Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Grows on you"

He's short, he has a big heart, and he loves kicking ass. He's the legendary Brave Fencer Musashi, hero of Squaresoft's Action Adventure RPG classic. The story starts off with the noble Allucaneet Kingdom under attack by the Thirstquencher Empire. Thirstquencher's motive behind their force is to capture Lumina, a sword once used by the legendary Brave Fencer Musashi to lock away the Wizard of Darkness. In the midst of battle, Allucaneet Kingdom has no choice but to summon Musashi into their dimension in order to protect Lumina and restore peace to the land. This is essentially where the game begins.

For those thinking of Final Fantasy or Vagrant Story, toss all of those notions out the window for Brave Fencer Musashi. This is at heart a 2d/3d puzzle game with solid platforming and RPG elements seamlessly worked in. Throughout his quest, our hero must use Lumina to free our beloved Allucaneet's from their crystalized shells called Binchotites. As people are saved they will show up in town or at the Allucaneet Castle to either help progress the story or aid our pint sized hero. Brave Fencer runs on a time system with a morning, day and night. All shops have their own business hours and villagers follow their own schedules. This often comes into play as events arise during specific times of the day. Not to worry, there is a sleeping function that will pass the hours when ever needed. It is actually mandatory that Musashi gets proper rest, or he will suffer from fatigue and eventually fall asleep no matter what is going on (even during mid battle!).

The meat of the gameplay relies heavily on Musashi's abilities gained by his dual wielded swords, Fusion and Lumina. With Lumina, he has the ability to steal enemy powers. He also obtains elemental powers through Lumina from defeating Crest Guardians that protect the five scrolls: Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, and Sky. All Musashi's abilities stolen or earned by Lumina do not merely help him in combat, but with puzzle solving as well. The Fusion sword is mainly for your close ranged combo-based attacks. By chatting with rescued villagers, he can learn various techniques to dish out more authoritative combos with Fusion and Lumina together.

Instead of following the 'go to dungeon X, defeat boss X, reveal plot point X, rinse and repeat' method, Brave Fencer takes quite a different approach. Anywhere from saving the town's church bell to having a dance-off with a boss, this game is simply unpredictable. Though the plot may be unpredictable, let us not confuse this with being shallow. A complex and intricately woven connection is born between every part of the sometimes goofy plot points. The story is only made more memorable by the cunning writing and superbly voice acted characters.

The camera system can either be a hit or miss for most folks. The perspective will switch between ¾ isometric and side scrolling views depending on the current area. What most players will find frustrating is the lack of control on the camera's rotation when outside the village. Not only does this affect depth perception, it can be hard for seeing enemies behind parts of the environment. It feels as if this style of camera was used as a makeshift to prevent objects from suddenly popping into view (a common problem of early 3d generation titles).

While Brave Fencer Musashi is not a bad looking game, it certainly isn't the prettiest fella of the bunch. Frame rate remains smooth during regular play, only dropping during moments of intense action. Models and textures are all what you'd expect from a game made on the PSOne in 1998, though the title's simplistic and habitually looped animations can seem rudimentary even for its time. Character models aren't very distinguished in look, so it is nice to see their carefully drawn 2d counterparts while speaking. Subtle visual touches like use of god rays shining through the clouds during the day and thought bubbles changing shape based on what emotion a character is feeling adds to the overall experience.

On the sound department side of things, Brave Fencer lacks in some areas, but that is not to say it leaves without giving the audience something to appreciate. All your typical battling sounds of explosions and sword slashes down to ambient noises like the cuckooing morning rooster are there, enhancing the experience while not particularly achieving anything outside the ordinary. What takes the sound a large step beyond average is the comedic voice acting and killer musical score, both enjoyable in their own right. There is an unfortunate occurrence of musical irritation is when the town gets haunted by creatures called Vambi's. At this point, all the music in town is replaced by a decent score with a spooky vibe to it. After the looping around a few times, your personal goal will become to rid the town of Vambi's just for the sake of shutting the song up.

This title may do many things well, but it surely is not without some faults. One purpose of a game is to immerse its players so as to not remind them that they are playing just that...a game. This line of immersion is frequently crossed as the world's edge is in plain sight, revealing a solid background color. The fault is mostly due to the camera being so far away (a staple of Squaresoft RPG's during the 90's and 80's). Perhaps the largest fault found here is the minute size of your inventory. If the player doesn't carefully manage their inventory around every corner they'll either run out of healing items and find themselves heading back to the village or be painstakingly crawling their way through sections of the game because of Musashi being poisoned or too sleepy. This only grows increasingly annoying as you delve farther into the chapters. If being poisoned didn't slow our hero down, or the player had more slots to hold items, this problem could have been avoided. The last thing that takes this gem down a notch is its length. It should take anywhere between 18 to 20 hours to complete the main quest. This may not satisfy many RPG fanatics, especially considering the plot feels underdeveloped in areas where it could have gone into much greater depth.

Brave Fencer Musashi is a solid title that packs quite a punch of originality. Very reminiscent of classic Squaresoft titles, providing undeniable charm and humor. The game's unpredictable nature and witty writing mixed with a healthy dose of gameplay makes it an easy

recommendation for Adventure and RPG fans alike. If there's one thing I've learned from Brave Fencer Musashi it's that good things come in small packages.