In Born of Bread, you play as a bread golem named Loaf. Loaf is brought to life by the royal baker. This is the result of using a magical book that the royal queen requested the baker use to make bread for the royal dinner. Now Loaf and his new found friends have to save the kingdom from a group of fire demons led by their leader Prince Jester.
Born of Bread plays like your typical turn based RPG but with a Metroidvania type twist. Loaf has four party members that join in his quest but with only one party member being able to be active in battle. When not in battle, you can use these party members abilities to access secret areas or to open up the current area you’re in so that the game can progress. This is the Metroidvania twist to the otherwise typical RPG game elements.
Loaf will go on quests like fetching an item for an NPC or doing a specific task like rebuilding a bridge or clearing a pathway. Though these may seem like mundane tasks/quests, they are presented in a fun way, and the fun comes from the way the quests and overall dialogue between characters is presented. Though entirely text based without voice over, the game is very well written and humorous and the hilarious facial expressions the characters have during the dialogue sequences drives home the overall silliness the game presents.
As with most traditional RPG games, you have collectibles to find, items to use, and weapons and armor to equip. But don’t expect the weapons and armor to be a sword and chest plate. Instead, these are things like oven mitts for defense and a frying pan or baking sheet to deal damage to the enemies you encounter. Speaking of combat, you have both standard attacks and abilities to use, akin to magic spells.
With both attacking and defending, pressing a button at the right time will result in doing more damage or taking less damage when it comes to standard attacks and defense. When you use a character ability, how you use the ability will depend on that ability. For example, Loaf has an attack that has you repeatedly mashing the “A” button to fill a gauge and depending on how full the gauge is will determine how much damage the enemy will take. Another ability has you quickly moving the analog stick back and forth to fill a gauge, while another ability has you just hitting a button within a green section of a dial. These QTE style elements really help to give the game a sense of personality and charm.
Born of Bread is a 2.5D game that looks like something out of a children’s cartoon on Saturday mornings. All of the characters and in game objects like barrels, are in 2D; with the environments you walk around in being in a 3D type space. Everything is cell-shaded which helps with the games cartoon look. Lighting in the game has a real world quality in the way that it illuminates objects and plays across a characters face, as best as it can given the 2D nature of the character. As a result of the lighting, the shadows look great and compliment the lighting very well.
So given how good the game looks, you would think that there would be some performance issues. Well I would say that it’s kind of a two way street in that regard. So when you’re moving around the various environments, the game plays jumps back and forth between 60FPs and 30FPS. Now with that said, it’s not as jarring as one would expect. So when you’re in building or in a small enough area, the game runs at around 60FPs. When running around outside or in a large area, the game will run at or around 30FPS.
Where this doesn’t become much of an issue is the fact that the transition between FPS counts is masked if you will by a loading screen or by an FMV sequence that is unskippable. Most sequences are skippable unless the game has to load assets. As for load times, they aren’t as long as one would expect with a game like this, only lasting up to a minute or less each time loading is required.
Born of Bread looks like a Saturday morning cartoon and it sounds like one too. Hitting enemies or breakable objects has you hearing classic cartoon like sounds you would come to expect from a beloved animated cartoon. This compliments the art direction as it should, and I would expect no less. The music in the game is some of the best I’ve heard in an RPG cut from similar cloth. It can be mellow or upbeat and really helps to set the tone for either the environment you’re exploring or the conversation you might be having between characters. At no point does the music feel out of place, repetitive, but instead is fun and enjoyable to listen to.
I’ve often heard Born of Bread being compared to the likes of Paper Mario. I have in fact compared the two myself in talking about this game, but that’s not a knock on the game at all. Though both games are cut from a similar cloth, Born of Bread has the ability to be a unique experience and stands a part from a series that it’s often compared to.
With Born of Bread, you get a rather unique story, hilarious writing, fun and expressive characters, and unique weapons and items. That’s not to say you don’t get that with other games, but wrap all of this up in the cell-shaded art-style this game has, and you have just one really awesome experience.
If you’ve played every RPG out there or if you’re not a fan of RPGs at all, you owe it to yourself to check this game out. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air in the RPG genre space of games to come out in recent years.
Disclaimer: A review copy was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.