Children Of The Sun is a highly stylised puzzle shooter that takes the bullet time moments from Sniper Elite and develops the idea into a full game. Most levels consist of scouting the location and marking enemies before executing a Wanted style bullet bending blood bath.
The story is one of revenge that sees the protagonist taking her anger out on a cult that left her family in ruin and death. Children Of The Sun presents its story via brief comic style cutscenes providing short insights into the history of the main character and their relationship to the cult. Most levels are separate from the story and just see you taking down stronger and stronger outpost as you get ever closer to the cult leader. Occasionally however there will be a level that directly progress the story but these are few and far between and only near the end of the game.
Gameplay wise Children Of The Sun strives to take a small idea and stretches it as far as creatively possible. This leads to some fun and unique concepts that don't overstay their welcome. With the core mechanic being bullet time this idea develops and introduces bullet redirection, slow-mo and high caliber speed to tackle a variety of different enemy types and scenarios. Latter gameplay becomes more of a puzzle game as you try to solve who to kill first and who to keep alive for a latter redirection. I did find this to become quite tedious in particularly the last 2 levels as I got relative stuck for extended periods of time due to either poor puzzle execution or long distance aim (I was playing on my Steam Deck and may have had better luck with a mouse).
One of the biggest drawbacks I found was the mini games that were randomly thrown in. These were not good and felt really out of place. Thankfully there wasn't many and only 1 was particularly difficult, but I feel it would have been a better experience with the removed completely.
The mood and atmosphere for Children Of The Sun is great and can be particularly satisfying at times. However there doesn't seem to be much keeping me engaged. You can battle other players for a high score but apart from that Children Of The Sun feels very one and done.
The story is one of revenge that sees the protagonist taking her anger out on a cult that left her family in ruin and death. Children Of The Sun presents its story via brief comic style cutscenes providing short insights into the history of the main character and their relationship to the cult. Most levels are separate from the story and just see you taking down stronger and stronger outpost as you get ever closer to the cult leader. Occasionally however there will be a level that directly progress the story but these are few and far between and only near the end of the game.
Gameplay wise Children Of The Sun strives to take a small idea and stretches it as far as creatively possible. This leads to some fun and unique concepts that don't overstay their welcome. With the core mechanic being bullet time this idea develops and introduces bullet redirection, slow-mo and high caliber speed to tackle a variety of different enemy types and scenarios. Latter gameplay becomes more of a puzzle game as you try to solve who to kill first and who to keep alive for a latter redirection. I did find this to become quite tedious in particularly the last 2 levels as I got relative stuck for extended periods of time due to either poor puzzle execution or long distance aim (I was playing on my Steam Deck and may have had better luck with a mouse).
One of the biggest drawbacks I found was the mini games that were randomly thrown in. These were not good and felt really out of place. Thankfully there wasn't many and only 1 was particularly difficult, but I feel it would have been a better experience with the removed completely.
The mood and atmosphere for Children Of The Sun is great and can be particularly satisfying at times. However there doesn't seem to be much keeping me engaged. You can battle other players for a high score but apart from that Children Of The Sun feels very one and done.