Children of the Sun Reviews
A killer puzzle game that tests your skill and your patience.
Gory and exacting, Children of the Sun mixes the highs of tactical precision and cracking a killer puzzle.
This slick and shrewd supernatural sniping game is packed with satisfying spatial problems to solve (and shoot), but it's not significantly satisfying after the first time around.
Children of the Sun is a prime example of an experience born from a straightforward premise and then iterated for the right amount of time before it loses its charm. On occasion, the central mechanic can't keep up with itself – I missed more than a few finicky shots that should have landed, forcing a retry. But once you successfully execute a strategy and finish a level, the satisfaction is unmatched. You then seek to replicate the feeling during subsequent hunts, completely alienated from the messiness of your actions as you chase a higher score.
Children of the Sun's gritty and surreal world is home to an innovative puzzle game that mixes long-range sniping with macabre brain teasers, culminating in your enemy's brains painting the walls.
Children of the Sun is a short but special game that is definitely bang for your buck.
While many will feel it's one or two chapters short of a truly fleshed-out and fully-realized vision, Children of the Sun's short but lavish flair for the hyper-violent is one of both visual and audible delight throughout. With what might be one of the most interesting and quick-to-convince takes on shooter mechanics in many a year, developer Rene Rother's knack for the look and feel of such an onslaught allows both art-style and gameplay alike to boldly glisten. As divisive the in-game graphics and general presentation might wind up being. But it's in no small part thanks to composer Aidan Baker's treatment of sound on top that only emboldens Rother's vision more so as one of both depth and replayability. An easy-to-understand pitch that comes with just as easy a recommendation, Children of the Sun is a blistering but brilliant take on shooting as a puzzle to be solved.
Despite some frustrations, Children Of The Sun is an intense shooter-puzzler with bags of style and originality.
Children of the Sun is a thrilling puzzle game that does a great job of keeping you engaged, and when you're on a roll it's hard to put down.
More puzzle than shooter, Children of the Sun is the violent demonstration that good ideas and talent are a winning combination.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Children of the Sun stumbles on story, but its unnerving hyper violence hits its mark.
Children of the Sun excels where it counts. It’s a cerebral puzzle in which you weave a bullet between targets, and solving the puzzle is dangerously satisfying.
It is possible that Children of the Sun is only the beginning of the outstanding developer's journey. It remains to follow the trajectory of his shot.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Anyone who loves spatial puzzles or novelty action games should feel catered to here, and score-chasers will be battling over the leaderboards and sharing video clips of their best clears in the days to come. Overall, Children of the Sun is a great video game idea done well, a darkly beautiful assassin simulator with a worthy and fulfilling hook.
Children of the Sun is a puzzle game disguised as a first person shooter, in which it seems that the protagonist is The Girl when in fact it is The Bullet. The difficulty of the levels increases gently, without putting insurmountable barriers for players, but it is unfair not to have a complete overview of the situation from the beginning, which usually happens in this genre of games. Blowing up the heads of enemies in super slow motion guarantees double satisfaction, first because a kill is always a kill, then because it is the proof that our strategy works. The pulp atmosphere and tragic story greatly add to the game's appeal.
Review in Italian | Read full review
While I would have liked a little more focus on the interesting story that bubbles underneath, the intoxicating gameplay will sink its seedy hooks deep into your psyche, ensuring countless hours of adrenaline-fueled excitement.
Children of the Sun is short, sweet and doesn't outstay it's welcome. Despite it's short length, this is a very fun puzzle game that has a lot of replay value, especially if you want to get the high score on the leaderboards or via speed running. There is a lot of potential here with this concept and id love to see the developers expand upon the idea in the future.
Beyond its prolonged final third and iffy difficulty scaling, Children of the Sun isn’t done any favors by its dialogue, which is too gauche (“I just killed a man, now I’m horny”) or too sappy (“Soon the sun will start shining through a bullet-shaped hole in your head”) by half. But it soars whenever you’re planning an action that’s brought explosively to fruition, and luckily that’s the order of the day here. And as you marvel at this self-assuredly suave bullet-play, it’s easy to imagine Suda Gôichi out there taking notes on what Rother has accomplished.
Children of the Sun is a unique FPS puzzle game that takes a dark approach to a fun logic puzzle of trajectories. While the formula does iterate as the game progresses it still left us wanting for more by the time credits rolled.