REVIEW - Chants of Sennaar is a gorgeous puzzler with pacing issues
Scribble them notes.
By Jonathan Garrett
17/09/23
Reviewed on Switch.
Review copy provided by Focus Entertainment.
Chants of Sennaar takes a novel approach to its puzzle design by rooting the experience in trial and error that feels, for the most part, rewarding. The focus on symbol translation and bespoke notation is something we haven’t typically seen in games of this type. While the path ahead may always be clear, there’s room to stumble along the way without feeling like you’re being punished for not fully understanding every facet of each challenge.
By keeping the control scheme to an accessible and basic default format, you’re not left wasting time trying to navigate an overtly complex series of prompts. Throughout each level, you’re tasked with identifying the meaning of symbols which correspond with actions or instructions. What begins as simple sequence coding or routes through locked doorways eventually opens up into much more elaborate, multi-tiered areas that require you to draw on everything you’ve learned up to that point.
In terms of presentation, Chants of Sennaar excels. It’s probably one of the better looking third party games ever to grace the Switch, with a well defined art style that looks crispy in handheld mode. The UI is also pleasingly subtle, with a polished and clean look designed to convey tutorial tips with minimal guff. Although full voice acting might have been too big of a stretch for a game with a more modest budget, you’re not left roaming through reems of text; the onus is on you to make logical guesses with each symbol translation, and fill in the narrative gaps yourself where possible.
Your mileage with the game will definitely be determined by your fondness for the genre. It’s extremely slow paced, and while a more placid, laid back experience is totally in keeping with titles of this style, this will almost certainly be a game you choose to pick up and play depending on your present mindset.
While you might find the learning curve a little steep, and some of the puzzles overly convoluted, Chants of Sennaar is another well developed effort from Focus Entertainment’s indie catalogue.
There must be something behind this aaaaah.
WORTH IT?
At the bottom of every game review, we ask the question: Worth it? And the answer is either “Yeah!” or “Nah”, followed by a comment that sums up how we feel. In order to provide more information, we also have “And” or “But”, which follows up our rating with further clarification, additional context for a game we love, or perhaps a redeeming quality for a game we didn’t like.
YEAH!
Chants of Sennaar is a well optimised puzzle adventure that is particularly suited to the Switch.
BUT
The pacing drags in places and some of the trial and error translations might grind on you.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
