Short and unimaginative RPG that had the potential to be great if not for its dull and mundane story and concepts.
Quest: Brian's Journey is essentially a handheld RPG version of Quest 64. The story is one of many features that seems to have been picked straight of the cookie sheet. You play as Brian, an apprentice magician, capable of commanding the four spirits; fire, wind, water and earth. Thieves have stolen a powerful book from the castle and your father has gone missing while in pursuit of the culprits. Thus begins your journey. There is no tutorial or direction to speak of but the world is small enough to explore easily and get on the right track eventually. The gameplay is formulaic of most other top view 2D RPGs. You go around town talking to people and looting randomly placed treasure chests then you set out to your destination fighting random creatures along the way and grind battles to increase your abilities. Leveling up in this game is quite tedious because in order to raise your max HP you must get hit and to raise your max MP you must use magic. You will find yourself going back and forth to town in order to get items just so you can have a well-balanced character. The game isn't particularly challenging however after you spend time leveling up. Perhaps the best feature of the game is the spell arsenal as you power up your elemental magic you can experiment with spell casting. When casting a spell you can select up to three elements. Using all of the same elements casts a powerful spell of that element but combining fire and earth however makes your staff capable of dealing more damage for a number of turns. There are dozens of combinations and mastering the spells and discovering new ones is actually quite fun. Another feature I liked is the fact that the game lets you choose at some points which sections of the quest you want to do first.
The graphics and sound are all done quite well and the control is adequate for the game but the fact that you get a very powerful character very quickly and the dull concepts and story make the game boring in the end. If there was a more interesting story this game would probably be pretty good but as it is, I find it hard to recommend, especially for seasoned RPG fans. Ultimately this game plays well, looks and sounds ok but reverts to using the lazy and generic bag of same old tricks.