Finished Bramble: The Mountain King.

I think I saw this game during a Vid Gaems 4 Gaymurs stream and thought, “Oh that’s a game, I guess. The kid design is kind of uggo, but sure. Oh, on GamePass? I’ll play anything for free!”

And then I did.

This game is fucking awesome.

It’s a cross between whimsical fantasy tales and Little Nightmares; you’re a tiny set of siblings, Olle and Lillemor, going through large environments and seeing huge fellas. I do not know how it stacks to its contemporaries in the ‘tiny fella’ genre, for I have not played any of the others, but it’s a fun ride all the way though. I don’t want to say much more than that because I believe it’s worth going into as blind as possible; that’s my recommendation, anyway.

The gameplay is solid, I did have some issues while moving around. Once Olle wouldn’t climb onto a ledge after scaling a vine wall, another time an invisible wall completely halted my progress (definitely a loading issue). Other than that, the controls are simple and responsive, all my other mistakes were from me being bad at games. Most importantly, puzzles weren’t annoying complex and long, you can conquer everything if pay just a little bit of attention and don’t get annoyed after the first restart.

The art style is incredible, the weakest points are Olle and Lillemor, if their eyes weren’t huge and moe then they would be completely fine. I see the art style they’re going for with their designs but they’re a little too cartoony compared to the other creatures, if their texture rendering was a bit more realistic/detailed than I couldn’t complain.

The music accents the environments well, it’s whimsical when it calls for and dreadfully tense as the mood shifts. The song for the final encounter is a cheeky spin on a classical song that took me a second to recognize, you can guess the song by the name of the game, I hope.

It’s a $30 game and available on Game Pass, my favorite subscription. It has some replay value, with a small set of collectibles and silly extra achievements you’ll probably miss, one is for beating the game without dying. I will not be getting it because I am bad.

My new favorite story trope is “Young brother and older sister go on an adventure and nothing bad happens [REAL] <:]”

Bramble: The Mountain get a Mmmm Skogsra 🥴/10