Born of Bread - Switch Review
"Born of Bread simply never clicked with me."
Ever since the launch of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door in 2004, fans of 3D turn-based RPGs featuring unusually flat characters and witty dialogue have been thirsting for more. Soon after the announcement of The Thousand Year Door’s remake coming 20 years later, WildArts Studio Inc. and Plug In Digital have brought Born of Bread to the Nintendo Switch.
When Loaf is, for all intents and purposes, born of bread, and a sinister group of purple miscreants arrive from an alternate reality to find the six Sunstones for cataclysmic reasons, the bread golem and his crew set off on a heroic quest. With two decades having come and gone, it begs to question whether this fluffy doughboy can fill the paper-sized hole in the hearts of fans.
The Good
One of the main factors that fans miss about the Paper Mario series is the reactionary turn-based combat system. It’s a combat system that requires successfully pressing a button during different precision challenges. However, Born of Bread elaborates on this further by providing more unique challenges and a wider variety of moves. Similar to The Thousand Year Door’s audience participation mechanic, Born of Bread also has a similar yet expanded (and modernised) mechanic where you aim to appease the audience watching your battle streams. By choosing the right attacks and placating to requests, you can be rewarded with bonus WP, allowing you to make stronger attacks.
WildArts Studio Inc. are clear fans of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door as the settings and characters are just as wacky and elaborate in Born of Bread. You’ll start off in a standard mediaeval fantasy setting but as you progress, you’ll undertake adventures set in whimsical locations, such as a tournament dojo and a family manor with a hidden secret. You’ll also meet new allies that you’ll recruit, each with their own unique personalities, quirks and abilities.
TL;DR
- An expanded reactionary-combat system
- Whimsical settings and characters
The Bad
Video games do not need to be set in large locations. Unless these sizable areas are condensed with a reasonable amount of things to do and don’t involve a whole lot of needless backtracking, large locations become tedious slogs, and this is how they feel in Born of Bread. There’s one area in particular, a large mansion with multiple levels, that requires you to solve riddles in a multi-layered maze of repeated dead ends and countless battle encounters. All of this, coupled with the lack of a map (well, the lack of a helpful map, at least), results in a very tedious 10-15 hours.
Traversal is unfortunately not as clean as you’d hope. While most of it will likely be patched, I encountered a few areas where location details didn’t load properly. I also ran into moments where I’d jump, fall into a crack and get stuck. The depth perception can also be tricky to judge, resulting in many falls from heights, resulting in me having to trudge my way back up and roll my eyes while I do so.
The Paper Mario series is known for some of the wittiest dialogue one can ever experience in a video game. The comedic timing is always perfect, and the plots are surprisingly deep for a game featuring a moustachioed plumber. Born of Bread tries its hardest to replicate this, and it's just that it tries too hard. The jokes fall flat; the timing is nonexistent; and the load screens make meta one-liners that quickly grow old and same-y. Humour is entirely subjective, so while it didn't click with me, it may still click with others. But as the credits began to roll, I couldn't recall a single joke to look back fondly on.
TL;DR
- Larger than necessary areas
- Janky at times
- Lacklustre dialogue
Final Score: 5/10
As disappointing as it is to say, Born of Bread simply never clicked with me. I kept waiting for that "ok, now it's getting good” moment, but despite my wishful thinking, it never came. For fans of the classic Paper Mario entries, there’s still a lot to enjoy from Born of Bread, but I just wouldn’t suggest getting your hopes up too high. If you haven’t already, play Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling; that game does the homage much better.
Thank you for checking out our Born of Bread Switch review, thank you to Plug In Digital (via Plan of Attack) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
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