Looking for a wholesome role playing game? Born of Bread by WildArts Studio is light-hearted and goofy little RPG about saving the kingdom from corruption. Papa Baker accidentally baked you into existence as a living bread person. Will you use your skill and might (and flakey outer crust) to protect the kingdom and save it from utter chaos?
Suddenly existing as a humanoid bread, kindly named Loaf by your creator (father?) Papa Baker. That’s not the wildest thing happening in one night, however. The local researchers have stumbled upon an ancient burial ground. Seemingly disturbing the site, fiery demons of a previous kingdom have awakened from their coffins to find the scattered crystal shards to regain their world back to full strength after its sudden disappearance. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time, Papa Baker is accused of witchcraft for both creating you, the innocent Loaf, and for breaking into the castle and stealing the crystal shard (which was totally done by the young group of fiery hoodlums). You and your raccoon sidekick, Lint, must clear Papa Baker’s name so he can cook for the queen again.
While there can be a lot of reading at times, there is never a wasted breath that isn’t some witty banter or interesting conundrum. Sure there are dialog choices, but they’re usually wrought with sarcasm and are used as window dressing more than determining different outcomes. A lot of the writing involves metaphors and scenarios that poke fun at current events, so if you pay well enough attention you get an understanding of how the developers really feel and what’s happening in the world. There is a lot of dialog that doesn’t actually progress anywhere, such as talking to random townsfolk now and then. Born of Bread remarks that talk to someone multiple times results in different outcomes, but none of these outcomes progress the story in any way. It would have been nice to see the town improving, or characters from other towns come and visit every time you made it back to the castle. Just a small oversight that would have given the charming game a nice touch.
While the story isn’t the same (though crystal shards definitely seems to rip off similar tropes), the actions in Born of Bread directly relate to Paper Mario. What sets the two apart are some minor details in the battle system. The attacking powers in Born of Bread have multiple kinds of attack types, with both a primary (range, close, etc) and a secondary, similar to that of Pokemon, though effective use doesn’t reward you with that much more damage on the enemy (and their attack types don’t have any effect on you.) Honestly there may be too many things going on in that sense. There’s also food that has various stats, but no purpose as to what the types affect. Besides health and “Will” power (currency to spend on actions), there’s also another currency just for Loaf that allows you to do a special attack. I don’t really bother with these attacks, as they don’t seem to affect too much of the battle. Besides that, battles are fun and speedy, and are given flair by making it look like it’s being live streamed with a toggleable chat room. While it didn’t affect me too much, I did want to note the accessibility problem that the attacks had, especially waving the joystick rapidly back and forth. For one, this can ruin your controller, and two it can be difficult for some players to perform this kind of action.
The main quest is linear, but that’s a typical thing to expect from a Paper Mario clone. There are also side quests, but once leaving an area of the game there is no real want to go back and explore. Born of Bread has a problem where you can collect a lot of items, but have nothing to spend things on. This problem falls in both the currency and in the restorative items. Because there is a limit on the amount you can hold in each, it stops being necessary to go around smashing things and exploring, making its arbitrary capping mechanisms a hinderance on the kind of gameplay it’s trying to encourage. There are some other minor problems, like having to open the menu constantly to swap party members to use their world abilities (where you should be able to summon them at a press of a button), and there is no want to use other party members because you find them later in the game, making them behind the power curve and unable to catch up. A lot of these problems can be overlooked by the charm and writing of the game, though, so there are no game breaking problems unless you nit-pick.
Born of Bread’s art is a wonderful mix of 2D paper-looking characters in a colorful 3D world. The game doesn’t push the 2D character aspect, so their bodies are always facing the camera, which I think is better to view with. The world is vibrant and the lighting is spot-on, with glimmers of light shining through the treetops or glistening off the castle walls. I’m assuming all the lighting is all pre-baked, as there are no real shadows for the main characters, but the only problem is when you’re trying to jump to rickety platforms.
The music is dynamic and pleasing. All the audio is mixed well, with audio changing and stopping with dialog cues. Some points I wish it was more dynamic or played along with how conversations were going, just to make them more engaging. Most of the audio is on a simple loop, so the tracks don’t have variations or multiple kinds of instruments playing them.
In summary, Born of Bread is a solid game with minor gameplay flaws. The art visuals and witty dialog well make up for some of the gameplay problems.
Jordan played Born of Bread on PC with a review key.
