I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took several arrows to the knee.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/61762/no-place-for-bravery-switch-review
It's been years since the coining of the “soulsborne” genre took place, and yet the influence it's had over the gaming landscape has been immense. It’s been interesting to see how this style has reverberated throughout triple-A and indie titles alike. The latest contender in the growing genre is No Place for Bravery, developed by Glitch Factory and published by Ysbryd Games, which borrows from titles such as Sekiro and gives it a fresh new perspective. 2D or not to be, for this side-scrolling adventure, that is the question.
You play as Thorn, one of the Guardians, a member of a dying (or more-or-less dead) order tasked with protecting the world from colossus-like creatures that still roam the land. With the order disbanded and the threat not immediately looming, he turns inward toward building a family. That is, until one day, grief stricken and duty bound, Thorn sets off again. His child perched on his shoulders like Kratos with future lower back issues, does he seek redemption or is it revenge?
The story is one of the strongest aspects of No Place for Bravery, hence the somewhat vague description. Should you pick this game up for story alone, you won't be disappointed. It is a well written tale with memorable characters that come to life within the pixel-art aesthetic, and it’s ripe with character choices that carry some surprising consequences. I must say for the story alone I was hooked. Now if only the quality of the story was echoed in the gameplay.
Similar to the aforementioned Sekiro, the premise here is guard (or stamina) management. Perfectly parrying an attack will see the enemy’s guard meter drop drastically. Parry a few times and they stagger, leaving them open for your barrage of attacks that deal much more damage. When it works, it feels good, if not a little limited by Thorn’s moveset. You have a few unlockable weapons such as a hammer and crossbow to round out your kit a wee bit. Lastly, you have consumable equipment such as throwing knives and traps. That said, I seldom drew these items as they always seemed unnecessary when facing down gatling-gun like bowmen that forced me to be guarding at all times.
Like other soulslikes, your progress is checkpointed by bonfires that will respawn enemies and replenish health potions, as well as offer the opportunity to purchase new skill upgrades. These upgrades require specific materials that are marked on your map as enticing side quests, but unfortunately for me the combat was so frustrating that I did everything I could do to avoid it and stay focused on the main quest.
The most glaring issue I faced is that the lock on system is barely functional. Your lock-on capabilities are governed by the direction Thorn is facing and are mapped to clicking in either the left or right thumbstick. There’s no available button remapping as of writing. Suffice it to say, the controls are unintuitive, and it seems the developers knew that as there are in-game options to make some adjustments. Examples include the option to lock on to the next character after killing your current target and the option to cycle through enemies as opposed to disengaging. For myself, this second option would have been a saving grace but it never seemed to function; it simply did not work whether toggled on or off in the menu. Because of this flimsy system, I would often find myself locked onto enemies off-screen. If Thorn was not facing directly at my focused target, I would be starting a pen-pal arrangement with the archer in the corner I didn’t know existed.
Had that been my only frustration with my experience, I would have still walked away from No Place for Bravery relatively content, but I had an absolute bevy of technical issues. During my playthrough, I experienced arrows passing through walls, puzzles not triggering, loss of controls after a cutscene, and being glitched through a boss barrier (which required me to close and reopen the game). When the challenge of the game is only exacerbated by technical issues, it marrs the entire experience. I’ve also had bosses get stuck on walls and become a cakewalk, removing the challenge from those encounters and rendering them unsatisfying as well.
It's a shame that No Place for Bravery crumbles under the weight of its ambition. Should the performance and technical issues be fixed, it would become something I could easily recommend. The music, story, and visuals are all wonderfully crafted, and it would be unfortunate if this version ended the final product. Fortunately, it does seem like patches are in the works, but it remains to be seen how much of the above issues are fixed by them. Ultimately, No Place for Bravery is a promising title that may be able to live up to its aspirations with a little more work under the hood.
Topic: No Place For Bravery (Switch) Review (Read 6130 times)
