Created: March 24, 2024

The Chant

First off, this game is a technical disaster: a stuttering, juddering mess. I played on an NVIDIA RTX 4090, so the issue is not power but poor quality assurance. And ... it doesn't really look so great for its 2022 release date, with low-resolution textures and janky animations.

If you persevere beyond the bad performance you will experience an eminently mediocre game. It's a linear action adventure with some minimal exploration and puzzles, all wrapped around an unoriginal, predictable "horror" story, which is actually not scary at all.

Combat is ... OK. It's all about timing and resource management. Annoyingly, resources you need for basic combat are scant, and if you run out you will have a very unpleasant time because there is no manual save: your only option would be to restart the level and make better choices. I managed to avoid that by the skin of my teeth, but you'll find many people in the forums who got stuck.

To be clear, mediocre does not mean terrible. If you enjoy this genre and have played everything else on your todo list, The Chant might prove satisfying enough, assuming the stuttering isn't too distracting for you.

There are 3 endings, but you would have to play the game 3 times to get them all. It's definitely not good enough to warrant that.

Finally The Gloom Below DLC: it's a "rogue-like"-like experience that is 99% combat. Unless you really love the combat in the main game, skip this.