Born of Bread

So this game is half baked(pun intended) and I would say its 5.5/10. Dont get me wrong the story, art, and writing are all nicely done and probably a 8/10 with just those in factor... However. After playing the game 3 years after its release it is still fiiiiiiiilled with bugs that just make playing it feel janky as hell. The bugs include invisible enemies, missing animations, getting stuck in objects, menus freezing up till you enter a new area and they reload, menu badges and weapons just not working and the game just stalling out for like a min before resuming. My other problem is combat balancing and after chapter one(where all the problems began for me) there is no weapon balance and you just use whatever to just wipe out enemies in a round or 2. For context the final two battles took me less than 15 seconds. I can excuse games sometimes being rushed out on release, but leaving your work forgotten and unpolished I cannot excuse

Due to recently being gifted this game, I felt somewhat obligated to write something up after finishing -- it's the least I can do. However, I also got to thinking that there really aren't that many Paper Mario-esque RPGs, and this is the first one I played. A few may know that Paper Mario was actually my first video game (along with Tarzan, but that's beside the point). It's a game that planted a seed in my brain at a very young age that would slowly grow before fully blossoming around my early teenage years. Nowadays, I'd consider myself a massive JRPG-nut, and I greatly thank Paper Mario for introducing me to the genre and to gaming as a whole -- even if I didn't know what a JRPG even was 'til many years later... ...Enter Born of Bread: a game that has been on my radar for the last couple of years but that had me skeptical to try due to many reports of game-breaking bugs and annoying glitches. Let me just get this out of the way: I'm happy to report that I did not experience anything of the sort, aside from a couple of input glitches that fixed themselves after a few seconds. I'm not sure if most of the kinks have been ironed out since release, but this was just my experience. With that said, BoB holds up surprisingly well against its greatest inspiration; particularly in its art style, which replicates the original so well that you could add the TTYD character models to this game and they would not feel out of place. I have yet to play Bug Fables, and while the masses may have a point in saying it's the best PM-like, one thing it lacks is eye candy (though its art style is still charming in its own right). Its familiarity had me feeling nostalgic from the get-go, I praise it for that. The characters also have, for the most part, their own distinctive charm. Lint ain't Goombella, though -- that's for sure. While a lot of love was clearly put into the project, I do think some of its other aspects feel a bit half-baked. The easiest one to gloss over is the story, considering that none of the Mario games tend to have too much depth in this department (though, I'd make an argument for Super Paper Mario). Royal baker accidentally creates bread boy à la Professor Utonium -> Bad guys show up and wreck everything and baker gets blamed -> While trying to clear the baker's name, a grander plot is revealed that threatens the world. Typical stuff, you know, and it mostly works fine enough, with a whole loaf of puns to spare, adding to the cheesiness and aesthetic. My main issue is that the game is kind of short, so it feels like it goes by just a bit too fast. There's only 5 chapters, and the final one literally takes half an hour at most if you're just going straight through the story. It would have been nice to get at least a couple more chapters, BUT ONLY if the combat was made a bit more interesting/faster. This game relies on input gimmicks much like its inspiration, but for the most part they don't feel as fun here. They tried to add challenge by giving many enemies resistances to certain attack types and also making many enemies very tanky despite having very low HP. By the third chapter, combat had already gotten stale because encounters took too long for my liking while also lacking challenge as you can pretty much brute force your way through most encounters. While most special attacks use up a lot of your WP (a stat necessary for using special attacks that can be upgraded on level ups), the mid to late game makes it extremely easy to recover it by equipping boons (this game's version of badges). In the end, it mostly just becomes the waiting game as you defend to recover WP. I never once died, and I'm not exactly expecting a big challenge from this kind of RPG, but considering how much deeper the mechanics seem to be here at first glance, it's a shame that these mechanics weren't really implemented more effectively. I'd also like to note the variety of sidequests, some of which even add story/character development, which is highly appreciated. Although, as someone who rarely does much sidequesting, my main incentive was for the rewards, and I think by the 4th chapter I mostly stopped trying because the game was already easy enough that I did not care to gain more rewards (not to mention that the cosmetic/basic item rewards became more frequent, so meh). But I still do love the fact that the world feels very much lived in and vibrant, even if I couldn't be too bothered to engage with it after a certain point. Not to mention that Chapter 4 was a pretty trash level, map design wise. We just dough rolled right through it. Still, I beat this in only a couple of days, which is rare for me despite the short length. Clearly, the aesthetics and gameplay loop still did a decent job of keeping me engaged, even if the latter could have used a bit more time in the oven to excel. We need more games that look like this. There is still a lot of untapped potential to make something that could truly rival or even surpass the GOAT that is TTYD. I'll get to Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After, eventually, but this was a decent reminder that I long for the Italian plumber. Which reminds me, I should definitely finish Origami King one of these days... [b]Final score: 7.5/10[/b]

Sadly I have to not recommend this game Aside from the small bugs (animations being stuck, attacks that do not trigger the parry phase), big bugs (enemy attacks that do not end and have you reset the game and probably lose some progress), the game has poor design choices: - A combat system based on attack types and elements that increase or decrease the damage you take or make, but can make you end up on a combat where you can't make damage to enemies if you don't have the propper attacks chosen, or doesn't explain to you that if you choose to defend with your companion (which you can only have one at a time even when being a 5 person group) you can skip the enemy attack on your character, but if you defend with your character you get two attack turns - Platforming in the open world for some reason, with basic controls that don't make platforming easier and punishes failing with environmentla damage (even if it can be deactivated) - Too much text, which is okay first time but you have to read through it if you die and have to repeate the entire scene since you can't skip them - EVERYTHING is a minigame: Choosing your character attacks is a tetris minigame, attacking the enemies is QTE minigame, defending from enemies is a parry minigame. It gets boring very fast for a game this long. If you can put up with this list of drawbacks then you will get a game with some charm and beautiful hand drawn characters and alive maps full of details, but that's it I enjoyed some aspects of the game, but it's not one I would recommend to other people

I can only say that I am glad I picked this game up at a very good Steam sale, otherwise this would've been a big waste of money. I wanted to give this game a chance, I really wanted to... At one point during a boss fight one of my companions die. The boss was psychic and stole his soul or possessed him or something. After the fight I noticed the health was completely off 0 / -1. I thought to myself "There is no way this is not intended, must be the boss that did something. I must find a way to bring him back" Didn't take long however before I realized that my companion had become permanently useless and actually froze the game if he was in the battle field after the enemies' turn. This is one of many bugs in this game that after 2 years have been completely neglected. I don't even dare to imagine how many bugs there still are that I did not personally encounter but I've heard it's a lot. And to the achievement hunters / completionists out there, stay away from this game because it's impossible to get all achievements. If we look past all the ridiculousness, the gameplay, story might not necessarily be bad, I would call them mediocre, but the bugs and inconveniences overshadow whatever might have been good about this game. The devs have stayed silent about this and not patched this game to a proper state in years so I have to give this game a negative review.

Pro's lots of jokes and puns "think paper mario but as one big comedy skit" charming looks and character designs low price Con's combat system is clunky with some features outright not working later battles just devolved into spamming AOE's and recovering mana, repeat the timing on some of the blocks seems really out of sync with the animation and the badge that shows you the window appears out of sync as well it is really hard to take to story seriously, the comedy is so constant that even moments that feel like they should be taken seriously just come off as another part of a joke that fails to land. Over all it's an ok game with a really undercooked battle system, if it's half off and you love puns and jokes it would probably be worth it but otherwise i would recommend picking something else up.

Extremely borderline thumbs up. This game does have quite a few good qualities, but it's also got SO MANY BUGS that the dev doesn't seem to be fixing. Save your game a lot. Also, do the tomato girl's side quests as early as possible because it gives you movement speed upgrades that make wandering around the world more bearable.

A cute, mixed bag Paper Mario-esqe RPG with an excessive amount of bugs. Presentation is near perfect. Great music, characters and a nice variety of locations. The story isn't anything to write home about but these type of games rarely surprise in that department. I really enjoy the partners you meet throughout the game and I'm glad they keep talking and staying relevant even when their introductory chapter is over- something that I always thought Paper Mario lacked. The game struggles with 2 big problems. The battle system and the bugs. The battle system has some unnecessary mechanics but the main issue is the weakness/resistance system. It's largely irrelevant as the game boils down to spam AOE attacks regardless of any strengths or weaknesses as you'll clear the enemies much faster. A difference of 1 damage more or less is not a good incentive if there are 4 enemies on screen that all attack the same target. The only time it slightly matters is boss fights where there is only one enemy but even then it didn't deter me from using my objectively strongest weapon. A lot of reviews have already pointed it out so I won't write too much about this but the game does have several bugs. They range from slightly annoying (such as the camera scrolling away from Loaf) to soft-locking (a dialogue box that won't close forcing a reset). The quantity of bugs are much more of a detriment to the game than any balancing of the combat. All that being said, I'd still recommend the game (maybe wait for a sale though and SAVE OFTEN) and I'd even play a sequel if they released one. I feel myself wanting more but I would hope they learn from this and put more of an effort to bug testing. One final note, if Dub was a full party member this game would've sold, like, a billion more copies.

[h1]Un excellent Paper Mario-like ![/h1] Born of Bread nous place dans la peau de Tipain, fait d'eau et de farine, dont l'on assistera à la naissance dès le tout début du jeu. Au même moment que lui vont réapparaitrent Fripon et sa bande de vilains, venus d'une autre époque, voulant ressusciter le royaume dans lequel ils vivaient à l'époque, vous l'avez deviner, Tipain et ses futurs amis feront tout pour que cela ne se produise pas. Nous voilà donc lâché dans un monde en 2.5D, comprenez par-là des persos en 2D dans un monde en 3D, alors graphiquement déjà le jeu est super joli, les différents niveaux variés, chaque personnage bien dessiné, les animations ne sont pas en reste, il y a beaucoup de choses à chercher, de quêtes à accomplir, le jeu ne manque pas d'humour et on se prendra assez vite d'affection pour Tipain et sa bande. Venons-en au coeur du jeu, le gameplay, comme je le laissais entendre par le titre de mon évaluation, Born of Bread se joue à la façon d'un Paper Mario, on se promène sur les maps où l'on aura des énigmes à résoudre ou des quêtes à accomplir tout en évitant (ou pas) les méchants parsemant celles-ci. Lors de vos affrontements, au tour par tour, vous aurez le choix entre plusieurs capacités (à débloquer) que vous devrez activer de diverses façons, de la touche à appuyer au bon moment, à une icone à maintenir au milieu d'une cible ou à une série de QTE, voici les différentes façons de combattre vos adversaires. Je dois en être à peu près à la moitié du jeu en prenant mon temps (je vise 100%de succès) et mon compteur de jeu affiche déjà 15h de jeu donc je pense que l'on peux dire que le jeu dispose d'une durée de vie tout à fait correcte et qu'il n'est pas vendu à un prix très élevé (24€99). Les + : + Très beau jeu. + L'humour quasi-omniprésent et pas relou comme dans certains autres jeux. + Un monde vaste et varié à explorer. + Beaucoup de choses à faire et à découvrir. + Une bonne durée de vie pour un prix assez contenu. + Un jeu pour petits et grands. Les - : - Le gameplay des combats qui pourrais se révèler un peu redondant pour certaines personnes au bout d'un moment. Voilà, je ne peux que conseiller le jeu aux amateurs de RPG et de jeux d'aventures, vous y passerez clairement un excellent moment ! D'ailleurs j'y retourne ! :D Ce sera un très bon 17/20 et une excellente découverte pour ma part.

Born of Bread is one of the easier paper-likes you'll play, I had a good idea and say it's worth buying. I only encountered one game breaking bug, it's very small and at the very end of the game, I talk about it at the end of this review. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] [h3]Battle[/h3] Enemies have resistances and weaknesses, they reduce and increase damage you deal respectively. There's an item early on you can easily miss that shows you these, you can get it once you obtain your first partner, give it a good search. Partners have different moves you unlock by smashing salamanders and turning in their souls to a nun. These moves also have types, but can also have different effects to apply debuffs or and heal you. Loaf, the main character you play as, unlocks new attacks by finding weapons, each having their own types and use cases for dispatching enemies. Loaf also has special moves, first two are self buffs that really aren't worth your time, half way through the game you start getting attacks for this category, which still aren't really worth it versus the raw damage you can get from weapons. Loaf's attacks and partner attacks use "WP", Loaf's special attacks use RP, each time you level up you can choose between adding 3 points to, I never felt need to put a point into RP. [h3]Equipment[/h3] You have consumables, weapons, and boons.[list] [*]Consumables regain you HP, WP, HP & WP, or RP. There are no buff items. [*]Weapons fit into your backpack space in a Tetris format [*]Boons increase your HP/WP, give you more damage on a condition, or have other useful effects such as showing you enemy resistances/weaknesses as mentioned above.[/list] [h1]Writing[/h1] Actually good writing, every NPC has some kind of dialogue worth reading whether it be for entertainment or providing you tips. [h1]Glitches[/h1] I didn't encounter many issues, so I'll list them all here, one is game breaking.[list] [*]Enemies in the final levels have an attack that doesn't work correctly and will soft-lock the fight. By the end, you should have the power to kill them all in one turn. [*]The house in chapter 3 occasionally doesn't load the level's visuals correctly when you enter the area, it doesn't affect gameplay and is easily fixed by leaving and reentering the room. [*]The sound will start messing up if you play too long.[/list]

Initially pulled in by the art style and backpack management puzzle idea, I had a good time playing this game. The story/writing was enjoyable and funny. The art really did shine and was a big reason I pushed through what was a repetitive and mostly uninteresting battle system. Once you unlock the "hit everyone" attacks, you basically just spam those attacks and do little else in battles. Leveling up heals you and restores all of your attack points and this happens every few battles and I rarely ran out of points to use for attacks until the end of the game. But then you just use your items or do a round of defending which recovers the attack points, the. You're good to go again. The battle system has a fun feature where you're "live streaming" your battle and there are bonuses for doing what chat suggest. But I never found the need to do this, so it fell a bit flat, but I did like the idea of having chat watch along, I just wish it was implemented better. There are special skill attacks, again I didn't really find much of a use for them, I think there's a lot of balancing to be done to make these systems all work together properly. Despite the battles being fairly easy/boring I did enjoy the story and running around finding collectables for upgrades and colour pallettes (though I didn't like the alternative colours). Worth a play, but I think it needed more time to bake 😉