HomeFeaturesNo Place for Bravery
I like everything about No Place For Bravery. Except the combat.Some place for cowardice
Some place for cowardice
I’ve been banging my head against thePAX X EGXdemo forNo Place For Braveryfor a while now. It’s a very stylish action RPG where you, a warrior with adorable stick-thin legs holding up a big meaty-boi body, are out to rescue your daughter Leaf from grim monsters. You get to execute your enemies after defeating them, and lots of blood gets splashed all over the place. I like almost everything about it: the music is great, the animations are slick and cool, the art and design on the world is grim and gorgeous.
I like everything about it apart from the combat. Which is a bit of a problem for a game focused on combat, I suppose. And yet the rest of it is so good, I keep going back for more.
I am a big fan of games where you can look at them and know that everyone involved has a good idea of what itis. I like to be able to imagine, you know, a giant mood board taking up one entire wall of the office. No Place For Bravery definitely has that. Everything in it is working towards a certain No-Place-For-Bravery-ness.
Try Again is the You Died of No Place For Bravery
Along with your regular attack, you’ve got a couple of special attacks that deplete more stamina than normal, and a dash, plus an inventory of consumables (including throwing knives and healing spells). If you die you reset at the last flaming sword stuck in the ground you prayed at. This resets enemies and your inventory, but refreshes your supply of four health potions. Ah, influences.
My problem is mostly with the controls. They feel a bit sticky. Your enemies move fast, but stick-leg hero Thorn responds to my demands a gnats whisker too slowly. Even when I want him to chug a potion, it takes a couple of goes to make him actually do it. It is frustrating - more than the inbuilt frustration you get with games like this.
Watch on YouTube
Watch on YouTube
It’s hard not to get defensive about tough-as-nails action games where ‘this is difficult’ is one of the selling points. I’m the first to admit that I’m never going to be able to get a no-hit perfect speedrun ofDark Soulsunder my belt, but I’m also generallyalrightat games.
As you can see, I eventually triumph when I stop getting frustrated and start treating the name of the game as an imperative rather than merely a pithy title. I slow down, run away a lot, and eventually break the enemy poise.
At the moment, I am still playing the demo but in the way a smoker trying to quit keeps going back to cigarettes. I play it for a bit, get annoyed at a tough fight, turn it off, and then immediately light it up again going “Coo, but it’s a bit sexy, isn’t it?”. I don’t think the combat is bad, but I do think it needs a little tweaking. Just a little tweaking of the controls in favour of poor Thorn. His legs are so tiny, give the guy a break.
Luckily, the demo isfree on Steam right now, so you can go away, play it, and come back to tell me I’m wrong, can’t you?
