The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

Sir Brante is a pretty wild stats based choose your own adventure story that does legitimately react to the choices that you make and results in meaningfully different outcomes. The writing is solid.

I really wanted to love this game. Rage quited after 10.2 hours near the end of chapter 4 out of 5, after being locked from too many choices I wanted. The game entered a kind of death spiral where stats started strongly going the opposite way due to me being locked out from the choices I wanted. The lock out was usually because a single stat was 1 point lower than required for the check. I see what the developer was going for with the "make your choice and live with it" approach. But this is a game after all, and I came to enjoy. I believe this game could have used a tree screen where you can go back and explore different options, similar to how detroit become human did it. The current game mode should be "hard mode" for masochistic players only, the same kind of people who enjoy WoW true death mode.

good i like

After playing this game for more than 10 playthroughs and 30 hours I can say with confidence that this is a good game but only barely. The reasoning is below: POSITIVES; -Great visuals -World is alive, feels real and active apart from your choices which is always nice to see -Main character and most side characters story progression is interesting, rewarding and their evolution is very noticeable; they really do feel like regular people living their lives. -Real world parallels(church schism, communism, nihilism, aristocracy...) NEGATIVES: -Frustratingly simple yet broken gameplay loop. Look, I ADORE choice based games, but getting the necessary points for some traits while balancing it with willpower, other characters and your own values is impossible; you really can not achieve everything you want and save everyone, it is just not possible. There's just too many balancing involved which can turn into speed-running the game with a right guide without thinking what choices you are making because you are only concerned with the outcomes. -3 lots; while I appreciate having 3 main paths for Brante I despise lotless path(didn't play it myself but I watched the outcomes of it), …

It's a good game with a very well-written story and exciting moments. But it comes with a problem: its system. Basically, you cannot know what your "choices" will really mean. You need to know previously what certain actions will mean for your story, as choice consequence is really unpredictable. If you're okay with playing multiple times or using a guide for a more "satisfying first run", then it's a pretty good game. If not, I wouldn't recommend it, as you'll get frustrated by the unpredictability.

the story isn't bad, but when you get locked out of 3/4 choices because you either chose to not die/ have someone else die, you then have to just eat whatever consequence is thrown at you. This could all be fixed if the "willpower" mechanic was more forgiving but at best i got a single playthrough out of it.