Bramble: The Mountain King - 英文遊戲短評

*Spoiler alert / 包含了劇透

Maker： Dimfrost Studio
Genre： action-adventure, survival horror, puzzle, platformer
Platform： Windows, consoles

Bramble's gameplay is similar to Inside and maybe also Little Nightmares, but with significantly reduced puzzle-solving elements.

To me, its story has a ridiculous beginning and a ridiculous ending. The protagonists don't seem to learn the virtue of prudence from the horrifying experience, nor seem to show much sympathy or compassion to the ill-fated people other than a single exception. Personally, I couldn't connect with the protagonists and am only moderately impressed with its plots.

Creature design, however, is Bramble's strong point and well done, complimented by several stunning environments and fine picture books. Nevertheless, there are evident instances of art assets that are used repetitively, probably due to tight production schedule, especially for the cave scenes.

Contrary to the creatures, I think art direction of the characters is peculiar. Personally, its "3D-transpose-of-2D-cartoony-faces" often look scarier than monsters in the game.

Gameplay-wise, I couldn't like its frequent narration, which indoctrinates information to the player. It directly breaks any immersive gaming experience on the spot. Certainly, there are players who love this method of storytelling, but for me, I would rather not to have a "book-reading" sort of experience when playing a game.

In addition, Bramble's boss fights are on the easy side. The behaviors of the bosses are not only predictable but also unchallenging. The boss fights are only prolonged because it is necessary to repeat the same actions a dozen times or so to beat them.

UX-wise, there are several instances of ill-placed camera angles, resulting unnecessary difficulties for controlling movements. Occasional visual glitches (for epic quality graphics settings) certainly doesn't make it any better.

如影隨形的枝葉

All in all, Bramble is an enjoyable action-adventure, with definite room for improvements regarding storytelling, gameplay, and UX in general.

My rating: 7.75/10

重點單字：
prudence - 謹慎
evident - 明顯的
narration - 旁白
indoctrinates - 灌輸