Had high hopes for Chants of Sennaar (CoS) due to its similarities to other games I like but almost everything it attempts to do is done far better by said games.

The translation puzzles are most mechanically similar to Case of the Golden Idol (CGI) and Return of the Obra Dinn (ROD). In each of these games, you are presented with evidence and must make logical guesses to identify people/places/things/words. The way guesses are validated in CoS is essentially the same as ROD/CGI: If you have enough items correctly labeled, then the game just outright verifies your labels. However, in contrast to ROD/CGI, the puzzles in CoS take hours to ramp up in difficulty and no puzzle is ever as difficult or as satisfying as those of CGI or ROD. Further, CoS has much more 'downtime' than CGI/ROD. I think this helps CoS to mask just how simple the puzzles are. Whenever I was stuck, it wasn't because a translation puzzle was tripping me up, it was because I didn't interact with everything in the rooms available to me. This meant that I spent a lot of time just wandering each of the rooms making sure I had interacted with everything. It is quite disappointing since the game could have explored strange language structure in much greater depth, but instead everything is kept very simple. Ultimately, I think the game fails to capture the highs of CGI or ROD while not really offering anything else mechanically interesting.

CoS is, in my estimation, obviously inspired by Journey both for its aesthetics and story. That said, Journey and CoS are opposites when it comes to language. CoS is largely focused on language while Journey is devoid of it. Perhaps this is why Journey is forced to communicate its story in a much more compelling way. Even though you discover the meaning behind each symbol throughout a playthrough, ultimately, the story is still delivered through english written by the developers. The story could have been more interesting if the labels written by the player weren't validated and overwritten by those of the devs. Each player's interpretation of the story would have been a bit different this way, and it would have made me much more engaged to understand the story. As it is now, the story is very similar to any other text-based game. By the end of CoS, I felt unmoved by its story/themes.

Taking inspiration from great works can backfire; nothing in CoS is better than the sum of its individual, heavily inspired parts. Further, these parts are better realized in their original forms (namely from CGI, ROD, and Journey). All of this makes Chants of Sennaar difficult to recommend.

The platforming is just so good; it is mario sunshine levels of expression but with better level design and overall pacing. The atmosphere is beautifully realized and I think the absence of any menuing is perfect for this game. Lots of people have complained about a lack of a map, but adding a map can have lots of downsides. First, and most important for me, it encourages players to interrupt play constantly. Further, it also allows players to pay less attention to their surroundings. Finally, it can make players take fewer risks on challenging platforming challenges. It's hard to say you can sequence break this game since it's so open, but there were definitely platforming sections I did on my first playthrough that would have been trivial if I had the right powerup. Without it, it was challenging and rewarding. If a map signals where to proceed, a player might never get 'lost' and have to overcome a unique platforming challenge to proceed.