Honestly, most "artistic" games feel like they're trying too hard. You know the type—the ones that swap fun for a high-concept metaphor and leave you feeling like you just sat through a lecture. But Child of Light is different. It’s weird, actually. It’s a Ubisoft game, which usually means a massive open world filled with icons, yet this is a tight, poetic, watercolor dream that feels more like an indie darling than something from the makers of Assassin's Creed. It’s been a decade since it dropped, and somehow, nothing else has quite captured that specific vibe of a playable bedtime story.
Ubisoft Montreal used the UbiArt Framework—the same engine that made the modern Rayman games look so crisp—to build Lemuria. It doesn't look like a video game. It looks like an illustration by Yoshitaka Amano or Arthur Rackham brought to life. You play as Aurora, a young princess who wakes up in a dying world after "dying" in her own. It’s a coming-of-age story, sure, but it’s told through rhyming couplets. Every single line of dialogue in the game rhymes. That sounds like it would be annoying, right? It isn't. It gives the whole experience this rhythmic, hypnotic flow that keeps you moving through the melancholy.
The Combat System in Child of Light is Secretly Brilliant
A lot of people think this is just a walking simulator with pretty art. Big mistake. The combat in Child of Light is actually a refined evolution of the Grandia series' "Wait/Act" timeline. It’s turn-based, but it’s all about timing. You see a bar at the bottom of the screen. Icons representing your party and the enemies slide across it. When you hit the "Cast" zone, you pick an action. If you hit an enemy while they are in their "Cast" zone, you interrupt them. They get knocked back. They lose their turn.
It’s stressful. It’s tactical.
You aren't just mashing "Attack." You’re micro-managing Igniculus—the little blue firefly controlled by the right analog stick (or a second player). Igniculus can hover over enemies to slow them down, or hover over your allies to heal them. This dual-tasking is what makes the game. You're trying to time your sword swing to land exactly when the dark griffin is about to strike, all while wiggling a firefly to shave seconds off the enemy's speed. It’s a dance. If you miss the timing, you get punished hard, especially on the "Hard" difficulty setting which, frankly, is the only way you should play this game if you want to see the systems actually shine.
Why the Oculi System Matters
Instead of traditional armor or weapon shops, you have Oculi. These are gems you find in chests or loot from battles. You craft them. You combine three Rough Rubies to make a Tumbled Ruby. You mix a Sapphire and a Ruby to get a Purple Amethyst. It’s a simple crafting loop, but it adds a layer of elemental strategy that is mandatory for survival. If you're fighting water-based creatures in the flooded plains, you better have some Lightning-imbued Oculi equipped. If you ignore this, the late-game bosses will absolutely steamroll you.
The Risk Ubisoft Took on a Small Project
In 2014, the industry was obsessed with the "triple-A" bloat. Everything had to be 100 hours long. Patrick Plourde, the creative director, had just finished Far Cry 3—a massive, violent, sprawling shooter. He wanted to do the opposite. He wanted to make something "soft." He pitched Child of Light as a "playable poem."
It's rare for a major studio to let a small team go off into a corner and make a 12-hour JRPG-inspired platformer. But they did. And it worked because the team treated it like a passion project. The music, composed by the Canadian artist Cœur de pirate, is almost entirely piano and cello. It’s lonely. It’s hopeful. When the boss music kicks in and the violins start screaming, it feels earned because the rest of the game is so quiet.
Exploring Lemuria Without a Map
The game doesn't hold your hand. Once Aurora grows her wings—which happens pretty early—the game shifts from a platformer to a 360-degree exploration game. You can fly anywhere. The world is vertical. There are hidden passages tucked behind "foreground" layers of the painting that you can only find if you’re curious enough to fly into a dark corner.
There are no waypoints cluttering the screen. You just explore. You meet a jester who can't rhyme (which is a hilarious meta-joke considering the rest of the script). You meet a mouse with a violin. You meet a giant golem made of rocks. Every character joins your party not because of a quest marker, but because their story naturally intersects with Aurora's search for a way home. It feels organic in a way modern RPGs often miss.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Story
Some critics at the time complained that the rhyming felt forced or that the story was too simple. "It's just a fairy tale," they said. But they missed the subtext. Child of Light is a game about grief and the transition from childhood to adulthood. Aurora is literally dealing with the death of her mother and the perceived "betrayal" of her father remarrying. Lemuria isn't just a fantasy land; it's a manifestation of her processing loss.
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The "Dark Queen" isn't just a cartoon villain. She represents the crushing weight of reality. When you reach the end of the game, the resolution isn't just "I beat the bad guy." It’s "I’ve accepted that I can’t go back to how things were." That’s heavy stuff for a game that looks like a storybook. It’s why the ending sticks with you. It’s bittersweet. It doesn't give you the perfect "happily ever after" because life doesn't work that way.
Technical Performance and Platforms
If you’re looking to play it today, you have plenty of options. It runs on basically everything.
- Nintendo Switch: Probably the best way to play it. The touch screen lets you control Igniculus easily, and the art looks stunning on the OLED screen.
- PC: Solid, but the Ubisoft Connect integration can be a bit of a headache sometimes.
- PlayStation/Xbox: It’s often on sale for like $5. It runs at a locked frame rate and looks incredibly sharp.
One weird thing to note: the "Uplay" rewards (now Ubisoft Connect) used to give you specific Oculi and skins. Since they've updated their services, some of those old bonuses are a bit wonky to redeem on older consoles, but the base game is 100% complete without them. Don't worry about the DLC either; the "Golem's Plight" quest is okay, but it's not essential to the experience.
The Lasting Legacy of the UbiArt Engine
It’s actually a bit of a tragedy that Ubisoft stopped using the UbiArt engine for projects like this. After Valiant Hearts and Child of Light, the engine mostly went into hibernation or was used for Just Dance. We lost a specific era of "Prestige Ubisoft" games that were experimental and visually daring.
Playing it now serves as a reminder that games don't need photorealistic 4K textures of individual blades of grass to be beautiful. They need an art direction. They need a soul. The hand-drawn aesthetic of Lemuria hasn't aged a day. If you took a screenshot of the game in 2014 and a screenshot of a "modern" indie game today, the 2014 game would likely still look more sophisticated.
How to Get the Most Out of Your First Playthrough
If you’re jumping into Lemuria for the first time, don't rush. This isn't a game to be "beaten." It's a game to be inhaled.
- Change the difficulty to Hard immediately. Normal mode is too easy, and you’ll find yourself ignoring the interruption mechanic because you can just tank hits. Hard mode forces you to actually play the game as intended.
- Experiment with party swaps. You can swap characters mid-battle without losing a turn. This is huge. If Rubella is low on health, swap her for Finn instantly. Don't get stuck using the same two characters.
- Talk to your party members. Use the "Party Talk" feature whenever it pops up. It’s where most of the character development happens and where the rhyming dialogue actually starts to feel charming rather than gimmicky.
- Invest in the "Stun" and "Speed" Oculi. Anything that slows the enemy down on the timeline is more valuable than raw damage. Control is king in this game.
Child of Light remains a masterpiece of a very specific, very niche genre. It’s a JRPG made by Westerners with the heart of a French poem. It’s short enough to finish in a weekend but deep enough to stay in your head for years. If you’ve skipped over it because it looked "too pretty" or "too simple," go back. It’s much sharper than it looks.
Next Steps for Players
Check the digital store on your console of choice; the "Ultimate Edition" frequently goes on sale for under $10 and includes all the minor DLC packs. If you are on PC, ensure your Ubisoft Connect client is updated before launching to avoid save-syncing issues that occasionally plague older UbiArt titles. Once you start, head straight into the options menu and ensure your "Active" or "Wait" combat settings are adjusted to your preference—"Active" provides a much more challenging, real-time feel that rewards quick thinking.