Bramble (the Mountain King): A wonderful and dark indie game

After trying my best to enjoy Grounded I kind of returned to games that I tend to enjoy more now that I am a bit older and do not have the time or patience to endlessly explore how a game works nor do I care to "cheat" and look up every next turn on YouTube.

One look at Bramble had me knowing that this might be the game for me to try next so I did, and I have mostly not been disappointed.

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It's called a cinematic-platformer and I suppose that is what it is. It's a story-based game and it operates in a completely linear fashion. There is no exploration, no open-world, and the graphics are fine but not exemplary and this is just fine.

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You start the game out getting woken up by your older sister going on an adventure in the middle of the night and sneak your way out the window to go and join her. What happens next is a series of stories that are based on Scandanavian folklore that I think most people are probably not aware of. I know I wasn't.

The game plays a lot like Little Monsters or Limbo (sort of) except the difference is that there is narration about the folklore and to me at least, this was some of the most interesting aspects of the game even though I am the kind of person that really dislikes overuse of cinematics that interrupt gameplay. They dont' do this terribly often and that is probably why I welcomed it. When it does happen, it is genuinely a major part of what is going on and not just a bunch of senseless dialogue the likes of which we would receive dozens of times in say, a JRPG.

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Most of the stuff you encounter, especially early on, is rather cartoonish such as the little gnomes that you have to rescue and befriend on your way forward. This is just a taste of what is to come though because later on things get downright scary.

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When you see some sort of huge ominous character in the background that after a couple of jumps it clearly notices you and then dives into the water, there is some good reason for fear... you know that he is coming for you.

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These sequences are downright terrifying but at the same time they aren't terribly difficult either. If you make a mistake you will probably identify it pretty quickly and then not make that mistake the next time. I trialed this game on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 1 and the load times are very reasonable on PS5 but on the Switch it was frustratingly long. This is the apparent limitations of a handheld system that was never very powerful to begin with, but now 9 years after its original release it is really starting to show its age.

So since it is currently a free game for any PS-Plus members, you should probably play it there.

For me, this game is a lot of fun not only because of its simplicity, but also because of the beauty, the outstanding soundtrack that must be in Norwegian or Swedish or something like that, as well as the very compelling stories that I can only guess are somewhat well-known in that part of the world. If these are accurate re-tellings of childhood folklore stories, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of traumatized children in Sweden.

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You have a very limited moveset, so this means that there aren't going to be a ton of buttons that you have to remember and that really appeals to me. Someone out there in internetland said recently "if it involves more buttons than an SNES controller, it's a no from me." I totally agree with this sentiment even though it shows my age... i'm ok with that.

I believe I am about 80% of the way through the game and the only gripe that I have about it is that you walk really slow and you can circumvent this by jumping constantly as that makes you move significantly faster. This is annoying because where it becomes most apparent is in areas where nothing is actually chasing you, but you need to walk across this really huge field or something like that. There is a sprint button, but activating that enables you to run off the side of things that would otherwise be harmless. This is a tiny gripe and not really relevant. It doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment level of the game.

If you have a PS-Plus Extra account or higher, there is no reason to not give this game a try. For people that enjoyed Brothers, Limbo, Little Monsters and other games similar to it, this will be right up your alley. I will complete this game, and this is not something that I can often claim to be true.