Chants of Sennaar Review
Chants of Sennaar Review
Chants of Sennaar is a very unique game that mainly focuses on the mechanic of trying decipher different languages that works as a double edged sword later in the game. Chants of Sennaar feels like an evolution of the point and click adventure genre with as the concept, art style, and meaning are tailored to a more refined palette. Your sole purpose is to understand and learn languages, to help the chosen one advance higher up the tower. The tower in question is based off the Tower of Babel, which is hard to ignore with all of the religious undertones.
The visuals aesthetic is gorgeous with its minimalist style that keeps that focus on trying to decipher the linguistics that all begins with a simple premise: There is a lever and a stranger who speaks a language you don’t understand, but you slowly speak to other people and by observing their actions and reading signs on the wall you can begin to piece together what words mean, which eventually can also tie in to other languages.
Chants of Sennaar pushes you to the brink of being overwhelmed as the amount words that you don’t understand can escalate very quickly. You will likely debate giving up, but with a little exploring and a great built in hint system, that highlights what is actionable on the screen, you can usually get one word. It’s this one word that leads to the next and causes a satisfying chain reaction.
As mentioned, the gameplay loop can get a little repetitive as each tower floor basically starts over from scratch with a new language to learn. I found the loop to be defeating and felt like starting at square one and maybe that is what is intended to reiterate the struggle of learning new languages.
There are some stealth sections, puzzle areas, a color palette swap on each floor and the game is only around 10 hours. All of these elements work well to distract from the gameplay that slightly edges into repetition. Chants of Sennaar is one of the best puzzle games of 2023 with its unique concept and minimalist art style.