Chants of Sennaar from Focus Entertainment and Rundisc is an interesting and charming puzzle adventure experience on PS4. Check our Chants of Sennaar review!
Chants of Sennaar from Focus Entertainment and Rundisc is an interesting and charming puzzle adventure experience on PlayStation. The game draws inspiration from the myth of Babel, and it’s now your task as the Traveler to try and unite cultures fractured by language, who all happen to be living inside of a tower. By better understanding each factions dialects, you’ll hopefully be able to break down the barriers that keep them separated, so that they can once again thrive as one.
As you can see from screens and the trailer in this Chants of Sennaar review, the game has been heavily inspired by the look and feel of European comics and graphic novels. As Julien Moya, art director for Chants of Sennar and co-founder for indie studio Rundisc mentions in this video, it’s thanks to the work of comic artists from the 1970s and 1980s that this game has this particular art style. The team was drawn the work of French comic artist Philippe Druillet, Belgian comic artist François Schuiten, and of Jean Giraud, who you definitely know as Moebius.
You’ll control your character with the left analog stick as you use the X button to interact as needed. Since this is a puzzle adventure game, that means you’ll be interacting with objects to try to find a way to, say, open a door, or find a new path that will lead you deeper, and deeper into the tower. You can press the R1 button at any time to highlight all points of interest within an area. Items you collect are added to your inventory, which you can open with the Square button. While there, you can use the left analog stick to rotate an item. Some elements in the environment can be combined with items in your inventory.
There’s a lot to do in Chants of Sennaar as you work on rebuilding the lost language. There are over 180 glyphs for you to collect, along with the sketches that will be added to your journal that need to be linked to the words that are linked to the glyphs. It sounds more complicated than it really is. The journal will record all the glyphs you discover. You can open it by pressing the Triangle button. Once you think you’ve guessed the meaning of a glyph, you can select it and us the annotation button to note your hypothesis so that you can test it.
To give you an idea of what to expect – but without spoiling things too much – allow me to discuss the first 10 minutes or so with Chants of Sennar. At the start of the game, you’ll find a handful of glyphs. You’ll need to visually decipher what they could potentially mean, so that you can understand that the lever next to them can be used to open the door. The next puzzle will have a diagram with a series of glyphs. This diagram is conveniently located next to six levers that control the flow of water.
By taking into consideration what you saw in the previous sign that was next to the lever you pulled to open the door, you can understand that one particular glyph could, in theory, stand for the word “open,” while the other one could be for the world “close.” By interacting with the six levers that control the flow of water, you can easily find the right combination, thus proving your theory about what those two glyphs stand for. This is how you’ll slowly but surely be making progress in the game, as you interact with more complex glyph combinations for future puzzles.
But in order for you to be completely sure that the interpretation you’ve given to each glyph is correct – and that you didn’t just get lucky with the solutions for the aforementioned puzzles, you’ll need to match the glyphs to the slots on the drawings in your journal that the Traveler will automatically make at different points in the game. The first set of three glyphs must be matched to a closed padlock, an open padlock, and a door. Move each glyph to the right slot, and you’ll be taking the first steps in your translation journey. The more glyphs you manage to translate, the easier it will be to understand what your interlocutors are saying.
The game features a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy waiting for you at the end of your journey. The list includes 6 Bronze trophies, 14 Silver trophies, and 5 Gold trophies for you to work on. The first one to unlock will be for completing the first page of the journal, which has three sketches. From there, trophies will pop as you progress further in the game, as well as complete some objectives that I won’t be spoiling here. There’s just one trophy that is missable, so if you need some extra help, you can check out this Chants of Sennaar Trophy Guide.
Chants of Sennaar is an interesting and charming puzzle adventure experience. The game’s art style has been inspired by comics and graphic novels from the 1970s and 1980s, particularly by the works of Philippe Druillet, Schuiten, and Moebius. As you try to decipher what the almost 200 glyphs in the game mean, you’ll get a better understanding of how to solve the puzzles on your path and how to better communicate with the other characters you’ll interact with. Chants of Sennaar is out on PlayStation 4 with a $19.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Chants of Sennaar review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Focus Entertainment.
