Brain Lord

"Lost Potential Lord"

Brain Lord is an Action\RPG developed by Produce. Brain Lord is what I call a huge disappointment. It could be an excellent game, a true classic… but it didn't take advantage of its potential.

Story: 3/10
Presentation: 3/10

Not something that is worth mentioning. There is a dragon and an evil dude and you, a young man must face this bad guy and kill him. There are some secondary characters in the game, (as if there are some main ones), that don't help the plot at all and most of the time are just bystanders. The plot of Brain Lord has no twists and turns, no mystery no nothing, something that is a shame because even though the game is based mostly in its gameplay it could have a better plot since it is an RPG.

Gameplay: 7/10
Replay Value: 4/10

In Brain lord you're an adventurer who must unlock the secrets of various ancient structures. You view the game from the top like a Zelda game, but your hero isn't just a static sprite that moves around, since you can also jump something very important in the game since the platforming parts are abundant and quite good. Along your quest you'll find many weapons that have differences, for example the sword is the typical mid-range attack weapon that attacks in a semicircular way, the axe is very small attacks only straight ahead but is very powerful, the bow and boomerang are the ranged weaponry and the mace can be rotated around you. Enemies aren't exactly something special and fighting them in order to gain more experience and money can become extremely boring after a while, for me only Bosses where a bit more entertaining. Apart from the weaponry you can use magic, something very good since apart from the first spell you learn, most of them are very good like homing energy balls, platform creation and many more… err not so many to be honest, more like very few and that's the only negative part with magic.

The biggest innovation here though is the addition of the Jades. Jades are some fairy-like creatures that you summon to fly around you and aid you in various ways. Jades are the first half of the reason why this game is good but could be even better, what I mean is that this feature could be used much better. Firstly the Jade's powers are useless apart from 4-5 jades that you'll use most of the time, like the one that heals you or the one that raises your offensive power. Secondly the Jades gain experience by small energy balls that enemies leave behind, something that is extremely rare meaning that you can't really level up your Jades the way you want. I personally raised my Jade's level by taking advantage of a certain spot in the game where a specific enemy was always leaving energy balls behind after his death.

The second half of the game's potential “greatness” is the exploring and puzzle solving which is probably the actual game. You'll traverse through various castles try to find the main boss and kill him in order for the game to move on. Finding the boss is not an easy task and sometimes can become a bit frustrating. The game relies too much in exploring very large locations with tons of rooms that most of the time don't have something important in them. So after a long time of searching, (and walking), you find a key and keep on playing to find the next one and the next one and so on… The next problem can be seen in the puzzle solving. 99.9% of puzzles in Brain Lord are like this: There are some rocks that can be moved one step at the time and some metal spheres that can be rolled forward and stop only when they reach an obstacle. Now using these two, you must manage to put them on some large buttons in the floor in order to open a door. At first puzzles are very easy and are here just to train you in the game. After a while they become more and more hard but never so hard that you'll rip your hair out, apart from some minor frustration. There are two problems with the puzzles, first of all the fact that all the puzzles are like this! The only thing that changes is the amount of rocks and spheres and the buttons that need to be pushed. Secondly when entering a room with a puzzle the puzzle resets, something important while you try to solve a puzzle but after you solve it, it should stayed solved, am I right?

After the first 2-3 hours Brain Lord became a real repetitive chore for me to finish. I even used some solutions in order to carry on and just finish it, although it's not an extremely hard game. Unfortunately Brain Lord is a game that could have been but just didn't manage to.

Graphics: 7/10
Design: 7/10

This game looks so… Enix! So if you like games like 7th Saga you'll like this one too, it's all a matter of taste. Everything is nice and simple, the color palette isn't my favorite, since I find it a bit of dull but as I've said you might like it if you like the classic Enix style. Generally graphics in BL are nice without something special about them.

Sound: 6.5/10
Music: 6/10

Nothing worth mentioning here also. Ok music that might get to your nerves because it is a bit repetitive and OK sound effects that like the graphics of the game are very Enix-like.

Positives:
-Some good puzzles
-Summon 2 Jades that aid you in various ways
-Interesting magic spells

Negatives:
-Puzzles can become very boring after a while
-Exploring and fighting can become a bit boring too
-Some flaws in the Jade system
-Nothing special audiovisually
-Almost nonexistent plot

Also Play:
Alundra (Playstation)
Illusion Of Gaia (SNES)
Secret Of Mana (SNES)
Soul Blazer (SNES)
The Legend Of Zelda (Series)

Overall: 5.4/10

Brain Lord had the potential but all we have here is a game that is far too generic for me to swallow. Well at least I've seen worse…

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/09

Game Release: Brain Lord (US, August 1994)