Hymn: The Experienced – Nerd4.life

The horror adventure genre is one of the most successful over the years. Good news for the fans, but it is true that the downside is that the market is quite saturated with similar products. For development teams that have decided to embark on the development of a new game of this genre, showing up and being noticed is increasingly difficult: to do this, you need to create something original, or if you want to take a more traditional path. A characteristic of your business.

The Chant, a third-person horror adventure developed by copper symbol Published by Prime Matter, choose this option. During Gamescom 2022 in Cologne, we had the opportunity to play about forty minutes of this new horror adventure, which arrived on PC, Xbox Series X/S and Playstation 5 on November 3, 2022: Tried by The ChantWe tell you what distinguishes this terrifying adventure.

History and setup

there Date The Chant begins when protagonist Jess arrives on the remote island of Glory to participate in a spiritual retreat. She was convinced by her best friend Kim, who had found inner peace by following the advice of Tyler, a prismatic science guru. Jess arrives on the island, meets the other members of the Glory group, and joins them all in the purge song. However, something is terribly wrong: Kim seems possessed and the negative energy of the participants opens a door to darkness, a dark dimension made of incomprehensible horrors for humanity. During the test, we assembled several collectibles, both in written form and in celluloid films, to be reproduced on some of the projectors scattered around the island. As it turns out, Tyler inherited Glory Island and its town from his parents and his father was the founder of this prismatic flag we hear about in the course of the adventure.

The demo played was full of many clues, many breadcrumbs that don’t satiate you but on the contrary make you hungry. Because if from the point of view of gameplay, which we will tell you shortly, The Chant looks very ordinary, and its history and history Adjust It’s clearly a homage to the slasher films of the 70s, and the union of the element of horror with new-age material is sure to be wonderful. In a market that appears increasingly drawn to science fiction horror venues, which are often more wasted than value, The Chant focuses onatmosphere Quite different: More than horror, we’re dealing with a balanced mix of action and survival, because there’s no real fear in this game, but what’s clear is the constant tension and mystery.

Items also moved by one graphic design Which greatly enhances the scenarios: while the animation looks a bit uncertain, with the movements of the heroes’ bodies and faces tied a bit, the Island of Glory is really quite beautiful, with lush forests through which the moon’s rays filter through.

Mind, body and spirit

As expected, The Chant moves on fun, somewhat predetermined paths, but incorporates a new age component into the combat system and character improvement. Jess’ stats that the player will need to monitor are basically three indicators: Mind, body and spirit. Mind is Jess’ ability to resist the horror of depression, which is commonly referred to as rationality in Cthulhu-themed role-playing games; The more terrified Jess gets, the more he diminishes. When Jess’s mind is completely drained, the protagonist falls victim to panic attacks, loses her ability to attack and finds herself a helpless prey who will die at the first blow of the enemy. The only way to survive a panic attack is to find a safe place and wait for it to pass, letting Jess breathe and regain control of herself. To alleviate the suffering of the mind, the protagonist can use lavender, which allows clarity to be restored, or meditation, a quick action that Jess can perform anywhere by relying on the spirit indicator; Mental health cannot be restored through meditation during a panic attack.

Statistics the body It’s the most traditional health, which will go down when Jess gets hurt. Physical attacks mainly weaken her, and in order to heal her body, Jess will have to eat ginger. The spirit Finally, it is the internal energy, which the protagonist can count on to find mental stability but above all to make psychic attacks. As mentioned earlier, through meditation, Jess can empty the soul bar to fill up the mind bar, but, in doing so, she remains without energy to launch. psychological attacksNecessary for some fights. This type of method is often remote and allows, like the one shown in the demo, to slow down time by a few seconds or generate a shock wave that hits enemies or knocks them off balance. To recharge her soul, Jess will need to access Spirit Stones, green colored crystals scattered throughout Glory Island, while to learn new psychic attacks, she will have to free her comrades from the negative energy they carry with them. By collecting prismatic crystals instead, the player can enhance Jess’ abilities, both passive and offensive; To do this, you need to launch the game menu and choose which skill of Jess you want to improve.

Combat system and enemies

Brass Token team can customize even combat system Which, as we just predicted, includes psychological attacks, but not only. Indeed, in the arsenal of Jess, in addition to attacks that can be carried out by drawing on the soul, there are also weapons for FistfightAbsolutely original. In the weapon wheel we saw a lot of empty spaces, access during the demo was only four items: sage sticks for burning, scorching branches, salt and essential oil. The hero lights up and waves the first two as if they were side weapons, while salt and oil are thrown in handfuls and repels enemies for a few seconds.

The use of salt and oil is very important, not only because they are the only tools that the player must stop the enemy’s attack, but also in order to Synergy with other weapons. For example, spraying the enemy with oil and then hitting him with a scorching branch, will increase his damage. It is also important to know the type of weapons, which are divided according to what we can see in the demo, into sacred, fire and magic. In order to understand the most suitable weapon to use in combat, it is also necessary to know a little about the monsters in The Chant, consulting them in the main menu to remember the weaknesses of creatures that live in the dark. From here we will know if a particular monster is more susceptible to psychological or physical attacks, and in the second case to what class.

games World

there Glory Map It is distinguished by a central area, the municipality, around which satellite areas such as a mine or canning are arranged. While the paths explored in the mine seemed a bit linear, we found the paths in the jungle to be more challenging in terms of level design. On more than one occasion we’ve found ourselves stepping back, opening shortcuts, and looking for keys, all while Gloom monsters relentlessly pursue Jess. This evil entity presents itself in two different ways: the first is through the presence of enemies while in the second case, depression invades us. Dimensional plan. As soon as the entity settles in an area, that area is inhabited by monstrous creatures and a thick-colored mist hangs in the air: only by defeating certain sprawling flowers can the gloom be expelled. Approaching these plants is very dangerous for Jess, so the area must be “cleared” quickly (because when you are immersed in their air, Jess loses mental health) but also planning and safety.

In fact, wisdom is what will really save the player because, as we initially expected, the hymns are not scary butsurvival element It is very noticeable. Let’s not hide it: we died several times before we came to the conclusion that not all monsters should be killed. Escape is sometimes the best weapon at our disposal, and in fact, unless Jess is forced to, avoiding combat and planting enemies is probably the best strategy. We came to this conclusion in the middle of our testing session, after consuming lavender, ginger, sage, salt and all the other items we have on hand. He soon realizes that the medicinal plants that Jess created with weapons and wound healing are not in abundance, and to keep alive it is necessary Resource Management In the possession of the protagonist. This aspect of course is what has to be evaluated with a longer test because, as of now, we can’t tell if this is the true balance of the game or whether it depends on the version we played, which wouldn’t seem strange to us given that most of the demos in The show never reflects the end result of the game. What we can focus on instead is the feedback from the commands and the action stages, which are fun and unforgettable. We’ve never had any bugs, but, as we mentioned, some of the animations look a bit wooden.