Born of Bread Review (Space Teddie Cookie Man)
This game disappointed me the longer I play, I haven't even beat it, and I'm dreading to play more of this boring game.
The game has some good steps forwards to an extent, easy to follow plot, brief introductions, and establishes everything you need to know in the first hour or two, which starts leading to the issues. The fact that I have basically seen all the good of the game within the first hour or two, and all it can do, is really poor in my opinion(At the time I am about 4.8 hours, I will probably beat it because I don't want to waste money, and it's something to do.) This game is obviously inspired of paper mario games, but the only thing it took from it was the basics, and everything new/every "twist" they do is incredibly shallow. Let's start with the battles, which are in the same vain but so many issues.
Your combat is turn based and all the enemies line up in a row from front to back, and all moves attack either front, any, or all, There seems to be no air enemies, no enemies with spikes/fire/cold/electricty, and the enemies feel all the same, with basicaly the same timing for attacks, and despite fighting what looks like a variety, they don't feel different at all, EVEN the bosses I have fought have next to nothing that makes them feel dangerous or unique, other than dealing more damage, or having a special attack or two. The same goes for your attacks, all the attack minigames to hit, are the same and give no real difference, we will compare to the inspiration, Paper mario N64. In paper mario mario had a simple jump command which was timing based, just like your first partner(didn't need a wheel or bars, just simple timing, that CHANGED with the size or shape of the enemy, and where they where on the battle) Kooper had a command similar to the hammer, a hold the stick and wait, but they where your first members, bombete had a hold and wait, parakary was timming based like marios and goombarios, but with a delay, bow was slaming the stick lefty repeadetley. Now back to BoB, Which your main character and first two partners, have the SAME basic attack, does the same damage, and hits the same enemies the same way, just dressed different. The special attacks also feel very bland with "oh this one hits all, but with this element(will get to that later) or causes various statuses(with low percentages) that don't really do much. Overall the combat feels like a chore, and you just choose whats strong and beat the battles. Also the little cheer system they introduce early on, which gives you an audience, and if you do well, you get more WP, and they want you to do special missions RARELY which are 70% of the time(Use an item you don't need to) which just makes the system feel useless.
To move on to the next section, levelling, which is also bad, I have played this game up to level 10, and I have not felt a need to level anything other than your WP, and occasionly the RP(even thought I used RP skills twice) and sure you can increase your backpack size every 3 levels, or your badge ammount to equip every 2 levels(you have to stamp them every level, twice for badge, 3 times for backpack). Hp feels like what you have is enough, I have never taken more than 15 or so damage in a fight, and your partner NEVER gets hit even though they have 15 hp( I think one mini boss attacked everyone, but I blocked it and negated the damage)and you start with 20.
Traversal, It just feels like the maps are alot of padding and with the camera being way to close, it SUCKS going towards the camera( MOST of the damage I have taken is from cliffs/ water I can't see) The puzzles are okay to bland, and the platforming feels slippery. You feel very slow going through area's, even with a dash, or you feel like you blaze through an area, cause Uh oh, it's tiny. and I know all your partners traversal abilties, cause it's obvious by the end of the first area, you get a character that can dig dirt mounts, which is just a glorfied "get rid of obstacle" and is bland and slow, the 2nd member is "This intangible thing is now tangible" and is ripped straight from Hat in time. the 3rd I presume is just burns things, and if there is a last, I don't care to learn. It doesn't help with the sidequests that require you to return to earlier area's for mudane things, so they all feel just bad.
Items, They are all bad and half of them are the SAME item with no difference. You start with only 5 item slots, and go to 10 within the first 2 hours, There doesn't seem to be any use for them other than eatting, you can't even sell or STORE any(the only saving grace with the constant items, is they stay on the ground for seemingly forever till you leave the screen) Like I ran into like 5 different items that heal 3 rp, and they are all equaly useless. In other games if an item healed the same ammount, they usualy either had an additional bonus, was a cheaper version, or usualy, you could COMBINE them to do different things, which a game with a strong baking theme, I am suprised 4 hours in, and not one way to combine/ cook items.
Designs, The npcs are incredibly lazy and look and feel all the same, like alot are just This model with different hair or accessory, but looks like the bare minimum was done to make them different, like it was just pasted onto their model with barely any care. The unique ones look fine, and the main characters have decent animations, but everyone else has the most simple animations that are 2 frame walk cycles. The backgrounds and area's are okay, they look relatively nice, but SO many invisible walls that are inconsistent.
Backpack/ Skill system. When I saw the way you equip your main character with new abilties, I was intrested, but it's just putting blocks into a backpack, and organizing so they all fit, there is no depth to the system at all. Like an example I will use of one that is similar, Megaman Battle Network 6, It had a system for megaman to upgrade his stats by putting these coloured blocks into a grid, each powerup had a colour, brick style(bricked or non) and intresting shapes, generaly the stronger the powerup, the blocks where larger/more restirictive/odd shapes. You can increase the total size to make fitting in more blocks easier, but you had rules to follow, or you got constraints/debuffs. You had to juggle the pieces all fiting and ordered right, and not causing errors, or you could throw caution to the wind, and cram as much power as possible with little care, and have some big debuffs/ ailments to deal with. The system in BoB could of been more interesting, like certain elemental pieces next to other boosted/decreased the effect, or matching like pieces boosted power, but no, it's just bland. The skill system for your partners is equally bad. You collect lizards(or beating bosses/minibosses) and every two you give to a certain npc, you get 1 skill point(for ALL members, they share the points, so you have to focus on some to get their skills) and you have 4 tiers of skills, basic, advanced, expert and Final(I assume purchasing all the partners skills unlocks it) and you can swap out of 3 in each tier(except final) of what is in that slot, so you can only have 4 skills on each partner at a time(buying other skills is just for different choices) and they feel all bland, it's just best to buy the ones that hit the hard, and buy others if you have nothing better to do with the points.
Elemental System, Gonna make this quick, it just feels overly complicated, but also 100% ignoreable, like there is like 7-8 elements, and they don't feel necessary up to so far.
Overall, The game fails to take anything good from it's inspirations, and any twist or "interesting" thing they do is i shallow, the game isn't actively bad, it's 100% playable and simple to play and follow, but it's worse than bad games, cause it's SO boring, it looks like this game didn't only need more time in the oven, but a better Baker, cause it had all the ingredients to be good.