No Place for Bravery Enemy

Developer Glitch Factory and publisher Ysbryd Games aren’t shying away from the fact that No Place for Bravery draws a lot of inspiration from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. And if you play both games, you’ll notice similarities in both the hopeless world and the daunting gameplay. But while No Place for Bravery may be influenced by FromSoftware’s one-off action-adventure game, it’s able to create an experience all its own, for better and sometimes worse.

In No Place for Bravery, you play as Thorn, a man living with the sorrow of having his child abducted. The game’s tutorial has you play through the events leading up to this harrowing moment before fast-forwarding to a few years later. Thorn is living with the constant reminder of his missing child, but he presses on for his wife and other child, running a local tavern. Thorn eventually encounters the one responsible for his child’s abduction, and this encourages him to once again continue his search, which we find out caused domestic strife between him and his wife.

The themes of loss and love are heavy in No Place for Bravery. Thankfully, nothing is ham-fisted or clumsy as the game provides decent writing and dialogue. It’s not perfect, but it shows that Glitch Factory cared about the game’s story, and in turn, cared about its characters and world. Speaking of which, you’ll encounter quite a few personalities on your journey, and these are mostly all written quite well.

No Place for Bravery Combat

You’ll explore the world of No Place for Bravery and encounter all manner of enemies small and large, from zombie-like grunts to huge warriors. Though the game provides you with a few moments to breathe in between battles, the bulk of what you’ll do is raise your sword (or hammer or throwing knives) against the forces that oppose you.

Combat in No Place for Bravery is tricky and challenging, but it’s mostly pretty fun. It takes cues from Sekiro and other Soulslikes by forcing you to play carefully and methodically. A lot of times this can be difficult to do because you’re constantly outnumbered. At any given point, you might be facing multiple archers and swordsmen, but maybe you’ll also have to kill a mage that’s creating shield bubbles for them first.

Sometimes you’ll also have to dodge fire traps and pitfalls while battling enemies. Other times you might be tasked with jumping across small pitfalls onto other platforms where an enemy or enemies await… while also dodging projectiles just to get to these baddies. Yeah, it can get pretty intense, and at times it can even feel a little unfair, especially since the game’s targeting system leaves a bit to be desired.

That said, when the combat clicks, it’s really fun. Sometimes the trick is to get into a groove and just figure out how to deal with enemies one by one while you’re fully aware of your surroundings. Once you successfully make it through an area and find your way to the next save point, there’s this incredible sense of satisfaction (and relief).

No Place for Bravery Gameplay

You can choose between three difficulty settings in No Place for Bravery. I played on the medium setting and was pretty happy with it. Clumsy targeting and a less-than-stellar dodge move make things harder than they need to be, but this isn’t the actual difficulty setting’s fault, but rather an issue with those aspects of the game’s design. These issues are more of a nuisance than anything game-breaking, though, but they can cause some frustration, especially if you’re on a roll.

No Place for Bravery is presented in a rich pixel-art style and isometric camera angle. The game looks great, and though the pixelated visuals have an undeniable charm to them, there’s also a lot of blood and gore in the game, which creates an interesting aesthetic contrast. Whenever you kill an enemy, you can expect viscera to splatter all over the ground. Sometimes you even get the chance perform an execution finisher, which results in grisly dismemberment such as decapitation or straight-up cutting a huge enemy in half with his own massive blade.

In the roughly 10 hours that it takes to play through No Place for Bravery, you’ll experience a fairly challenging adventure. The game’s story is heartfelt and works thanks to some solid characters and writing. The gameplay, which uses Sekiro as a blueprint, works well most of the time. Unfortunately, when it doesn’t, things can get pretty annoying fast. All you can really do is learn to live with the game’s issues and work around them. That’s kind of a drag, but on the plus side, the bulk of No Place for Bravery is solid and enjoyable.

Disclaimer: I was given a review code for No Place for Bravery on Nintendo Switch, but the opinions expressed in this article are my own.

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