Bramble: The Mountain King

There's some really great storytelling in this game, with some really memorable creatures and scenes. It was fantastic to see a game that dealt in the realm of Nordic folklore without switching into the usual cliche realm of the Nordic gods. The game is quite memorable for its cast of mythical creatures alone. Gameplay is pretty straightforward: you navigate the mythical landscape, solve a few puzzles, dodge a few hazards, and then you arrive at a boss fight for that chapter. I appreciate the structure, honestly. The boss fights made me feel a little nostalgia; they brought me back to the days where you died a few times trying to figure out a boss' exact attack mechanic during a particular phase of a fight, but the boss itself wasn't terribly hard once you cracked the code. I had a few moments of frustration during gameplay since it's pretty much one-hit-and-you're-dead. I wouldn't have minded a few invisible guardrails to prevent players like me from inadvertently killing themselves in a dumb, non-obvious way. Also, I do wish the outline of the planks in the swamp was just a bit more visible. I get that they're supposed to be hard to see, but there were more than a few blind leaps of faith for me. Overall, I'd say game was worth the money and the few hours I spent on it. I might come back and do a second playthrough in the future.