The summary of this review is that this game is fun, well-presented, and great for the price with plenty of potential. The bulk of this review is me explaining all that in detail, more for the devs than any potential buyers.
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Burning Branch is a classy roguelike that easily slips me into that essential "just-one-more-run" rhythm, and keeps me there with its slick presentation of its wondrous and subtly detailed art style and world. With some moderate adjustments to its sound design, its writing, and the regular increase of content that befalls Early Access development, I think this will be a distinctive boss rush experience that is easy to get hooked on and easy to love. Even now, I think that $10 is a very reasonable asking price for the experience on offer, and I wholly recommend the purchase.
What I noticed first as I booted the game was not just its art style, but how well it showed it off. Comic frames and text animations combine to add the production trimmings of a comic book to the viewing experience, and the game wears it well. Seeing each cutscene play is a pleasant surprise as the game moves both art and viewpoint to show off the liveliness of its main character, the nonbinary mouse Sen, whose passion for their rescue mission drives the story. Each character, background, and animation is smooth and well-shot. While the game's art could certainly stand on its own, the execution of that art is what elevates the game's visuals from solid to fun and interesting.
The gameplay that follows this is some classic boss-rushing, roll-dodging, sword-dancing action that locks down the fundamentals rather quickly. I don't believe this is the game's strongest element at present - especially some boss' animations, which can look too similar between different attacks to distinguish them before they start throwing hitboxes - but it's in a very solid state that could easily be improved upon over development, I feel. The buildcrafting system offers plenty of options to differentiate runs and try out new things. The game's upgrades excel at tying your four core abilities (light, heavy, skill, and roll) into different interactions with themselves and each other over different runs.
The writing is tight and (from what I've seen thus far) focuses on Sen's relationship with Shade, their missing love, and with the folks from a town that appears to have functional immortality through an ability to be reconstructed after death from ash. Each run is punctuated by the opportunity to visit with these individuals. While this as a concept has been explored before on occasion by roguelikes, the execution is fun and quickly appealing, if a little direct in its dialogue at some points. The subtle worldbuilding shines most here, small additions in the dialogue and in the background of events and stages quickly creating detail in the game’s world.
This is the part of the game’s writing, and all its positive qualities, that kept me coming back for more: subtle background details. Every little piece you notice behind the main story fits together smoothly. Constructing truths about this game’s world out of these hints and notes becomes a satisfying art of perception and interpretation.
My only criticisms stem from the sound design, which I feel could be louder and more complex to make combat more interesting to the ear, and the buildcrafting options. While they are interesting and viable, I feel the game actually provides too many options too quickly, making it hard for players to make one build when there’s only so many pulls from the very large bag of possible upgrades. A small decrease in the number of possibilities might be in order, but that is a delicate process that I’m not too keen to question. It may also be that I just don’t know enough about the game yet to understand how to put real builds together.
Other than that, I think some of the lines between characters can be too direct, although this could have to do with yet-to-be-added facts about the lives of the Undead. In either case, I think some of the game’s more direct dialogue about the character’s relationships do slightly shake their relatability as characters, but this is also a delicate thing. Overall, the writing is very good, and I would hate to see it reduced to fix a relatively minor problem, but it did affect my experience enough for me to remember and note here.
Burning Branch, in its current state, is a fun experience that gives a worn genre a new look and a new organization of ideas. To top this off, it paints itself with fantastic art and detailed worldbuilding skill that is incredibly rare in roguelikes. $10 is a well & fair price for what’s here now, and I feel that the future holds even more good things for the game as long as it stays the course and makes some minor corrections along the way. Bravo to the artist & developer behind it and I'm excited to see more.
