The Backlog - Child of Light
I have a confession to make. Like many of you reading this, I have a list of games that I’ve been meaning play for years. I have way too many games on Steam, and a stack of cases sitting next to my TV. Close to five hundred games now. Maybe more. It makes me feel guilty. I haven’t touched 90% of them in one way or another. I need to fix that. So this week, I dug deep into my backlog and pulled out a game. I want to play all of them; I’ve just never had the chance. Now’s the time.
Child of Light is a great idea trapped in a prison of its own mechanics. It has a compelling world, gorgeous art and character design, a great story, and an interesting gimmick. But it just is not fun to play. I felt like I was forcing myself through battle after repetitive battle until I was doing everything I could to avoid these encounters, which in turn made every subsequent fight that I was forced into more and more punishing. I love being in the world, exploring every nook and cranny that I could find and meeting new characters to rhyme with, but the actual core combat gameplay was boring, unbalanced, and generally not fun.