Alexx Aplin
Alexx AplinOne of my favorite games of all time is Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Generally, I love all of the Paper Mario games though, and the ideas in them make for excellent RPGs. Born of Bread is an Indie love letter to the Paper Mario franchise and classic RPGs in general, though it has a few issues here and there.
In Born of Bread you play Loaf, a young bread boy created by Papa Baker, the royal chef. Shortly after Loaf is created, a special artifact is stolen from the castle, which leads to a quest that will take loaf all across the land. During his quest Loaf will meet and recruit a variety of allies, each (cleverly) representing a different genre of story.
Loaf can collect a variety of weapons, each utilizing different elements and damage types. Each weapon utilizes one of a variety of mini-games/context actions, like rapidly pressing a button, hitting certain buttons in succession, etc. Each of Loaf’s allies also has a variety of abilities that use some of these mini-games as well. This makes the combat a very active affair, though there are a few issues.
The first issue is that once you have multiple characters aside from Loaf, you can only carry one into battle with you. You can swap outside of battle since they each help you pass different obstacles, but in-battle you can’t switch. This makes certain fights with regular enemies very difficult.
The second issue is that some of the mini-games are very unforgiving which can lead you to essentially lose a turn. Granted this adds difficulty, but Born of Bread can be very difficult for folks with slow reflexes even on Normal, which is the lowest (of two) difficulties.
Aside from those issues, combat is fun. You can collect spirits out in the world to level up your characters, which allows you to unlock new abilities for them. This leads to a lot of secrets out in the world. It also means that each time you get a new party member you’ll want to explore older areas and see what you can find.
Another big problem though is connected to that. Prepping for this review I got about halfway through the game. There is no fast travel except to towns after you complete the area, which means you’re doing a lot of your backtracking on foot. This makes side-quests somewhat annoying because they consist of mostly fetch quests, escort quests, and a few races here and there.
Not all of the side quests in Born of Bread are bad, but a good portion of them are just time-consuming padding. There are a few side-quests that are a little buggy, though I never ran across one I couldn’t un-stick with a little work.
The story is fun and enjoyable. Platforming sections are interesting, and there are a lot of fun things to do and find out in the world. The world is vibrant and colorful, plus the developers provided several colorblind accessibility options.
Overall, aside from a lack of accessibility options for the mini-games, and a difficulty spike or two, Born of Bread is a lot of fun. I would say that it holds up as a solid Paper Mario-inspired RPG, and I could easily see kids and adults enjoying it. If you’re looking for something new to dive into, Born of Bread will scratch the itch nicely.
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21 Born of Bread
$24.99 USD
Pros
- Gorgeous Artwork
- Fun Paper Mario-esque Gameplay
- Lots of things to explore and do
- Great Soundtrack
- Colorblind Accessibility Options
Cons
- A few buggy quests
- Difficulty spikes in places
- Mini-games in combat can be frustrating
- Lack of combat accessibility
