"The Chant" is like if "Resident Evil" had a child with "The Stranger Things". And maybe if that child was a bit sickly.
The basics of the gameplay is walking around collecting stuff in order to open some door (mostly literal, but sometimes metaphorical) while also protecting yourself from weird creatures, which seem somewhat plant-based, but nonetheless evil. Unlike "Resident Evil" you have not guns at all, but you can collect different good plants to craft various types of besoms, that you use to ward of those evil plants by literally wiping them to death. In addition you can collect some salts and oils, that you can through, and another type of salt, that you use to improve your stats and learn passive skills.
The skills do make surviving quite a bit easier, especially considering limited amount of resources: both throwables and melee weapons "break" or otherwise expire, and most monsters are relatively tough, with some being really tough (although in case of bosses you normally do have way to replenish your resources). On the other hand most enemies are quite stupid, so in most cases you just dodge (which can feel weird at times, but maybe that's for the sake of realism, since you are not playing as a real fighter), hit a couple of times, dodge again.
So while gameplay does not really introduce anything new, it is quite solid, especially paired with quite good level design, which provides just the right amount of freedom and nooks and crannies to explore, while maintaining your progression pace. The story, though...
It's not bad per say. The beginning is especially good, it really hooks you in, but when the failed ritual happens... A lot of things feel rushed. It does make some sense considering the circumstances, but it feels like everyone becomes kind of ok (even if a bit insane) with all of the crazy plants roaming around. That does not make any sense, because technically only one person is supposed to be somewhat knowledgeable, but even that person behaves worse than a child with his character overall being very poorly developed.
I think the main problem was that the first chapter was very short and it pushed you into the craziness too fast and did not really allow you to get to know the people around you. Yes, you can gather various notes afterwards, that do expand on the characters somewhat, but it's not enough. It would have been better if 1st ritual worked fine and only thing that changed was Jess (protagonist) started seeing things, that she would consider hallucinations or something like that. And then 2nd ritual fails and you get everything else. Although this would not have saved us from DLC ending, which does not fit the established rules of this world in any way.
Another complaint from my side is voice acting: in a lot of cases actors are underplaying, and the low quality of some voice lines does not help. In fact, to my ears all women in the game sound almost Identical to Jess, even when they are talking with each other and you actually see who is talking. That is worsened by the fact that facial animations, on the contrary, overplay the emotions, which sometimes ruins the atmosphere entirely: so much that even really good soundtrack did not help in those moments.
But despite the bad things, I still did enjoy my time with the game. From what I understand this is the first game from "Brass Token", and if that's the case - this is a very good introduction, and I really wish them success with future releases. I think if you do like "Resident Evil" like games or worlds with "evil plants" - you will probably enjoy it, too, even if you buy it at full price.
