PixlBit

I like to peruse the new and sale games in the Nintendo Shop on a weekly basis. Sometimes I find some really cool stuff, sometimes not so much. I saw this game Bramble in the new releases section and it was on sale for $5.99, and the description sounded interesting and like something I might enjoy. And I did, briefly. More on that later in the post.

Bramble is a an adventure game with Scandinavian folklore elements. It starts out with Olle, the main character, and his sister Lillemor (a common nickname for the eldest female children in Scandinavia, it translates to Little Mother) sneaking out of the house at night to have an adventure in the dark woods. You explore and platform your way through the dark woods, some cliffs, tunnels, and ruins until you come to a gnome village. Cute little guys with tall, pointy red hats kind of gnomes. You play a couple of mini games, and are lulled into a false sense of security. Then you leave the gnome village, where you meet trolls. Seen the movie Trollhunter? No? Well, trolls aren't nice creatures and our little explorers don't have Gandalf in their party to distract the trolls until the sun comes up. Anyway, Lillemor gets grabbed by a troll and Olle heads off to try and save her. So far, so good, right? I was having fun up until shortly after that point.

Bramble started to lose me when Olle ends up in an area with a troll butchering pretty much everything, very graphicly. Up until that point, the game had pretty much been a platformer. I platformed my way around, until I caught the attention of the troll, and then got killed, graphicly, by a meat cleaver multiple times before I realized that this was supposed to be a boss fight. Poor little Olle left a lot of blood and guts on that wooden platform before I consulted a walkthrough and got my timing right. Ok, so I finally manage to escape, and up in a spot where I rescue a bunch of gnome children in their adorable red pointy hats from a suspended cage and led them into a field full of... bear traps. Squish! With accompanying gore. I finally get them, well, most of them, across the field, where they happily run into their house and presumably a happy reunion with their worried family. Their happiness was short-lived, as a troll suddenly and almost immediately rips the roof off the house and eats them. The ones it doesn't eat, it stomps on.

At this point, I'm starting to lose enthusiasm for this game. My enthusiasm continues to evaporate as I try to navigate Olle safely across another field, avoiding detection by the troll by hiding in clumps of grass. A bit like Horizon Zero Dawn, but not as fun. I gave up when I got to the river full of bear traps that I needed to avoid while also avoiding the troll and his light.

At this point, I honestly don't know if I'm going to go back to this game. Bramble makes Limbo look like a warm, fuzzy walk in the park. I would like to know the fates of Olle and Lillemor, but I think I may just go find a Let's Play to find out. They did have a content warning at the beginning, but the letters were tiny and I had hit the continue button because I wanted to get right to the game. Silly me. Anyway, I can't really recommend this game. It's confused and doesn't know if it wants to be a walking simulator, a platformer, a stealth game, or whatever. And there's only so many times I can watch the character I'm controlling die in gory, brutal fashion. Play at your own risk.