Children of the Sun is the most violently fun connect-the-dots game I've played so far. The controls for the game feel great and precise, and the levels are well-designed and thought out, making for interesting gameplay. The story is kind of take it or leave it and kind of irrelevant, but it's present enough, I guess.

My main gripe with the game is that, even though in the trailer there's an amazing song playing, the game pretty much has no OST. For a game whose art style leans heavily on the more artistic side over quality, simply not having any music really breaks away from the mood. When I compare this game to Hotline Miami or Katana Zero, not having any form of OST or even the song from the trailer present just feels lackluster.

I'd still recommend the game but just wish it had music.

Here's the tl;dr: Another argument for a mixed rating. I recommend the game as long as it's at a significant discount (It's $19.49 CAD at time of writing, sale price of $15.99 CAD). Knowing what I'd get I probably wouldn't have paid more than $10 and even that's a bit much.

First, I love the concept. This sort of game is exactly the thing I like in a sniping game. Marking the targets one by one by circling around, with the twists being that you can only fire one shot. Making clever use of the environment and abilities to make sure your shot hits is quite enjoyable.

However, the game doesn't really do much with this. Early on you get a couple of ways to increase maneuverability, giving you more options, but the game's idea of ramping difficulty is making enemies harder to hit. Some literally can't be marked before shooting (thankfully marks stay between attempts), some enemies have directional shields, some enemies are armored (which require a significant distance to kill and shots hitting them end the attempt instead of deflecting off), and some have a temporary defense that regenerates if you take too long to get at them.

The latter levels were more exercises in frustration as an increasing number of armor and shielded enemies meant the game became significantly less open in its design, effectively forcing you to take one of a handful of effective paths.

The game is also way too short for its price. It'd be one thing if it didn't outstay its welcome and was masterfully crafted, but towards the end it definitely felt like the devs were scraping the barrel on finding ways to make the levels more difficult. There's also no replay value unless you're the kind of high-score leaderboard fiend. My playtime included trying to complete every challenge the game gave me and have an unbroken score combo at the end of each level, and if you want to just play to the end it'd take maybe half this time.

She's literally me.