The first title on this list with an really visually-arresting art style and presentation, Child of Light is the latest game to use Ubisoft's 'UbiArt' engine - a great piece of tech that gave us the equally fun-to-just-stare-at Rayman Legends last year - yet here it's been attached to a much richer and more expansive watercolour aesthetic compromising of a cavalcade of fun characters and dialogue made up entirely of fairytale-style rhyming couplets. Chances are you'll want to dive into Child of Light's world purely based off how sumptuously enticing those visuals are, and you'd be right in thinking that the fairly basic combat takes a backseat to this approach, but that being the combat encounters are still great fun. Taking a page out of PS2 cult-classic Grandia II's battle system, Light visualises its combatants' placement in the fight on a small timeline across the bottom of the screen. It's by funnelling every aspect of more traditional RPG mechanics through this timeline - basic attacks, item usage, spells etc. - that will lead to you accelerating towards the end of the bar faster than your opponents; thereby getting your attacks off faster. With some moves knocking people further and further back along the line and certain characters preparing their attacks faster than others, this small-yet-effective inclusion to battle helps showcase what was otherwise going on behind the scenes in standard role-playing game encounters, effortlessly getting newcomers into the gameplay and letting us regulars plan our attacks even more carefully.
