Making a profitable horror sport requires a fragile stability of ambiance and sport design. Above all, although, it’s higher once they’re scary. The Chant affords some surprisingly environment friendly sport design and marries it to responsive fight that makes for an acceptably participating journey. Nonetheless, the sport isn’t scary, the narrative is foolish, it’s fairly quick, and the protagonist is truthfully ridiculously overpowered for this type of sport. You’ll doubtless have an honest sufficient time whereas the sport lasts, however it undoubtedly isn’t up there with the heavyweights of the style, even when the protagonist fights like a heavyweight herself.
The Chant tells the story of an below characterised younger lady named Jess. Jess is traumatized by the loss of life of her sister years earlier than, so her previous buddy Kim, who shares her trauma, invitations her to a retreat for what is clearly a cult. Jess instantly appears to go, “hey, isn’t this a cult?” She doesn’t look like silly, however it doesn’t make an entire lot of sense for her to have gone on this retreat to start with. The get collectively is held by a person named Tyler, who guarantees to heal individuals with the ability of Prismic Science. Yup. It’s a cult.
Firstly of the sport, the group joins arms for a ritual. Kim freaks out and breaks the circle, just for one thing referred to as the Gloom to power its approach into the retreat. The one option to put issues again how they have been is to complete the ritual, and, for no matter cause, it’s as much as Jess to make issues proper. The plot in The Chant doesn’t make numerous sense. Tyler has apparently held numerous these rituals but that is the first time any of this has ever occurred? Actually? Not a single particular person has damaged the circle earlier than? The sport primarily has Jess following different characters into linear areas to get their prism necklaces, which is able to permit her to discover different places.
Not fairly open
One of the intriguing guarantees that The Chant affords is that you just’ll have free entry to discover the world and can be capable of attain new areas as you go. That is technically true, as you may backtrack, and getting access to new prisms will help you undergo areas you couldn’t earlier than. However these primarily create new pathways to locations you’ve been. There’s additionally no map and the areas aren’t conducive to backtracking, so there’s probably not any cause to aim this. I attempted and the sport shut me down fairly laborious.
Horror video games are inclined to have frail protagonists that may’t stand toe-to-toe with their enemies. Foes right here could be intimidating, with creepy humanoids, frog monsters, flying flower creatures, and the like. Early on, I did my finest to flee from enemies in The Chant. However Jess is so nimble and succesful that standing and combating is usually completely acceptable. She has a dodge that, when pressed twice, permits her to fall on her butt and escape rattling close to any assault that comes her approach. She appears to be like like she’s clumsily stumbling, however in actuality, it feels extra like she’s nimbly evading any enemy assaults.
The iframes on this transfer are so beneficiant that I not often took harm. To hammer house that fight is meant to be a final resort, Jess can solely carry two or three of the gadgets she finds. There are herbs for therapeutic, crafting supplies for weapons, and sub-weapons that she will be able to throw and use for traps. However regardless of her stock being so restricted, I by no means discovered myself working low on something, as there are all the time extra gadgets across the subsequent nook.
Whack ’em with twine
Jess has three craftable melee weapons in The Chant – one which’s actually solely helpful towards an invincible swarm of flies that always chases her, burning twine that does extra harm to bodily enemies, and a weapon that does extra harm to foes within the Gloom. The Gloom is principally coloured fog that sometimes requires a prism of the identical coloration to enter. Right here, Jess’s sanity drops and she or he’ll usually must discover a huge flower enemy hooked up to a wall with a view to destroy it and take away the fog. If Jess’s sanity reaches zero, she has a panic assault and loses her fight skills till she calms down.
Sanity is known as Thoughts, well being is known as Physique, and magic energy is named Spirit. All three could be refilled by consuming herbs. When Jess will get a brand new prism, she learns a brand new spirit capability, which incorporates the power to cease time or hit her enemies with a wave of spikes. There are a variety of attributes you may improve by discovering jars of prismatic crystals, which is able to enhance your three swimming pools, give Jess extra sturdiness, have skills value much less Spirit, and quite a lot of others.
All of that is unusually effectively thought-out, however the concern is that The Chant doesn’t want all these items. It feels torn between eager to be a survival horror sport and an motion sport, usually falling into the latter. The fight is fascinating, if considerably fundamental, however I used to be by no means afraid of something. The extent design is strong, nonetheless, because it has you navigate principally linear areas seeking to accomplish duties. One has you arranging reflectors to shine beams on a lighthouse. One other sees you looking down orbs to open a door. The sport is usually fantastic and I had an honest sufficient time taking part in it for the five-and-a-half hours it lasted me.
Evil Lifeless 2 flashbacks, and never in a great way
However the finale is actually weak. The ultimate story beats are ridiculously contrived and are available out of nowhere, resulting in an obnoxious chase sequence the place enemies and obstacles can one-hit kill you and the sport is then concluded with a surprisingly typical out-of-place remaining boss battle that’s solely annoying as a result of there isn’t a lot well being round and the one-hit kill obstacles return. There are three endings however they rely on whether or not your Thoughts, Physique, or Spirit stats are increased. The final two require you to kill enemies, whereas the primary goes up everytime you learn lore. Guess which one you’re extra prone to get?
Ultimately, I do principally like The Chant, however it doesn’t efficiently marry its concepts or make for a noteworthy horror sport. It’s a particularly temporary sport with mismatched parts and a story that’s principally laughable, even when a lot of the voice forged offers respectable performances. Apart from Tyler’s actor, who’s clearly far much less expert than everybody else. However the most effective time I had with the sport was once I was tearing it aside with a co-worker, so I can actually suggest it to individuals who prefer to make enjoyable of issues with their associates but don’t wish to undergo by means of video games which can be really unhealthy.