Chants of Sennaar Review

There exists a tower, a tower that was created to allow civilization to live on, but something has gone wrong. You have awoken from a tomb in a hidden room at the base of the tower with no understanding of the language of those who you run into. You will have to conquer the language and others to solve the mystery of the tower in Chants of Sennaar. You will be tasked with talking to those individuals who are willing to talk to you. You will also have to try to decipher the language written on walls, signs, and more. The more you interact with the language the better chance you have at figuring it out. You see, one of the main components of the game is that you, the gamer, will have to take guesses as to what each symbol represents. You will have “checkpoints” where you will take out your journal and try to place the symbol with a drawn representation to master the language.

I will be completely honest with you, this is a game where you’re going to be note taking outside of the in-game note taking which is the foundational mechanic of the game. In each area you’re going to have to decipher up to 36 different symbols. These symbols can help you understand the residents of that level of the tower, as well as give you hints towards puzzles that you’ll have to undertake. The levels of the tower also increase in complexity. Later in the game, not only do you have to decipher the symbols, but you’ll also be tasked with utilizing stealth to get past certain sections of that level. There are other levels where you can easily get lost if you don’t follow directions you received somewhere else in the level.

This is not a game for action loving gamers, this is the type of game for those who are looking to not only solve puzzles, but to rediscover lost languages. It, personally, took me close to 7 hours to get through the entire game. There were definitely some missteps, and there were times where I got lost, but there was always that burning desire to conquer the tower that seemed to stick with me throughout my playthrough. The one thing I will say is that even after deciphering the level’s language when tasked with translations to other level’s languages, there was definitely a level of frustration when it came to pluralized words. So if you do take up the call to conquer this specific tower, understand that sometimes direct translations, much like the world and the languages we interact with, don’t always run smoothly.

I definitely recommend this game. I enjoyed it. It was something different, and a good change of pace. The translation/deciphering of languages did remind me of my time spent playing Heaven’s Vault, and that’s a good thing. So if you’re looking for a different type of game, and you have the brain power or brain configuration to decipher forgotten languages, I would highly recommend that you add this game to your library.