal allies or slow opponents, he is actually VERY useful, and rather than being intrusive, actually adds a whole nother layer of depth to battles. Healing allies is obviously useful, but I'd argue slowing foes is much more important, for reasons I'll explain below. Igniculus can also be used in the field to operate certain mechanisms or to pick up items or access out of reach areas!

The timeline: this is the real time element to the battles. The timeline is divided into 2 parts: wait, which takes 75% of the timeline, and cast which takes up the remaining 25%. Your characters and the enemies involved in the battle will move along the timeline at a speed relative to their speed stat, and once they reach the dividing line between wait and cast you get to choose which action the character will take, but they won't actually take it until they reach the end of cast. This is why slowing enemies with igniculus is so useful, but mostly for the next item on the list...

Interruption: this is a double-edged sword. When a character is hit while in cast, their action will be interrupted and they will be set back on the timeline. You the player with igniculus's help can easily interrupt enemies (and indeed, you'll need to as they can hit pretty hard) but enemies can also interrupt you! With a little work you can constantly interrupt enemies and be able to stun them, and this will even work on bosses, but beware: most bosses have some kind of ability that will activate when they get interrupted!

Occuli: the occuli are gemstones that come in 9 varieties each which can be of 4 different grades, along with one more unique stone. The stones can be combined in various ways to upgrade them. Any gem can be made from the same base 3 gems as long as you have enough of those base gems. The base gems are ruby, sapphire, and emerald. (Pokemon anyone?) gem fusion is actually very simple and easy to understand. Gems don't get used up, can't break or be lost, fusion can't fail, it's a simple system that's no more complex than it needs to be.

Shared exp: quite simply, all characters gain exp from every battle. That's it. This is great because you don't have to worry about that one character you almost never use that you feel bad for because they get no exp. that can't happen in child of light. Even if you never use a character, they'll still be just as strong as all your others.

Flying: Like i said before, you can fly. plain and simple. navigating the map is very easy and never a chore.

Some things i don't like so far:

Norah: It's not that I didn't like Norah, I actually really like her, but I can't explain why she's here without giving spoilers...

Lack of saphires: It's probably just really stupid bad luck, but I'm constantly lacking saphires... But like I said, probably just me...

Loading screens: perhaps is has to do with getting this game as a download, but the loading screens are JUST long enough to be annoying...

Battle length: farther on in the game battles start taking a fair amount of time, and fighting them can get somewhat tedious...

Overall, this so far seems like an amazing game. The music is top notch and the art is just as amazing as it looked in the previews. Gameplay mechanics are interesting and no more complicated than is necessary. I never really knew where I was going, but I never really cared and somehow managed to progress through the story with little effort. Only in one area did I get stuck, and that was only because I was being stupid and ignoring the big doors that were right in front of me... From what I've seen so far, Child of Light is an amazing game that is certainly worth every penny, and I can totally recommend it!

I can't say for sure when the next post on this game will come since I plan to finish the story first, but the final post will be less, if at all, about gameplay and mostly about the story, so you should probably hold off on reading it when it's up until finishing the game yourself if you are, or plan on,  playing it.

Oh yeah, and about the rhyming, it's actually not that bad. It feels odd at times, but I think it works well for this game, so yeah, it's not as bad as I thought.

[GAMING/FIRST IMPRESSIONS] This Blog is not Dead + Child of Light First Impressions

Hi all, sorry for not posting anything for the last two months... Been busy with finals and whatnot all up until last week. Now that it's summer and I have much more free time on my hands, expect more frequent updates! In the time that I've been gone I've purchased a WiiU. (inb4 "Why didn't you buy an Xbox One &/or PS4?") There are a handful of games I'm looking forward to that I'll be talking about later in similar fashion to how I'll be approaching the game that I'll be talking about today. Some of these game are Smash Bros. U, Bayonetta 2, and Hyrule Warriors. Today I'll be taking a look at Child of Light. I have yet to play this game, and this post will be about my first impressions about the game before actually trying it out. I downloaded it earlier today, but only had ten minutes and didn't want to start something that I could not finish... This will be my pre-play post. I'll also do another post after playing around with it for a few hours and a third and final one after finishing the game. So without further ado... Child of Light:

Never heard of this game? Here's some basic info.

This game feels not so much like a game, and more like a playable piece of art. And indeed, that seems to be the feeling that the developers were going for. From graphics which are almost entirely (if not 100%) hand drawn, all the way down to the game's dialogue written entirely in iambic pentameter (i.e. the whole thing is written like a poem). Every last detail of the game just seems to exude a sense of artisticness, and only time will tell if I find it entrancing, or outright annoying...

The gameplay itself seems to be solid. The overworld features a sidescroller perspective, and you receive the ability to fly early on in the game, so it seems that navigating between story events and encounters and the link will be much less of a chore than it is in many other games... The battle system features a mix between real time and turn based rpg battles, and while not exactly revolutionary, seems to be a solid and fun system nonetheless. What I haven't seen before though, is the blue sprite which can be seen in the above image. I don't mean to say that we haven't had our fair share of navi-esque sprites that have been both helpful and extremely annoying at times... I mean that you can actually use it in battle. It seems to take on a support role, being controlled by the stylus to deliver buffs to your party members and debuffs to foes. I'm not sure just how useful this will actually be, or even if it will be intrusive, but if executed well it seems to be a solid and fun addition to battles.

I'll have a chance to actually try this game out for real in a few hours, so hopefully I can get a mid-game post up in a few days, look forward to it!

EDIT: the second post for this game is completed: [link]