Children Of The Sun” – A Comprehensive Review in One Shot

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.

By Richard WakelingTwitter: @richardwakeling on April 9, 2024 at 8:00AM PDT

It only takes a single bullet to burn down an empire. That’s the ethos behind Children of the Sun, an excellent supernatural puzzle-shooter from solo developer René Rother and publisher Devolver Digital. Like many of the games in Devolver’s vast library, Children of the Sun is wonderfully stylish, violent, and built on a unique gameplay hook; think Sniper Elite mixed with Superhot and you’re on the right track without quite telling the whole story.

You play as a protagonist known simply as The Girl, a one-woman wrecking crew waging a vengeful war against the eponymous cult that ruined her life. As one cultist after another is turned to mincemeat behind the vindictive crosshairs of your sniper rifle, you gradually make your way up the food chain until coming face-to-scope with your true target: The Leader. While embarking on this blood-soaked killing spree, hand-drawn flashbacks reveal tidbits about the atrocities committed by this mysterious cult and The Girl’s reasons for seeking revenge.

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There’s no dialogue during these cutscenes; instead, the narrative is intentionally minimalist, bombarding you with unnerving memories that are both terse and chaotic. This scattershot approach makes it difficult to glean all of the available information–perhaps deliberately so–which means you might feel lost and slightly detached from the story at times. It’s all complemented by a discordant soundscape of ambient white noise that matches the game’s striking art style–composed of deep purples and vivid yellows–and gritty, surreal tone. The game’s arresting aesthetic paints a picture of a brutal world of saturated filth, where cultists defile seedy motels, gloomy forests, and derelict apartment buildings, spreading their deceitful disease like plague-infested rats.

For as evocative as Children of the Sun’s story, visuals, and music are, it’s the innovative gameplay where it truly shines. At the beginning of each level, you’re able to move The Girl either left or right on a predetermined path. Sometimes, you can navigate around a level in a full 360-degree circle, while other times, you may only be able to move a few yards before being impeded by a fallen tree or steep riverbank. From here, you can get a lay of the land, mark enemies, and determine the best position to fire from. Once you’ve aimed down the scope and pulled the trigger, the camera snaps to the crown of the bullet as it hurtles through the air. Blood spatter and disintegrated flesh usually follow, but the catch is that this is the only shot you’ll fire for the duration of the level.

The narrative revolves around a familiar trope from classic fiction – a young girl, upon reaching puberty, discovers that she possesses latent supernatural powers. When a bullet is shot through the skull of a cultist, time practically comes to a halt. The girl’s psychic abilities grant you the power to take control of the bullet and alter its direction, making it possible for a single bullet to sweep through an entire enemy camp in one stroke.

Initially, the bullet can only travel in a straight line from one enemy to the next, bouncing between them like a devilish pinball machine. Therefore, the first shot is absolutely critical. From the point of first contact, you are tasked with plotting a path through each and every enemy until none remain. This, of course, is easier said than done. Some enemies remain stationary, others move around, drive in circles around the map, or remain out of sight from your initial vantage point. Consequently, you may have to finish a level by ensuring that the second-last kill affords a clear view of the final cultist, who has been hidden up to this point. There are incorrect ways to accomplish this, but there isn’t a definitive correct way, and experimentation is thus both encouraged and rewarded.

Children of the Sun is incredibly stylish, violent, and based on a unique gameplay mechanic. Picture a hybrid of Sniper Elite and Superhot, but that doesn’t quite cover the whole picture.

As you advance through the story and confront more types of enemies, you acquire new abilities to deal with shielded and armored cultists and their increasingly complex environments. The first of these abilities allows you to manipulate the direction of bullets in a manner similar to James McAvoy in the 2008 film, Wanted. This ability is handy for shooting over walls and curving the shot so that it plunges downwards and reaches the cultist on the other side, or for simply tweaking the bullet’s course so that it hits the target.

Another skill uncovers enemy vulnerabilities, which when blown apart in slow-motion bloodshed, give you the power to change the bullet’s trajectory in mid-air. You can use this to shoot beyond an enemy that uses a shield and spin the bullet back to hit them behind the head, effectively negating their bulletproof defenses. Sometimes, you can use this technique to exit and re-enter a building at a different spot or shoot into the sky to get a better view of the area and find an elusive enemy.

On the other hand, armored cultists pose a distinctive challenge. Penetrating their heavy armor will only be possible with a power shot, achieved by holding the trigger during the flying bullet. The shots need a large enough distance between you and the target to generate the velocity needed to penetrate their armor, so figuring out these enemies is a unique problem. It’s always thrilling to bring them down, as you witness the bullet reaching supersonic speeds before breaking through the defense of the now vulnerable cultist.

Finding a solution to the bloody puzzle in each level is deeply rewarding, especially with the abundance of trials and errors. The first few attempts might involve careful exploration to locate all the cultists before figuring out the best way to eliminate them. At times, you can use your surroundings to your benefit, shooting at fuel caps and gas canisters of vehicles to wipe out several enemies in a single explosion. You might blow up a car to get a better shooting angle or snipe a flying pigeon to get an aerial view of the area. While I wish there were more opportunities for environmental kills beyond destroying vehicles and explosive barrels, the limitations on interactions with the surroundings increase the challenge and satisfaction when you win.

Children of the Sun is a relatively short game, taking around three hours to complete. Usually, this could be a blessing in disguise for a game that doesn’t evolve far from its core concept, but I still found myself longing for more. Fortunately, there’s a lot of replayability, as the game’s scoring system motivates you to retry previous levels to get a better score. Headshots score differently from leg injuries, earning more points for better timing and efficiency, while leaderboards stir up competition. Completing a level also shows you an excellent snapshot of your bullet’s flight path, which can be easily shared on social media for a little extra satisfaction.

Children of the Sun’s unconventional approach to sniping is consistently thrilling and wholly satisfying. It might be full of gruesome blood spatter and cracked skulls, but it’s also the thinking person’s shooter–more of a delightfully macabre puzzle game than anything else. It’s admittedly short, and the game’s longevity will largely depend on how hard you fall for its inventive and bloody puzzles. That shouldn’t be a problem when it’s so difficult not to. And even if it’s relatively one-note, Children of the Sun plays that note with such morbid aplomb that it’s easy to recommend.

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