Brave Fencer Musashi

"Square did it again!!"

Brave Fencer Musashi is another one of Squares greatest hits. Brave Fencer is a combination of RPG and action creating a small world of pure entertainment. Square has always been known for making great RPGs, so everyone excpectec this to be a fun game and it is. A lot of people (including myself) at first saw that the Final Fantasy 8 demo came with this. Many people got excited, ''oooh another Final Fantasy'' (including myself) so this is the reason why Brave Fencer Musashi got a lot of hits. I can't even begin to say how much I was wrong. Brave Fencer Musashi was and is definitely worth the $40 I paid. After playing this game I immediately realized how wrong I was for just seeing a Final Fantasy demo. Brave Fencer Musashi was released in the U.S. in late November of 1998. There are many aspects that make this game great, but there is also some things that make this game bad. The majority of Brave Fencer Musashi (BFM) is very good and Square had a lot of good ideas.

STORY: (6/10) In the land of Allucaneet lies a palace overshadowing its town. The town of Grillin village lives peacefully with the palace, containg all the fine workers, helping them out. One day, the opposing nation of Allucaneet kingom, Thirstquencher attacked. Unfortunately for Allucaneet, the king and queen were absent at the time of the attack. The people in the palace all disappeared before the attack by a an evil spell casted by Thirstquenchers army. The senior members and the princess of Allucaneet were the only ones left in the castle and they had no idea what to do. One of the senior members told Princess Fillet to cast the spell Hero Summon, because Allucaneet was desperate for a hero. The princess summoned Musashi, a brave fencer, but instead of the legendary brave fencer Musashi she received a little boy named Musashi. Furious at the fact her summon failed, she yelled at Musashi. The Hero Summon spell cannot be used again without power of a Bincho field and the princess used the last one. So they had to use Musashi as there hero, but he refused. The Princess refused to send Musashi home so he had to prevent the attack of Thirstquencher (*cough* blackmale *cough*). Thirstquenchers plan was to steal the sword of Lumina and then destroy Allucaneet kingdom, but it is up to Musashi to take the sword of Lumina and to save the missing members of the palace. I personally thought this story isn't as good as most of squares products. I also didn't really like the story either because the save everyone angle is getting old.

GAMEPLAY: (10/10)The gameplay is total perfection. There is only one bad thing about this game and it still does not change the score. That bad thing is the duration of the game. You can literally beat this in 1 day if you are a hardcore gamer. Brave Fencer Musashi is like Zelda, but without puzzles. Every level or chapter that you go through is nothing but fun. The map is pretty small in the territory that you work on, mainly because there is only one town. The town is rather large containing houses, toy store, supermarket, bakery, inn, church and it's right next to the palace. There are many places to go out and explore outside of town. During your venturing you have two swords, Lumina and Fusion. Both these swords can level up. The leveling up process in BFM is nice. There are 4 things you can improve which is Body (Strength), Mind (Defense), Fusion and Lumina. You improve Body by how many people you kill and you improve Mind by walking. Fusion and Lumina improve by how many times you use them. Musashi has many actions that he can do. Some of the actions require some sort of special item. A very special and unique action that Musashi can do by using Fusion is assimilation. This is when Musashi steals an ability from an enemy. The way Musashi gains his HP is not by gaining levels, but instead it is by finding cute little creatures named Minku. Musashi receives a certain amount of HP by the berries dropped by the Minku when he catches them. His BP (Bincho Power) is gained automatically after certain special time periods in the game. Speaking of time, the game goes through time as real life. Meaning that there is time within the game that goes by minutes and seconds and it has days of their own too. It took me 128 days to beat this game, not real days, but days within the game. The fighting is real time and by using two swords it is really fun. There are also special attacks when talking to the right people (mainly the people who you save) that are combos and this can help you a lot. That's pretty much all I can think of right now. Overall, the gameplay is awesome!

CONTROLS: (9/10) The controls were pretty good in this game. I had no problems that I could think. The buttons responded well and the moving was perfect. Oh yes! There is one thing wrong, but it isn't even that bad but it is the only thing that troubled me sometimes. What pissed me off sometimes was the camera view (as usual) but most of the time the camera was fine. I just didn't like to do things when looking at Musashis face because I couldn't see what he was looking at. This mode of camera rarely happens, but when it does ARGH! does it suck. Overall, the controls were smooth, crisp, clear and just great. It would be kinda better if Musashi ran a little faster, but that didnt really do anything to the controls. It would've just made the game go by faster.

MUSIC/SOUND: (9/10) The music, as in most of Square games, was just perfect. I loved every theme for each level. I can even hum it to myself right now. Brave Fencer Musashis musiccontains that kind of music that just makes you feel good inside and pleasant to listen to. My favorite theme is the music n the very beginning of the game when Musashi is on the first stage in the woods. The music is crisp and clear with a good beat. I love the music in Musashi. As for the sound. The sound is the reason why I gave this category a 9 instead of a 10. The sounds of musashi running, slashing, etc. was very very good and it is crisp. The only problem I had and I bet a lot of others had a problem with is the voice acting. The voice acting is just horrible. I don't even want to go in detail on how bad Musashi sounded as did Princess Fillet. I think Square did a big no-no with the U.S. voice overs because they just plain suck. Anyway, overall this category is extremely great except for the voice part.

GRAPHICS: (10/10) The visuals are excellent! All the characters look very well detailed and colorful. The coloring of each character showed the mood of the character (i.e. Steward Ribson was in brown all the time and he was always sad). Not all the time, but the colors showed off some things like that sometimes. The backgrounds looked really cool too. In chapter 3, the dungeon in it has nicely done pieces of art on the wall and the coloring for each background was excellent as well. The visuals are very detailed. When Musashi runs you can actually see the dust coming off his shoes showing that Musashi is increasing in speed. All the characters and backgrounds were showed very detailed to show their character. Overall, the graphics in Brave Fencer Musashi are stupendous. Good job Square!

CHALLENGE: (4/10) The game itself isn't very hard. It is more fun then hard so I don't consider Brave Fencer Musashi to be a hard game. Getting items appraised at the pawn shop are extremely important and some other things of this game cannot be missed. One thing that gave this meter a 4 was that it is hard to find all the missing people of the palace. The bosses aren't really hard either, neither are the enemies so the only challenge I thought was getting everything in the game and finding all the missing people. Overall, the challenge isn't very big.

REPLAY: (N/A) The replay value in Brave Fencer Musashi is high, but not very high. The only reason why I replayed this game was because of boredom. Mainly because the game could take about a day to beat, it is very short especially after you beat it once. Other than that reason, I don't see much other reason to play it again because I personally think RPGs are only one hit wonders. The second time you play it there is nothing new. If in case you missed anything the first time, that will probably be the only reason for you to play it over. Overall, the replay value is really not even a part of BFM.

OVERALL: (9/10) Brave Fencer Musashi is an extremely fun action RPG that I would recommend to be in all RPG fans home. There are many factors which I have listed above for the reason to buy it. Of course, you could rent it and beat it but who does that with RPGs? If you are a big Zelda or Alundra fan then I guarantee you that you will enjoy this game. This is definitely worth the $40 I paid and I actually think it is cheaper now. So, if you have nothing to do, play, buy then go out and get or rent this game because this is definitely a very fun game for the number of hours I played it. With great music, gameplay and graphics what else could you ask for in an RPG? This is a definite keeper and for the first and probably last time (it'll probably be cheesy), buy this game because it is a SCCAN guarantee.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/19/00, Updated 06/19/00