Temple Run: Brave Review

Temple Run: Brave joins other iOS mega-hits like Doodle Jump and Angry Birds with a licensed version of their game. Based on the upcoming Pixar movie Brave, this has players controlling that movie’s protagonist Merida, who has to outrun a giant bear that’s chasing her. The bear literally has arrows and swords sticking out of it, which leaves Merida with one choice: run. It’s the same core Temple Run gameplay, where players must jump and slide, turn left and right, and tilt to collect coins and traverse narrow passageways. The big new addition to the game are archery sections, where players must tap on the left and right sides of the screen to fire arrows at targets; hitting all the targets grants a coin bonus.

Not much is changed here, but the game is overall more detailed, with the misty environments giving the game a fresh coat of paint to go along with the fiery red of Merida’s hair providing a great contrast. The game is still as addictive as ever, simple to play, and provides the ability to purchase coins really only has a way to accelerate the upgrade process, not as a necessity.

There are a few drawbacks to Temple Run: Brave. One, the game overall is still Temple Run, just with the main character being a redheaded woman with flowing hair instead of a fedora-wearing adventurer, or a football player. The archery sections add some interesting new sections, but are not essential parts of the game. The game also runs at a lower framerate than the original game; it could be because the Android version of the original Temple Run was rebuilt from the ground up in Unity, and with the Brave edition being for both platforms, this could just be running in the Unity engine. While it’s more convenient for the Imangi team, it does appear to not be as good for iOS users, even on the iPad 2. Also, iCade support has been removed!

Temple Run: Brave may be a nice change of pace for those who are still addicted to Temple Run, or got sick of Temple Run, and just need a change of scenery to get re-addicted. If so, then this is worth buying, with an initial $0.99 launch price that comes with a 2500 coin bonus. It’s still a great game, but this is not a true sequel for those Temple Run addicts ready for one.