Brigandine

"Yet another shallow SRPG... but this time, with HEXES!"

I picked up Brigandine a while back, and it really didn't impress me that much then. It was alright, and turning off the crappy battle graphics made the experience better, but it wasn't really memorable. However, I recently popped it in again for a brief break from turn-based RPGs and ARPGs. It's almost a shame that I did, however, since I'd forgotten about why this game bored the crap out of me the last time I played it. Doubly so, since then I'd had far less SRPG experience and hadn't been able to see all the flaws that were now so blatant.

Story

Like most SRPGs, story isn't an issue. And Brigandine does that in spades, with a prosaic land of kingdoms that go to war with each other simultaneously for reasons less solid than the average excuse of a panzer raid into Poland. However, like with most RPGs, story isn't really an issue. It does its job, and gets out a bit of info so we know a bit about who our little sprite guys are.

Music

The music is pretty nice, some of Tenpei Sato's best work in the PSX generation. However, there isn't enough of it. During the game, you'll hear the same songs over and over again, since each nation only has a single battle theme. That includes the one that you're playing as, meaning that for the entire game, you'll hear that song during your turn. Which is alright if you pick a nation like Leonia that has a solid track, but is pretty annoying if you pick a nation like Iscalio or Esgares that gets old after a second loop, let alone a second hearing.

Graphics

The graphics are fairly nice, as long as you keep the battle graphics off. The map sprites are nice enough, and the world map is decent enough. The hideous polys of the battle models, however, are enough to bring back supressed memories of some of the Saturn's worst 3D work. Even with the option of them turned off enabled, the sprite graphics for the rest of the game are generally SNES level and not visually impressive as many other PS1 RPGs such as Kartia or Hoshigami. The character designs are fairly dull as well, with a definite feeling of 'typical' that overshadows nearly each one.

Gameplay

A good SRPG should have gameplay that's easy to pick up and has a good amount of depth. Sadly, Brigandine is easy to pick up and has the depth of the average ladle. There's lots of ways to win, yes, but it pretty much amounts to picking a single strategy (see: Angel spell spamming, for example) and using it ad nauseum for the rest of the game while your Fairy units keep refreshing units. As well, balance is more than a little skewed for the game, as many classes of monsters are nigh-staples of any army (High Centaurs and Fairies being the most pernicious), while there are many other units that only serve as things that only the AI would consider making an army out of. The knights (human units) are less common than the monsters, but suffer from many of the same balance problems, making many mage-types and the Artemis archers overly effective thanks to range abuse. Like the Nippon Ichi RPGs of the PS2 era that came after Brigandine, the depth of this title is only as deep as the disc itself and things like tactical thinking can be ignored by way of perseverence through one cheap third-of-an-actual-strategy.

And that's another problem. Even on Hard, the AI is dreadfully stupid. It will purchase some of the worst units in the game simply because they're cheaper, and will continue to do so even if you can easily slaughter them. Sure, every nation gets some nice stuff in the beginning, but once the player relieves them of their pets (like the Bahamut Iscalio starts with), they become a lot less formidable.

Movement is done by hexes instead of the standard grid, but that doesn't really change tactics much. Like most grid-based RPGs, the presence of a grid signals movement limitations that stifle gameplay and reduce tactics, and Brigandine is no exception to that rule.

There's a time limit to the game, so a player can't take too long, but any competent player shouldn't have any problem with it at all. Which is the problem with Brigandine. Strategy takes a backseat to just finding a way of bulling through everything else and no real need to learn how to use all aspects of the system appears.

Others

The game is generally unfinished. That's pretty much the only way to say it, since the Japanese-only release of Brigandine: Grand Edition was the finished version, with more story, more changes and challenges with characters, and generally more everything. However, even that wasn't that great when compared with beautiful SRPG masterpieces like Thracia 776, in the end.

In conclusion, if you really need to play a SRPG, there's a lot of better titles to take a look at than Brigandine to get your fix unless this is one of the last titles you're looking for. In any case, this game is definitely near the bottom of the barrel in terms of SRPGs and any player needing hex-based SRPG fun should look into importing Berwick Saga instead, since even if a person doesn't understand Japanese, if they enjoy good SRPGs, they'll have a lot more fun with that than Brigandine.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/20/05