WATCH_DOGS Reviewed

Beware of the Night, My Child of Light

UPDATE (May 18th, 2014): I finished Child of Light last night, the game is beautiful but the game coding leaves much to be desired. It crashed several times before the end and after I finished the game. During one of the free-roam post-game, it crashed and corrupted the save file. It couldn't recover and I had no choice but to revert to an older save. My advice to you, upload the savefile to the PS+ cloud manually or copy it to a USB stick). If not you might end up having a feast for your eyes but a sour taste in your mouth.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
Child of Light is a exploration-based role-playing game developed by Ubisoft Montreal, released on various platforms: PC, PS3/PS4, Xbox360, Xbox One in April 2014. Made by the team that was behind Far Cry 3, Child of Light is the team's love letter to JRPG, drawing inspiration from various sources such as Final Fantasy, Vagrant Story and Grandia

The game's story puts you in the shoes of young Aurora, a child who must in her quest to find her way from and reclaim the moon, the sun and the stars held captive by the Queen of the Night.

The Art Style
The game's art style is said to be inspired by the likes of Studio Ghibli and Yoshitaka Amano. Its dreamy storybook-like watercolour style is powered by UbiArt Framework, the technology behind the last two entries in the Rayman series. The multi-layered painted scenery and animated backgrounds gives the game an ethereal atmosphere.

The Music
Composed by Cœur de pirate (Béatrice Martin, a Canadian singer-songwriter), the game's music is both ear-pleasing and youthful. It supports the exploratory gameplay nature of the game superbly. The score also swells occasionally to complement the drama during larger scale combat gameplay. You can sample some of the beautiful music here

The Gameplay
Essentially, Child of Light is a game of exploration, puzzle solving and borrows elements of JRPG. You collect items treasure chests peppered across the beautifully crafted environments and claim loots from defeated foes. As you and your party members gain experience points from each fight, you can choose to upgrade the skills of each member.

Personally, I am not a JRPG or even RPG fan, primarily due to the fact that most RPG are 40+ hours experiences and include a fair bit of XP farming or level-grinding.

One of the most important feature of an RPG is the combat system, an area Child of Light succeeded is creating a simple yet deep strategic system. The ability to 'interrupt' your opponents during the fight will cause them to miss a turn. This is key to winning and feels very satisfying whenever it is successfully executed.

Summary
Child of Light is the perfect RPG for the busy gamer or casual-RPG gamer, who is looking to experience a well-made game.

Child of Light is my game of the month. I bought this game from Malaysian PSN Store, at MYR36, a limited offer for PS+ subscriber, a cross-buy for both PS3 and PS4 platforms.