Bramble: The Mountain King reminds me a lot of Little Nightmares, you could even say this is Little Nightmares but with Norse Mythology lol, but of course it´s nothing like that, the game has its own identity, let´s begin from the begining. The game starts with this little guy called Olle and his sister Lillemor, they make an interesting contrast since Olle is a pretty shy person who is extremely scared of everything and Lillemore is the opposite, a person who likes adventures and totally not shy. One day, her sister Lillemor is captured by one of the giant trolls of the game, we were almost captured as well but we managed to escapte, Olle has to overcome his fears in order to save his sister because the world from Bramble The Mountain King can be pretty dark and scary.
First, I´d like to mention that I liked the contrast from the begining of the game, let me explain what I just said. I mentioned that the world from Bramble The Mountain King can be pretty dark and that´s actually true but I´ll delve into that later, the game actually starts as a wholesome adventure with no danger and just having a good time with your sister, you actually start doing many small missions helping gnomes and people from the forest, that´s until our sister is captured and the game starts getting dark little by little, I really liked that because I think it´s a cool and subtle transition, emphasizing that Olle needs to leave his childhood behind in order to save his sister.
Once the game really starts, we´ll notice that Olle is like a really small ant agains´t his enemies, I mean, everything else is just giant and he´s just like a cockroach, if there is something I loved about this game is how it makes you feel like you really are worth nothing, we´ll move through environments as if we were the most useless thing in the world, Olle doesn´t have a way to attack or defend himself really, the only option we´ve got is to hide, being extremely quiet through our surroundings, trying not to make a noise. I´ll be honest, stealth games are not my thing so I was kinda worried I wasn´t going to enjoy this game but the game is not that complicated and yeah, you´ll have to be sneaky but nothing unfair, if you play like the game wants you to play you´ll be doing just fine.
Now, there is a way we can attack by throwing an intense light that will harm foes, but this can be used only when the game actually wants you to use it and that´s when you have to fight some bosses or some areas the game would like you to use it.
This game uses a fixed camera system sometimes, like the ones you see in survival horror games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Parasit Eve, Dinocrisis, etc. I´m a boomer so I love the fixed camera system in videogames, I just can´t hide it, what I love more is when a game actually makes a good use of said system and Bramble The Mountain King is one of thoese games, I think it´s better if I show it with an example. In certain area of the game, you reach an abandoned town, if you reach lore from the game, you´ll get to know that it was filled with people before but a plague killed everyone, so it´s abandoned now. There is a moment in this town when you get close to a house and the game uses the fixed camera angle so it makes you see like you are being observed from the house, when there is supposed to be no one there or maybe there is someone, I don´t know, I love how the game tricks your mind this way because you have the urge to know if there is someone there. Okay angeru64 we get it this is peak fiction, get in the house now; you know, that´s the cool part, there is no way to enter the house and that´s actually great, you´ll never know what is observing you or if there was actually something there, maybe it was just Olle raving, we´ll never know, it´s something that is left to our imagination, that´s actually scary.
I mentioned that you can search lore from the game and I´m not saying it in a ¨search in Google¨ way, I mean that you can find lore in the game. There are books through the game and said books tell you the all of the lore behind the bosses or certain areas you visit in the game. I like that there is no need for a 10 minutes cutscene in order to explain you everything and the books are not long, they are pretty short and are interesting, not like Skyrim books which are filled of 60 pages of text. I´ll give another example with a boss from the game which is called Näcken, in Bramble The Monster King is an aquatic monsters which uses an instrument, if we listen what he is playing, we´ll be controlled by it, its music makes us to lose movement, I mean, we´ll move through the environment as it wants.
Let´s remember that this game is based on Norse Mythology, Näcken is actually a monster that exists within all of this folklore. As much as I know, Näcken is an aquatic monster which resembles the figure of a siren, it´s said that it uses its singing in order to make people lost in the river, inducing them to suicide, it´s normally applied to only women and children, there are many versions of Näcken, some people say that is uses its instrument and some other say it uses its singing. If you search through your environment, you can find the remains of a mother and her child, they are skeletons, the mother covering her son's ears, this is the game telling you that they probably died of starving. In the game, Näcken has another background, it´s not as simple as in the old tales so it´s appreciated.
One of my favorite moments from the game is when you have to fight Death, but not the Death we all know, I mean, the skeleton with a big sickle and black hood, we actually fight Pesta, someone who is attached to the Norse Mythology as well which is the representation of Death but referring to Black Death. The name ¨Pesta¨ makes a reference to pests like the Black Death, the Black Death in spanish is called ¨Peste Negra¨, so it has more sense to me that Death in Norse Mythology is called ¨Pesta¨, because ¨Peste¨ and ¨Pesta¨ sound similar. So, Pesta is known to be as a old woman with a black hood, instead of using a sickle, she uses a sweeping broom. When she was seen with the sweeping broom in a town, it was said that a plague would kill everybody, but she used a rake too, if she was seen with a rake, it was more or less the same, everybody would die because of a plague but there would be some people that survive. I won´t mention how is the boss fight but I love this moment when you are using a boat to reach your destination and she suddenly appears behind you and close your eyes.
Bramble The Mountain King is a game that has amazed me in many ways, since I played Hellblade Senua´s Sacrifice, I developed a liking to Norse Mythology and this game has reinforced that feeling. Bramble The Mountain King has a cool level design, I liked how everything connects naturally and as I said before, I appreciate that there are no 15 minutes cutscenes and everything progress smoothly, also the game uses Norse Mythology in a excelent way, it´s a dark and scary game to be honest, I didn´t mention it but there was this pretty dark moment that left me ¨damn bro¨ but not gonna mention it right now. Bramble The Mountain King is available in a lot of platforms I think, I played it through the Nintendo Switch and of course there is a downgrade but I didin´t have any issue, it looked good, just a few small fps drops but that didn´t killed the experience.
All of the screenshots were taken by me