I was skeptical upon playing the game at first because it seemed just a bit boring in the description; however, I was pleasantly surprised and happy to be wrong. This game honestly reminded me that you really can’t judge a book by the cover. The Life and Suffering of Sir Brant was an emotionally difficult adventure to take part in, and I highly recommend it for those that love a good story where your choices heavily affect the outcome. This title was developed by Sever Studio, and published by 101XP. It is available on PC for only $19.99.
You play as the middle son of the noble Brant family who struggles in life due to being born as a commoner. Due to your father marrying a commoner, all children born with her would hold a commoner status. In the Arknian Empire, the nobles rule over commoners, and the empire is nothing short of corrupt. However, as you play the game it is heavily narrative-driven and you get to choose the life of Sir Brant, and these different paths can lead to a life of suffering or a life of happiness. There is a ton of balancing you must try to maintain while finding your path in life, whether it be finding religion with the Twin Gods or finding life as a Noble and trying to keep your family together.
What I did not expect from this game was the sheer amount of difficult choices the game presents. When you start the game you get to play through different stages of the main character’s life, starting as a newborn. Every choice your make early on gives you different stats, such as perception and willpower. What makes this incredibly difficult is the fact that each decision you make can potentially take away from other stats, or be completely locked due to lacking in certain areas. I often found myself trying to make the right choices, but with one good choice I potentially lost family relationships and the other I lost wealth or reputation. Every choice makes characters critically think about what’s worth sacrifice and overall morals and promises you want to keep. Even though the game is presented in a narration style, I immediately felt the same as I did playing Mass Effect.
Overall I loved the game. I do wish some of the choices weren’t as hard to unlock based on certain stats. I also found that early on stats showed more than others. I made a lot of clear-headed perception-based choices as a child which hardly carried over into adolescent and adulthood choices. Willpower and Unity were also very easily losable compared to other choices and were needed for a lot of decisions made in the late game to avoid losing career or reputation points. Aside from some of the balancing issues, the story was amazing, and the atmosphere created by the book like the art style and sound effects did well to immerse me into the story.
Score: 8/10
Veteran gamer, tech nerd, comic addict, anime lover, and just your average introverted weeb.
