No Place for Bravery Review (NSW)

Written by Patrick Orquia

Title: No Place for Bravery
Developer: Ysbryd Games
Publisher: Glitch Factory
Genre: Action-Adventure, RPG
Number of Players: 1
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: Sept. 22, 2022
Price: $19.99

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No Place for Bravery is a top-down action-adventure RPG that utilizes excellent pixel art style with an engaging soundtrack that complements the game’s visuals pretty well. It is kind of reminiscent to Hyper Light Drifter and Children of Morta, but not as good. Still, this game is good enough to stand on its own to join the other indie greats in the genre, like its excellent narrative style and depiction of violence.

In this game, you play as Thorn, a retired soldier, whose daughter, Leaf, got kidnapped by an evil warlock some years back. Since that day, he has withdrawn from fighting and now runs a tavern in the land of Dewr. One day, he dreamt of that time when Leaf got abducted. During this starting point of the game, you are introduced with the many different mechanics in the game, especially those that are combat-related. You get a taste of slaying enemies and trying out some weapons and skills. After this brief scenario, you come back to the present. Thorn witnesses the re-emergence of that creature who abducted Leaf. Monsters have once again begin attacking the world, and Thorn is compelled anew to look for his daughter and slay any and every enemy along his path. By the way, he has a crippled foster son named Phid, who accompanies him in his journey, to redeem himself and find his long-lost daughter, or die trying.

The story, at first, seems to be like a generic revenge tale. You soon find out that the game gives you a choice in some instances on how to proceed with the narrative: whether to annihilate enemies like what you are expected to do, or go the pacifist route and avoid violence if you can. Choosing the latter route might end the game somewhat prematurely, with Thorn abandoning the quest to reclaiming her daughter. Choosing violence allows you to progress further, letting you discover much more of the world, unlocking different skills and weapons, and interact with more interesting NPCs who may or may not help you. This narrative style gives the game some replayability, allowing you to see different endings, depending on the choices that you make.

The game has a good amount of enemy variety with different kinds of attack. Some attack from a distance while others pursue you at first sight. You start with a sword to slash the enemies to bits and pieces, with their blood, guts, limbs, and other body parts scatter all around. This game is pretty gruesome, but the art style somehow tones the violence a couple of notches down. As you progress into the game, you get to unlock new weapons and skills that you can switch from one to another on the fly, depending on your play style. Some paths or obstacles will require you to use specific weapons for you to be able to progress further, and thus, you will have to backtrack and go back to previously visited areas to try out new paths and uncover different secrets, like your typical metroidvania (or soulslike game, because of the gruesomeness). You will die a lot in this game, and you will have to respawn on the last bonfire that you discovered, but all progress gets saved upon death, and thus you don’t have to retread your previous steps to solve puzzles or fight tough enemies again and possibly rage quit due to loss of progress. By the way, bonfires also allows you to replenish your health potions and unlock new skills if they are available.

Speaking of enemies, aside from the usual minion-type ones, you will encounter some boss battles that can really test your playing skills and abilities. They are of course tougher and hit more than usual, so you really have to outsmart them by utilizing the skills and weapons that you have acquired up to that particular point. When you defeat them, they drop some cool items that you use to further progress into the game. It may be a key or some new trinket that you can use to upgrade your weapons or skills. There are even some bosses that you may accidentally stumble upon that may kill you in a few hits, encouraging you to try a different path for the time being and then just return later when you are better equipped to defeat them. It’s a challenge that you have to keep in mind, and there is no challenge too hard to overcome. Just take your time and somewhere else and return to unleash some ass-whooping later on.

Overall, No Place for Bravery is a game that is among the many belonging to the same genre on Switch, and you can even say that there are many games better than it. But if you are a fan of games such as this one, you definitely will like it, as it may not be too different from the norm, but still, it has something more to offer to be worth of your gaming time. So perhaps give it a try, help Thorn get reunited with his daughter or maybe choose a path to a more peaceful life. It is up to you, just enjoy the adventure ahead.

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REPLAY FACTOR: Medium

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PROS

• Excellent pixel art style; visuals kind of reminiscent of Hyper Light Drifter and Children of Morta
• Engaging soundtrack
• Excellent narrative style
• Multiple difficulty modes, with some individual settings such as health or damage dealt can be further manually set depending on your skill
• Challenging even on lower difficulty modes
• Lots of interesting NPCs to interact with
• Lots of collectibles
• Lots of consumable items to equip, like potions, magical items, etc. that give boons or restore HP and so on
• Comprehensive menu system

CONS

• Long load times
• A bug was encountered wherein the level environment failed to load near the start of the game; multiple game restarts did not solve the issue, forcing me to start a new game
• No dedicated sprint button
• Noticeable frame rate drops encountered when there is too much action happening on screen

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RATING: 4/5 delightful pixelated violence

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