this was a good play, had a lot of potential. they could've explored so much from the lore because it intrigued me so much, but they went all over the place? plus the combat was a bit wonky? nevertheless, the game has a cosmic horror concept/elements to it so i'm gonna give it at least two stars, half star because of my girl jess, kind of liked her. no comment for the ending, though. overall, playing this was just average, wish they focused on the plot.
Not bad, not great. Game suffers from trying to do too much at once, the story should have had more focus on developing it and bonding with the people and less time on action sequences. Its a short game, worth playing but get on a sale not full price.
Das Spiel ist eine okaye und solide Horrorerfahrung mit einer vorhersehbaren Story und soliden Gameplay. Kann man machen, muss man aber auch nicht unbedingt.
I saw the reviews for this and thought it'd be a lot worse, I got it on a pretty steep sale and for anything under 20€ I'd say this is well worth it.
The combat isn't mind blowing, but for horror combat this does make you feel like you're struggling, the music's great, but the story's easily where the game peaks, it isn't one that ties everything well, half the things go unanswered honestly, but the main narrative is intriguing all the way till the end, before having a pretty lackluster ending.
Not a game I think I'll remember as one of the best games I played, but for what it is, it's fun.
Take it as a Life Is Strange Horror Game if nothing else.
The combat isn't mind blowing, but for horror combat this does make you feel like you're struggling, the music's great, but the story's easily where the game peaks, it isn't one that ties everything well, half the things go unanswered honestly, but the main narrative is intriguing all the way till the end, before having a pretty lackluster ending.
Not a game I think I'll remember as one of the best games I played, but for what it is, it's fun.
Take it as a Life Is Strange Horror Game if nothing else.
This game was fantastic. It's a horror game with some survival elements. You play as a regular person. You never feel overpowered, but you also do not feel too overwhelmed. The game kind of just throws you into the psychological horror and in a way feels like a good version of Stranger Things as a video game. This would have won 2022 GOTY if I had gotten around to it.
A perfect game to get snatched up by PlayStation Plus. A serviceable survival horror adventure that I developed a begrudging love for. Despite nearly everything in the game feeling undercooked, I found my groove with the combat and resource management early enough to appreciate the absolute what-the-fuckery of the story. The final boss was such a gonzo embodiment of the games designs and themes that I couldn't help but applaud it. Even if the game is ultimately forgettable, that final boss is NOT.
HOT ASS
There are some good ideas in The Chant, surrounded by a bit of unpolish. The Chant is a survival horror action game set on a spiritual remote island retreat, where you play as a young woman (Jess) recovering from past trauma. Something on this island goes awry and cultists, beasts, and all hell are soon thrown into the mix.
Jess has 3 meters: Mentality, Heart, and Spirit. Heart acts as Jess' health bar. Mentality will decrease under different circumstances and cause Jess to have a panic attack, forcing her to run away from combat for a bit while being unable to attack for a brief moment. The Spirit meter allows Jess to slowly meditate, transferring whatever power is available in her Spirit meter to her Health and Mentality. Spirit also doubles as Jess' skill meter, allowing her to utilize skills to further help in combat. If either her Health or Mentality reaches zero, Jess dies.
Standard gameplay for the most part. Jess can pick up and read pages about the island retreat lore, pick up herbs to increase her mind/body/spirit meters, collect crystals to upgrade abilities, find old film tapes to view in projectors that show clips to further explain the story, etc. Puzzles involve finding items, and keys, moving lights into the correct sequence, etc. These start off fairly simple and slowly get more involved (but never frustrating or overly complicated) while utilizing the spiritual theme of the game quite well. Throughout the game, Jess will approach colored glooms to progress to various areas. These glooms act as nightmarish like fields, where being inside of these will slowly drain Jess' Mentality meter, causing her to panic and run away if it fully depletes. It's an interesting exploration/backtracking system, as, throughout the game, Jess earns colored prism necklaces that allow her to enter respective glooms pertaining to the colored prisms she has collected so far.
Combat ditches guns for a more melee, almost beat 'em-up approach. Instead of guns and standard melee weapons, Jess uses sticks to attack enemies using light and heavy attacks. Different sticks have different properties (fire, sage, occult), which are weaker/stronger against specific enemies. A few different throwable items such as essential oils and salt can be crafted and thrown at enemies, while skills with cooldowns can be used to stun, damage, and incapacitate enemies. Dodge somewhat works, as Jess will fall down and stumble giving her ample room to dodge attacks. Her dodge does become an issue when surrounded by a group of enemies or backed into a corner. Combat does feel clunky, even with notes taken from the action beat 'em-up genre.
Some issues I have with The Chant are a lack of manual saves. The game autosaves at some points, but not after every key action. Some parts reloaded me at least 5 minutes back, which was manageable, but annoying in a way. Boss fights, while not particularly challenging, can be won quite easily. While the game runs at 60 fps on Xbox Series S, it does slightly drop in some moments when climbing a ladder, entering a new area or in a boss battle when a lot of action is happening at once. Character faces look last gen and the voice acting is mostly serviceable, though the lip syncing isn't up to par.
There is some incentive for replayability as the game has 3 different endings and a Resident Evil-like achievement/trophy for completing the game in under 4 hours. My final playthrough clocked in at just over 6 hours.
Even with the clunkyness and lack of polish in some areas, I enjoyed The Chant from start to finish. It's one of those games that started out interesting and got better all the way through. While I wouldn't call it a hidden gem, it's worth checking out for a different take on a survival horror game.
Jess has 3 meters: Mentality, Heart, and Spirit. Heart acts as Jess' health bar. Mentality will decrease under different circumstances and cause Jess to have a panic attack, forcing her to run away from combat for a bit while being unable to attack for a brief moment. The Spirit meter allows Jess to slowly meditate, transferring whatever power is available in her Spirit meter to her Health and Mentality. Spirit also doubles as Jess' skill meter, allowing her to utilize skills to further help in combat. If either her Health or Mentality reaches zero, Jess dies.
Standard gameplay for the most part. Jess can pick up and read pages about the island retreat lore, pick up herbs to increase her mind/body/spirit meters, collect crystals to upgrade abilities, find old film tapes to view in projectors that show clips to further explain the story, etc. Puzzles involve finding items, and keys, moving lights into the correct sequence, etc. These start off fairly simple and slowly get more involved (but never frustrating or overly complicated) while utilizing the spiritual theme of the game quite well. Throughout the game, Jess will approach colored glooms to progress to various areas. These glooms act as nightmarish like fields, where being inside of these will slowly drain Jess' Mentality meter, causing her to panic and run away if it fully depletes. It's an interesting exploration/backtracking system, as, throughout the game, Jess earns colored prism necklaces that allow her to enter respective glooms pertaining to the colored prisms she has collected so far.
Combat ditches guns for a more melee, almost beat 'em-up approach. Instead of guns and standard melee weapons, Jess uses sticks to attack enemies using light and heavy attacks. Different sticks have different properties (fire, sage, occult), which are weaker/stronger against specific enemies. A few different throwable items such as essential oils and salt can be crafted and thrown at enemies, while skills with cooldowns can be used to stun, damage, and incapacitate enemies. Dodge somewhat works, as Jess will fall down and stumble giving her ample room to dodge attacks. Her dodge does become an issue when surrounded by a group of enemies or backed into a corner. Combat does feel clunky, even with notes taken from the action beat 'em-up genre.
Some issues I have with The Chant are a lack of manual saves. The game autosaves at some points, but not after every key action. Some parts reloaded me at least 5 minutes back, which was manageable, but annoying in a way. Boss fights, while not particularly challenging, can be won quite easily. While the game runs at 60 fps on Xbox Series S, it does slightly drop in some moments when climbing a ladder, entering a new area or in a boss battle when a lot of action is happening at once. Character faces look last gen and the voice acting is mostly serviceable, though the lip syncing isn't up to par.
There is some incentive for replayability as the game has 3 different endings and a Resident Evil-like achievement/trophy for completing the game in under 4 hours. My final playthrough clocked in at just over 6 hours.
Even with the clunkyness and lack of polish in some areas, I enjoyed The Chant from start to finish. It's one of those games that started out interesting and got better all the way through. While I wouldn't call it a hidden gem, it's worth checking out for a different take on a survival horror game.
Commenti:
- Combat brutto e poco soddisfacente, con scelte di design pessime (zone con DoT... perchè?)
- Albero delle abilità con requisiti strani (doversi curare tot volte prima di poter potenziarsi... perchè?)
- Puzzle non puzzle, messi solo per allungare il brodo.
- Contesto narrativo originale e interessante
- Trama insulsa e telefonata
- Combat brutto e poco soddisfacente, con scelte di design pessime (zone con DoT... perchè?)
- Albero delle abilità con requisiti strani (doversi curare tot volte prima di poter potenziarsi... perchè?)
- Puzzle non puzzle, messi solo per allungare il brodo.
- Contesto narrativo originale e interessante
- Trama insulsa e telefonata
No fishing mini-game, combat is god awful, it looks alright at spots, the whole choice system feels like it was tacked on or something, and you really don't end up caring much about the cast or even the main character either.
You play as this woman who fears flies for reasons and her buddy wants to help her out but then they drink some mushroom tea- took more then 3 sips I guess? Less? I dunno the game said not to do either, ONLY THREE!
Anyway you walk around and hit dudes with sticks and bigger sticks. I really think combat should have been cut all together and they should have just stuck to puzzles because it feels so limp, boring, and just plain ol' annoying.
Brass Token is the dev on this game and I can see they really want to make something great and I can see glimmers of something good in this game but as it is right now? I just don't think it was the best foot forward. Feels like for every step they take they took 3 or 4 backwards.
The idea sounds super cool but just doesn't work as intended. Though even with how bad I'm coming off now I get the feeling they're make something good.
You play as this woman who fears flies for reasons and her buddy wants to help her out but then they drink some mushroom tea- took more then 3 sips I guess? Less? I dunno the game said not to do either, ONLY THREE!
Anyway you walk around and hit dudes with sticks and bigger sticks. I really think combat should have been cut all together and they should have just stuck to puzzles because it feels so limp, boring, and just plain ol' annoying.
Brass Token is the dev on this game and I can see they really want to make something great and I can see glimmers of something good in this game but as it is right now? I just don't think it was the best foot forward. Feels like for every step they take they took 3 or 4 backwards.
The idea sounds super cool but just doesn't work as intended. Though even with how bad I'm coming off now I get the feeling they're make something good.
A really quick game if you sit down and focus, The Chant Has a lot of potential, that is squandered by poor gameplay and story.
GOOP alan wake brought to you by shudder is a compellingly stupid idea but the monster/horror design is total penis sadly. like ... hitting giant toads with a fucking sage stick? who the hell came up with this shit. Cannot recommend
I don't understand some of the negative reviews of this game, I quite enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect or even had one of those triple A games quality but it is playable.
The game takes place on a remoted island called "Glory Island" in the middle of nowhere. You play Jess, who's still dealing with her sister's death and was invited to join the Prismic Science Retreat by her old friend Kim.
Some of the monster designs were impressive, including the final boss. And the level designs for the Gloom realm are the best; the atmosphere they create will give you that spooky, unsettling sense. The weapons used for this game are so creative, you could use salts, essential oils, sage sticks, and others that suit the entire theme. To be honest, the entire concept of this game reminded me of Stranger Things because the opponents appear to be related to the show. Even the music gave me retro vibes.
The combat and crafting systems were subpar. I feel like some of the ingredients are TOO few that sometimes you have no choice but to substitute the rest of the weapons you have (I'm looking at you twigs).
The puzzles were a meh, I mean there weren't a lot of it and its not difficult. I think you just have to keep in mind that there will be enemies appearing whenever you are doing the puzzles which is quite annoying because the supplies are limited too.
When I played this, I got the Spiritual Ending which made me curious about the other two endings, so I had to check it. And I think the ending I got is the best one among the rest, I feel like that's how her story really happened and it adds more points for having a Classic Horror ending.
Despite the negative reviews, I feel like you should try this game whenever you have the chance.
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TL;DR, POSSIBLE SPOILERS -Basically you are good Thanos trying to retrieve all these Gem Stones (a.k.a Prism Crystals) from your retreat mates who turned evil because of their traumas to undo a curse - POSSIBLE SPOILERS
The game takes place on a remoted island called "Glory Island" in the middle of nowhere. You play Jess, who's still dealing with her sister's death and was invited to join the Prismic Science Retreat by her old friend Kim.
Some of the monster designs were impressive, including the final boss. And the level designs for the Gloom realm are the best; the atmosphere they create will give you that spooky, unsettling sense. The weapons used for this game are so creative, you could use salts, essential oils, sage sticks, and others that suit the entire theme. To be honest, the entire concept of this game reminded me of Stranger Things because the opponents appear to be related to the show. Even the music gave me retro vibes.
The combat and crafting systems were subpar. I feel like some of the ingredients are TOO few that sometimes you have no choice but to substitute the rest of the weapons you have (I'm looking at you twigs).
The puzzles were a meh, I mean there weren't a lot of it and its not difficult. I think you just have to keep in mind that there will be enemies appearing whenever you are doing the puzzles which is quite annoying because the supplies are limited too.
When I played this, I got the Spiritual Ending which made me curious about the other two endings, so I had to check it. And I think the ending I got is the best one among the rest, I feel like that's how her story really happened and it adds more points for having a Classic Horror ending.
Despite the negative reviews, I feel like you should try this game whenever you have the chance.
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TL;DR, POSSIBLE SPOILERS -
Game is honestly REALLY good. One of the coolest survival horrors I've played
I appreciate the devs, i can see they tried their best without a budget but yeah, the game is trash. Completed it in the hardest mode and it was annoying, stupid level design, stupid story, no ost. The graphics are fine except for the facial designs, they look like a cheap version of Life is Strange characters.
Nothing makes sense, the game doesn't have a proper ending lol
Nothing makes sense, the game doesn't have a proper ending lol
Avoid this one at all costs.
The Chant is a horror action-adventure with terrible combat, mediocre level design, dozens of half baked ideas, and scripted sequences. Sounds fun? It isn’t. While there are some admittedly good ideas here, none of them land because the game is getting pulled in so many areas. The combat is far too easy, even on hard, and it’s also far too easy to avoid them. The “puzzles” are brain-dead and the level design is generic and tedious with its never-ending paths and it’s unnecessary back and forth design. This is really bad, but not offensive
3/10
The Chant is a horror action-adventure with terrible combat, mediocre level design, dozens of half baked ideas, and scripted sequences. Sounds fun? It isn’t. While there are some admittedly good ideas here, none of them land because the game is getting pulled in so many areas. The combat is far too easy, even on hard, and it’s also far too easy to avoid them. The “puzzles” are brain-dead and the level design is generic and tedious with its never-ending paths and it’s unnecessary back and forth design. This is really bad, but not offensive
3/10
Solid survival horror game with serviceable combat and satisfying exploration and puzzle-solving. The story about a cult ritual gone wrong and a main charactered haunted by guilt over her little sister's death make for a decently entertaining story even with some occasional poor voice acting. There are dialogue options that lead to alternate endings based on your choices that sadly didn't pay off. I was just confused by the ending I got, and the other endings don't seem much better from what I've read. It's still overall impressive since it clearly isn't a lower budget game. I had a good time.
Ein Indie- Spiel was mich durchweg unterhalten hat.
Die Story folgt dem bekannten Pfad von Horror Spielen wo nach und nach Charaktere verrückt werden und aufgehalten werden müssen. Dabei bekommt man von allen Charakteren über Story und Notizen etwas Hintergrund zu ihrer Geschichte.
Dazu kommen kleinere Rätsel und Kampfpassagen die mit knappen Ressourcen bestritten werden wollen.
Das Kampfsystem ist eher simpel und mehr Mittel zum Zweck. Der ganze Style ist gut und stimmig , die Grafik ist teilweise aber wirklich nicht gut. Trotzdem würde ich das Spiel survival- und cosmic Horror Fans empfehlen, da hat man schon schlechteres in der RIchtung gesehen.
Die Story folgt dem bekannten Pfad von Horror Spielen wo nach und nach Charaktere verrückt werden und aufgehalten werden müssen. Dabei bekommt man von allen Charakteren über Story und Notizen etwas Hintergrund zu ihrer Geschichte.
Dazu kommen kleinere Rätsel und Kampfpassagen die mit knappen Ressourcen bestritten werden wollen.
Das Kampfsystem ist eher simpel und mehr Mittel zum Zweck. Der ganze Style ist gut und stimmig , die Grafik ist teilweise aber wirklich nicht gut. Trotzdem würde ich das Spiel survival- und cosmic Horror Fans empfehlen, da hat man schon schlechteres in der RIchtung gesehen.
The Chant é um game que apresenta uma premissa interessante, mas deixa aquele sentimento de poderia ser mais. Embora o jogo acerte em entregar uma trama única, a falta de desenvolvimento de personagens e da história, prejudica o ritmo e não entrega nada memorável. Além disso, mesmo que o game tenha puzzles interessantes e desafiadores, a jogabilidade no geral é bem limitada e lutar contra as criaturas acaba se tornando cansativo bem rápido. Além disso, a falta de uma trilha sonora marcante e uma ambientação mais variada, também prejudicam a experiência final.
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