HomeReviewsChildren Of The Sun
Children Of The Sun review: an intense and stylish puzzle of ultraviolenceThe only option is shoot to kill
The only option is shoot to kill
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
In many waysChildren Of The Sunis a highly relatable game. I do not have telekinetic powers that allow me to control the path of a bullet from a sniper rifle, and I was not part of a murderous cult that killed my father-figure. But if I did and I were, you can bet that I’d go on a rip-roaring rampage of revenge! Stepping into the be-grimed trainers and unwashed jacket of the protagonist - a misused girl whose vibe is that of a member of Gorillaz - you shoot a single bullet from your gun and control it in first-person as you zip it through the heads, hearts and hands of cultists placed around a level. It’s a satisfying SniperElitemeetsSuperhotpuzzleof ultraviolence, and it’s neat.
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Because you only have one bullet, the actual name of the game is to kill all the lads on the level without hitting anything that is not a lad - if you hit a wall or a tree or a stick or the edge of a windowsill, that’s it. There are some additional caveats to this that are added as you go along. You can hold down the right mouse button to steer the bullet in slow mo, though it has the turning circle of a container ship navigating the Suez Canal. Enemies have glowing weak spots, and if you hit those specifically you can bank the ability to completely change the bullet’s trajectory. You can also hold down left mouse to speed up the bullet over enough distance, which is the only way to take out an enemy in armour. Also useful: you can shoot a flying bird as a freebie, which allows you to reorient or get a broader view of the level, or a vehicle’s fuel cap (or just barrels of fuel) for kill-efficient explosions.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
More frustrating is the difficulty increase via level architecture. You respect the artistry of it - multiple huts, a cultist unloading something inside a shipping crate, a blazing fire making it harder to spot the golden life-marker of a cultist - but at the same time, the need to play later levels a couple of times, knowing you will fail, is built in to Children Of The Sun. You can mark enemies once you’ve spotted them, and this mark will persist through restarts of the level, and the fact is that to spot the last one or two guards hiding behind a haystack or in a room somewhere can sometimes take alotof restarts. It can suck the joy out of wanton murder. I remember one level, a karaoke party in a derelict block of flats, in particular, both because I was able to explode about half a dozen lads at once, but also because it took a really bloody long time to find the final hanger on, and before you know where all the pieces are you can’t really plan your perfect shot to take them out. There’s a line between ‘Fuck yeah!’ and ‘Fucksake!’ that I think Children Of The Sun steps over sometimes.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Still, I’m sure others will revel in the repetition, given that this is a game where you can iterate on your magic murder spree over and over again. I think what I disliked more is some of the storytelling. There’s not really much in the way of environmental storytelling, because the speed of each level doesn’t leave much room for you to take in the details of each scene. Instead, there are 2D cutscenes and some interactive moments that serve to give more emotional context. Children Of The Sun is not, we can agree, an especially subtle game (the girl has NO PEACE written on the back of her jacket), but I’m afraid I found these moments a bit silly, most especially the one where the girl has to walk through calf-high water in a dream void and kneel before successive cultists.
still, I can’t properly have a go at Children Of The Sun, because it’s original and well crafted, and clocks in at around four hours of bursting blood balloons. It’s an intense, bite-sized category-snubber with bags of style. Such originality is to be encouraged.
