Chants of Sennaar

Un bon petit jeu d'énigmes très joli où l'on apprend au fur et à mesure toute l'histoire. Addictif et bien ficelé !

Finally had time to sit and complete my COS journey. I bought this Jan 2, 2024, played for bit in 1st area tutorial with pipes, set it down and said I go back eventually and never until 2 years l8r when I had chance to finally properly play it and 100% it. I started again August 18 and finished over 2-3 days August 20 clocking around 20 hours. Was going to write when finished game and had thoughts fresh but decided to take few days to week to really stew and deep think about game after finish/ready to write review/give thoughts now. 1st, each section/area of game and pros/cons of each. Overall, I liked all these areas: 1, 2 and 4. 3 and 5 were weakest sadly. 3, I didnt vibe/resonate with theme felt like rehash of 1, was bit confusing/frustrating and long at times trying to figure out wth to do in sum sections and getting around to places(cough sewers). 5 was very short and anticlimatic at first with the game solving half the words for you by playing circular game. 1st area with devotees right after tutorial. I liked setting of place and characters and their design hooded robe men and ringing alley bell was so fun we can never get in even(big spoiler: even after you finish the game+achievement). Everything was really gud, a great start. The only cons for area imo was sum of book symbols, think e1 got stuck e.g. with 1 with pot pic dat we were all sure was “pot” instead it refer to actual action in image/pic, watching other people let’s plays a lot people find confusion with image. There are other 1 out there like arrow pointing up, or page with hug from god but overall really nice area also preacher best character, you’ll see, but lets just say f for my boi pay respects. Next area is warriors, basically empire, police, military peeps with weapons and all dat, guards restrict devotees access to castle fortress. Really like theming, and costumes, blending in and initial sequence of stealth/sneak and later act like guard, I know peeps complain about chase/hiding/stealth but didnt bother me much, only took few attempts each time, you might get jumpscared when caught initially/sound(cough robots in last part shocking you or monster jumping you in 4th part) I remember getting far, didnt translate words and kept getting caught when didnt know what to do/pick up gud times. I like their green color scheme, and theres 2 guards who tell hearty joke and have best laughs, you will know you see them, they guarding place to stars, was peak and best part tbh! Speaking of stars, one of cons was dang stars/constellations like holy did not need this complicated, it was 1 of areas I genuinely stuck for bit in entire game whole constellation storyline up to bells, torch, observatory stars, which book phrase to pick, what item get, go back down to see images, where to proceed, was running around areas quite a bit aimlessly cause didnt know what next, was bit confusing, sum pics like guy shouting seemed common pitfall among others. Eventually got it but sum tricky puzzles led to bit of walking. Still loved it, great similar to devotee section. Next area imo is weakest, its bards who are devotee ripoffs, its similar to 1st area but more complex like language, I know a lot of peeps have issue with sewers which can get confusing where sum signs dont lead where they say they do and dead ends but personally didnt mind like chase/stealth sections, there is room with certain protest symbol dat you feel is going to have hidden meaning but nope you can peak down below into it so you think its important… spent a lot in dat one for sure. The most frustrating by far is dang monkeys in center, youll know when you see em. Cant begin to say how much hours/areas I went back/forth trying to find out wut do. Theres button in game dat shows what to interact with. I didnt like using as I liked to click/find out myself, I swear without sumone telling me and having to look up a hint or what to do I would have never found tiny red fruit on screen dat was supposed to be clickable. Items in game have puzzle pieces to show you can use them, I was using my dang useless compass to decode the monkeys puzzle like an idiot while monkeys were laughing at me everytime failed like “LOL nah”. The monkeys single handedly make area worst part and you need them to get final 3 words depending on how you play. They dont even give you any good info in their trailer plays considering I finished part and came to them last. Also part in end where you get to 4th part where you get lost and apparently have to use compass to guide you, yeah I straight up rng brute force until I made it, the compass thing was confusing, didnt like dat section either. Sum cool stuff tho were theater and all dat and hey you have word for idiot in this lmao! Anyways theme was kinda like rich/poor servants old english british stuff, didnt vibe too much with area, has cool few parts, but arguably weakest for me, didnt like character devotee ripoff, theme, place but hey “thank you my brother” for fixing boat, or lady who disappear after you find their golden watch and compass lmao. 4th part think is my favorite part but its tough with 1/2. Liked all 3 character designs and areas. Monster part at start not big fan of or in general throughout lab and stuff, kinda scary down in mine, creepers swing side to side… loved rainbow plague doctors/academy scholar setting though very gud atmosphere. Bad parts include calculator 4 numbers in language which I didnt write down and my guy wouldnt write it in his dang book and finding GOSH DARN SILVER super complicated and messy, and once you get sum silver theres a process before you can use it, involves specific timing and a silver mine where you help a guy and theres NO SILVER WTF. So when it came to final calculations+silver for materials to key, just looked it up becausetechnically already “solved it” just didnt write down sorry not sorry, not going all the way back to recalculate, but besides dat favorite area of people and asthetically lol, who doesnt like rainbow plague doctors amrite? mine/scholar setting and initially math/formulations made me think was going be super technical engineering/quantum mechanics, was going to hate it, wasnt as much as thought and language design with circles and stuff was really cool so this area is great imo. Final part was weakest imo,short, designs creepy, half words got by rotating circle, get our lore we were born from, and kinda like inscription, final boss is internet bad essentially lol. It was cheap half level, the way to true ending however made it all worth and wholesum reliving all memories so I forgive, but again didnt like how short cheaped out game felt like devs gave up but this and 3rd level, maybe this slightly edges by true ending going through our nostalgic journey. Also the robots electricity jumpscares tf out of me everytime had to turn sound down lol. Finally, there are terminals in game, and my god these sum of hardest things I seen, not all of them, but sum like bard and warrior is so hard to translate or another one at end with pic you have to specifically name devotee depicted like preacher you cant just say devotee I was again trying on hours for sum of these no hints, it only accepts a specific combination, nothing else works even similar which I didnt like but when you solve and I am so glad I didnt without any or minimum lookups? I forgot if I did small hint but I solved most of them without, it was so worth seeing everyone go to each others areas, new stuff in the setting like elevator from plague doctors to bards and bond and help out and true ending was all very wholesum af. Overall, 7-8 but am leaning towards game deserving 8 in my book. Gud word/language/cultural puzzle game. Really enjoyed it, very much like Obra Dinn if u like dat game which I believe dis game was inspired by. Initially put dis game in my top 10 games of all time, but not sure, after a weaker part 3/5, top 20 games all time fs.