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Of the reviews out there, hovering around the 80s on the high end and 60s on the low end, No Place for Bravery seemingly does have some fans. It could theoretically gain more fans, or attention if it could tweak a few things about the experience with a patch or two.
8 Technical Fixes
There are a lot of technical issues that obviously need addressing in the game. One big patch has come through to adjust a few game-breaking bugs and funny glitches but No Place for Bravery still needs more work on the Switch at least. The load times are quick but a bit too frequent. The frame rate is the biggest problem as it can slow down to what looks like ten frames or less. This is while exploring towns as well, but the action scenes have a good frame rate surprisingly. Overall, the technical issues are all over the place.
7 Save Tweaks
There are a couple of small issues with how the game saves its files that could be addressed. Players are given four slots to use at their leisure but once a profile is made, there is no saving out of that file. In other games, especially in RPGs, players can save in any slot they choose even if the number count is low. Other games, like Fallout 3, allow players to create a near infinite amount of files. To keep up with the times, the development team should add more slots to No Place for Bravery and allow players to choose which slot they manually save into.
6 Deflect Arrows
Players can use their shield to block incoming arrows which are key to surviving in the game. There are many archers that are set to ambush players without a moment’s notice. While the shield is great, it would be even better if players could deflect arrows with their sword instead of just straight blocking them with a shield.
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Good action games have counterattacks and No Place for Bravery would benefit from this opportunity. There might be an item or ability later in the game that unlocks this type of attack. However, even if that is the case, this game should unlock it for players either sooner or add a different way for players to deflect arrows.
5 Jump Down Ledges
This is not a huge problem, but players cannot jump down ledges unless the game calls for it. There are so many situations wherein players have to go a long way around to get to the top of a cliff with no way down. Backtracking is not the end of the world as No Place for Bravery doesn’t have Metroidvania levels of going back and forth. Still, it would be nice to have an option to jump down from higher elevations. Alternatively, the development team could add an item to the game, like a rope, so that the descent makes more sense.
4 Add A Run Button
Thorn is a big burly warrior capable of killing foes in a single blow be it with a sword or a hammer. He is the perfect character for an action game of this ilk. However, big beefy boys come with a downfall in that they tend to be slow. There is no run button in No Place for Bravery, but if players keep going forward, eventually Thorn will pick up his pace. The development team could speed up traversal in one of two ways. They could lessen the time it takes before Thorn starts to run or they could add a dedicated run button to the game.
3 Add A Mini-Map
Currently, there are two maps in the game. There is a world map wherein players can look around regions that they have been to. If players click on a region then a series of more detailed maps will start to surface based on hub towns, dungeons, and so on.
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While it’s great No Place for Bravery has these two styles of maps, it is missing an option. The game could use a mini-map, like most dungeon crawlers, so that players don’t have to go into the main menu every time they wish to understand what’s going on.
2 Skip The Cutscenes
One of the weaker aspects of the game is the story. It’s not so much that it is bad it’s that No Place for Bravery narrative is hard to follow. This can be common for an action game like this. The beginning is a dream, which is confusing enough, but the game further plays with time after that. The introduction of characters can feel disjointed too as they pop in and out like phantoms and the game seemingly assumes players know who these people are. While text can be clicked through rapidly, putting in a dedicated skip button would be appreciated.
1 Easy Item Pickups
Enemies will drop one of two things when they die. Sometimes their bodies will explode in gold which will automatically hover over to the player. The other thing will be items. Players have to hold down the A button, on the Switch version at least, to pick up items. While this is not a huge pain, it would be ideal if items automatically went into Thorn’s inventory like the gold. If the inventory filled up faster, it would make sense to force players to manually grab items. As it stands now though, the process feels a bit unnecessary.
No Place For Bravery was released on September 22, 2022 and is available on PC and Switch.
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