Bramble: The Mountain King [Xbox]

Taking inspiration from Nordic folk tales, Dimfrost Studio’s Bramble: The Mountain King sees you in the role of Olle, a young boy searching for his sister, who has vanished out through their bedroom window in the dead of night. Ignoring the previous advice of their mother, Olle sets out to find Lillemor, only for her to be kidnapped by a horrifying goblin almost as soon as they’re reunited.

Bramble plays out in a mostly linear fashion, with environmental puzzles along the way to allow you to progress. You might have to search for items such as hand-cranks in order to move things out of the way, play little games of hide and seek with gnomes to gain their trust, and be aware of your surroundings when faced with giant foes from whom you must stay out of sight. If you’ve played games such as Inside and Little Nightmares, you’ll notice that Bramble has a lot of the same blood pumping through its veins as those; and it works great here too.

Boss fights are inventive, with each playing out in unique ways and utilising the lore of various dark fairytales well. You gain a glowing ball of light known as the Spark of Courage, and this is your main form of attack and defense. The fights do take a little bit of figuring out, as they’re not quite as simple as just attacking the boss - you must figure out how to weaken them first, whilst dodging varied attacks that can very easily take you by surprise, and then you’ll get your chance to take them out. The Butcher boss fight was very reminiscent of Little Nightmares; and Pesta’s selection of attacks keeps things interesting, with rats and rakes to dodge. The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful, with a hauntingly melancholy tone throughout, peppered with some phenomenally themed track that synchronise well at certain moments - particularly the final boss fight - that was just *chef’s kiss*.

The creepy visuals and spooky lighting give Bramble’s environments a really haunting feel, and whilst the linear level structure doesn’t invite much exploration - it almost enhances the spine-tingling sensations from envisioning what might be lurking nearby. Character designs are very opposing, with the ‘good’ characters having much cuter, innocent appearances (for the most part), and enemies having grotesque, nightmarish looks. As you progress, you’ll notice that there are a lot of loading screens displaying the cursed Bramble flower that the story centres around; this tends to take you out of things somewhat, cursing you almost as much as it does Olle.

The undercurrent of familiarity did a good job here; as fans of the previously-mentioned Little Nightmares and Inside, we instantly recognised the similarities here. It doesn’t quite reach the same highs as I found with both of those, but it was still a really enjoyable adventure, and the fairytale-like narrator really does a great job absorbing you into the story. If you’re a fan of similar games and themes, then this is likely to be right up your alley. There’s a few tense moments that gave me some sweaty palms, and though these are few and far between, it helps to boost the otherwise slow pace somewhat. It’s a surprisingly dark story, taking a few turns that definitely had us both being a bit taken aback, and filled with a lot of eerie, menacing imagery juxtaposing the innocence of the children.

Coming in at around 4 hours long, it doesn’t overstay its welcome - and with a few collectibles along the way for you to find, in the form of small, carved figures of various characters and bosses, it gives you good reason to take your time to thoroughly check around each area. Thankfully, they weren’t overly difficult to find, but if you do happen to miss any, you can always go back via the chapter select at the end to grab them. If you’re interested in Bramble: The Mountain King, you can pick it up for £24.99 on Xbox.

In the end, we decided to give Bramble: The Mountain King the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.

Are you interested in Bramble: The Mountain King? What do you think of it?
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- V x

Thank you to Hooligan PR for the Bramble: The Mountain King Xbox review code!