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naraburns nihil supernum
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The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante Review
My previous game reviews on the Motte:
Cyberpunk 2077
Terra Invicta
Wasteland 3
A (somewhat) short review for a short, but compelling game. I will try to avoid major spoilers because this is a game I can easily recommend, at a relatively low playtime with a relatively low price, especially on sale.
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante is a text-based adventure game, where guide the life of our titular character, Sir Brante, from birth to death (or at least late adulthood). It might be more accurate to call the game an interactive novel, or more in the vain of adventure gamebooks (but no combat). Player reads about an event in Sir Brante’s life, and the player makes a choice for how Brante’s life will progress, some of which have more serious impacts than others. The game is obviously very reading heavy, though there are some nice illustrations too.
The game is set in the fictional Arknian Empire, a low-fantasy word that is roughly analogous to late 18th Century Europe in terms of technological and social development. The Arknian Empire has an extremely rigid, oppressive and perhaps actually divinely ordained social system – the “Lots”. The Noble, Priest and Commoner Lots. It’s an extreme form of feudal hierarchy, where commoners are abused and exploited by their social superiors, perhaps far more than happened in our real world. You play as Sir Brante, the commoner son of noble father and a commoner mother. Your father was born a commoner and earned his nobility through service to the empire (“Noble of the Mantle”), and not by blood or hereditary rights (“Noble of the Sword”), so the nobility is not granted to you. So Brante occupies a liminal space in society, not a noble, nor a lowly commoner, at a time of great social upheaval within the Arknian Empire (again, analogous to late 18th and early 19th century Europe). Stop here and play the game if this sounds interesting to you! Some spoilers ahead.
What The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante does exceptionally well is create an incredibly believable world and honestly is one of the best portrayals of social upheaval (and revolution...?) in a fictional setting. It highlights the moral complexities of reform and revolution. There are shades of grey everywhere – oppressor nobles, nobles supporting tradition as the believe stability is critical, nobles supporting reform, devout commoners supporting the social order, humanistic commoner revolutionaries, brutal, murderous commoner revolutionaries, the Church is undergoing a theological schism. The game also raises some other interesting themes and questions – destiny, family, duty, religion and many others. Just to give one example of how clever the writing can be in this game, the most powerful noble families (including the Emperor) in the Arknian Empire are not human but are Arknians, who are more or less light blue skinned “human” nobles of great beauty who are treated with the utmost respect and deference by all humans. It’s deliberately left ambiguous about the relationship between Arknians and humans, it’s possible (if not likely) that the Arknians are in fact humans, who are blue-skinned by virtue of extreme selective breeding/endogamy, and maybe more beautiful, smarter and stronger than 'regular' humans only because of access to superior education, medicine etc. I found this to be a pretty clever commentary on real world nobility, and high-status class more generally – the Arknians may or may not be humans, but what’s important is that the commonfolk and even the lesser nobles believe in the natural, perhaps even divine superiority of the Arknians over humans.
I think another brilliant element of the writing is how it draws you into the game’s universe. You play as Brante from baby, and you learn about the world along with him as he grows up, slowly getting fed titbits of information about the world and forming a coherent picture in your mind. As Brante forms relationships with his family as he grows, so will you get attached to them. This makes it all the more heart wrenching when the suffering does happen. The Brante family does struggle and suffer throughout the game, as the title promises. I’ll admit that I teared up a couple times playing the game.
The story has some strong parallels to real world historical events, including the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution (the developers are Russian), and generally is critical about all kinds of ideology, radical and traditional. However, I think the game’s writing ultimately leans towards a Burkeian conservative gradual reform position ideologically, where the best outcomes and endings seem to arise from approaching the political issues in the game this way. This doesn’t significantly detract from the political commentary and critique the writing offers overall, though. The game also has a surprisingly Christian message or at least mentality that I think might go over some players’ heads – the Christian part specifically, not the religious themes in general. It’s hard to comment on this without getting to major spoilers, I will just say there is an implication that the societal problems within the game are at least partially derived from the fact the in-universe religion is basically an incomplete Christianity – Christianity missing some key features.
Unfortunately, like many story-driven choice-based RPGs, the game does fall apart a bit in the last third of the game, particularly in the last act, as the writers struggle under the weight of all the choices they have to account for. Some of the choices only have real impact on certain paths. The final act feels far too short for the events that it’s portraying, the choices and stats you need to get certain endings are maybe a bit unfair and I left feeling a bit unsatisfied. Still, this is a relatively small blemish on an otherwise excellently written game. The draw of the game I think not really having an “ending” per se, but this peephole it gives you into this highly believable if sometimes fantastical world.
I strongly recommend The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante to any one who likes text/reading heavy games or interactive novels. The game is relatively short, maybe a few hours long for your first playthrough if you’re not someone who agonizes over choices/restarts RPGs frequently like me. There are three main paths to play in the game, each with their own narrative arc for replayability, though the paths do converge towards the very end of the game.
Hell yes, someone else who has played Sir Brante. The most positive ending I got was while playing a noble on the antirevolutionary path andbeating Dorius Otton in a duel with the help of Grandpa from beyond the grave, convincing Gaius Tempest to enact reforms and getting the Brantes ennobled|| all in one playthrough. I didn't manage some minor things like ||saving the childhood friend or all family members etc.
One might say there are six main paths - noble, priest and commoner both as pro- and antirevolutionary - and at least two "easter egg" paths (following the Path of Will as a priest and doing the anti-revolutinary commoner path so well that the entire revolt gets aborted )
I was had a little mini-debate in my head about whether to say three or six main paths, but I went with three because I don't think pro or antirevolutionary are substantial enough to call them there own complete main paths, not to the same extent of the noble, priest and commoner are, at least. Most of the decisions for which side you land politically are only towards the very end of the game, and it's possible to play both sides until just before the end of the game, albeit with maybe slightly suboptimal outcomes. Basically, they're not "main" paths in that they don't have a long, separate narrative.
They're main paths in the way that if you want best outcomes you need to start making certain stat-related choices quite early on.
Right, it's more the outcome of the choices you make. The actual story events that you experience on pro and anti revolutionary "paths" are mostly the same however, it's just how you respond to it. Whereas the noble, priest and commoner paths all have almost completely different events and story arcs, only a small overlap. Hence "main" paths.
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