Making a profitable horror recreation requires a fragile stability of environment and recreation design. Above all, although, it’s higher once they’re scary. The Chant provides some surprisingly environment friendly recreation 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 actually ridiculously overpowered for this form of recreation. You’ll seemingly have a good sufficient time whereas the sport lasts, but it surely 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 beneath characterised younger lady named Jess. Jess is traumatized by the dying of her sister years earlier than, so her previous good friend 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, but it surely doesn’t make a complete 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 facility of Prismic Science. Yup. It’s a cult.
At first of the sport, the group joins palms 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 method to put issues again how they have been is to complete the ritual, and, for no matter purpose, it’s as much as Jess to make issues proper. The plot in The Chant doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Tyler has apparently held a whole lot of these rituals but that is the first time any of this has ever occurred? Actually? Not a single individual has damaged the circle earlier than? The sport primarily has Jess following different characters into linear areas to get their prism necklaces, which can enable her to discover different areas.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
Not fairly open
One of the crucial intriguing guarantees that The Chant provides is that you simply’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 possibly can backtrack, and having access to new prisms will will let 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 not likely any purpose to aim this. I attempted and the sport shut me down fairly laborious.
Horror video games are likely to have frail protagonists that may’t stand toe-to-toe with their enemies. Foes right here might be intimidating, with creepy humanoids, frog monsters, flying flower creatures, and the like. Early on, I did my greatest to flee from enemies in The Chant. However Jess is so nimble and succesful that standing and preventing 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 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 hardly ever took harm. To hammer house that fight is meant to be a final resort, Jess can solely carry two or three of the objects she finds. There are herbs for therapeutic, crafting supplies for weapons, and sub-weapons that she will throw and use for traps. However regardless of her stock being so restricted, I by no means discovered myself operating low on something, as there are all the time extra objects across the subsequent nook.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
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 usually 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 he or she’ll typically must discover a large flower enemy connected to a wall so as to destroy it and take away the fog. If Jess’s sanity reaches zero, she has a panic assault and loses her fight talents till she calms down.
Sanity is known as Thoughts, well being is known as Physique, and magic energy is called Spirit. All three might be refilled by consuming herbs. When Jess will get a brand new prism, she learns a brand new spirit capacity, which incorporates the flexibility to cease time or hit her enemies with a wave of spikes. There are a selection of attributes you possibly can improve by discovering jars of prismatic crystals, which can improve your three swimming pools, give Jess extra sturdiness, have talents price much less Spirit, and a wide range of others.
All of that is surprisingly properly thought-out, however the challenge is that The Chant doesn’t want all these items. It feels torn between desirous to be a survival horror recreation and an motion recreation, typically falling into the latter. The fight is fascinating, if considerably primary, however I used to be by no means petrified of something. The extent design is stable, nevertheless, because it has you navigate largely linear areas trying 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 generally effective and I had a good sufficient time taking part in it for the five-and-a-half hours it lasted me.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
Evil Lifeless 2 flashbacks, and never in a great way
However the finale is really 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 upon whether or not your Thoughts, Physique, or Spirit stats are larger. 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?
In the long run, I do largely like The Chant, but it surely doesn’t efficiently marry its concepts or make for a noteworthy horror recreation. It’s an especially transient recreation with mismatched parts and a story that’s largely laughable, even when many of the voice forged offers respectable performances. Aside 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 advocate it to individuals who wish to make enjoyable of issues with their associates but don’t wish to endure by way of video games which are truly unhealthy.
