Brain Lord

"Great Potential but Poor Execution"

Brain Lord was a game released by Enix back in 1994. The game looks almost identical to an earlier game, The 7th Saga. Unlike The 7th Saga though, this game is an action RPG with many puzzles ranging from stupidly easy to beyond frustratingly hard. Many puzzles have to do with math, pushing boulders or balls, walking aimlessly through dark, pitch black areas, etc. The game play is quite fun at times but the game falls flat as an RPG for numerous reasons. This review will touch base on that and other things.

The story to Brain Lord is pretty simple and, to be honest, disappointing. In 1994 many RPG's were being released and many of them had finally started creating grand, involving stories. Games such as Phantasy Star 4 is a great example. RPG's also had finally started straying away from awful dialog (usually due to poor translation). Brain Lord is an example of a game that probably would have done better had it been released about 5 years earlier. But back to the story. The story starts with our hero as a child and his Father talking some babble about growing up to be a Dragon Warrior. Years later, you start in a tavern/inn and meet all of the main characters right off the bat. You discover that north of town there is a tower that is suppose to hold the last dragon in the world. So you are off to explore and try to save the dragon from being killed. The story sounds incoherent because it is.

Let me start by saying that I had to restart my game about three times because each time I attempted to play the game I lost interest halfway through.

Let's start with game play. Brain Lord is an action RPG much in the vein of Zelda but physically looks exactly like The 7th Saga. When I first turned it on I thought it was going to be almost a sequel. Unfortunately not so. Brain Lord offers a variety of weapons that can help you through your quest. You have swords, axes, maces, and bow and arrows. This is normally a nice variety but the best weapons (the strongest) are the worst to use. Namely the ax. The problem with the ax is the reach on it is so short that in order to kill an enemy you will most likely take damage yourself. I noticed that I used the mace most of the game. Other items you can collect are many healing herbs, a teleportation device, and items that can increase your strength and defense. Much like Zelda, you don't actually gain levels. You have to search for items that will increase your stats. There is a sort of way you can gain levels in a more RPG like fashion and that is through fairies. In the game you can find or buy bottled fairies in which will improve your stats when used or can be used to attack enemies. You can level these fairies up to become very powerful. But the attack fairies I found to be useless since you can beat the game with the use of simply two fairies. Those being the fairies that make you physically stronger and that raises your defense. Initially I thought this was a good idea but building the fairies levels became very tedious as they take a very long time to build. Having said all of this I do have to give some credit to the action part of the game. It does hold your interest and fighting bosses was kind of fun.

Let's talk about the puzzles/dungeons etc. The first dungeon you go to is actually a tower of 4 very large areas. I mean really large. This tower serves more of an introduction to the rest of the game as it was generally easy. Even the boss was pathetic (which turned out to be a giant cockroach). Here, and most of the game, you will discover your friends help you in certain situations. One might sell items to you. One might give you a hint on beating a puzzle, or one might give you totally useless info. This, in a way, is the only character development in the game aside from a few rare moments in town. The puzzles in the dungeons can be fairly easy to being very difficult. In the first area, the puzzles are simple and give you a false idea of what is to come. A lot of puzzles in the game involve jumping from moving platform to moving platform. By the end of it you are ready to pull your hair out. But the really frustrating puzzles come from the last area of the game in which you have to walk though many rooms that are pitch black with no way of lighting your path. At some points I was ready to turn the game off because I was so frustrated.

Next is my biggest pet peeve with the game. The games world. The world of Brain Lord is incredibly small. There are only TWO towns in the whole game! Included are about 6 dungeons. All of which are massive. It's obvious where the creators put most of the data. This really annoyed me since I was hoping for a truly epic, long game. Instead I beat the game within 9 hours. Also, there are only 4 bosses throughout the game. All of which are stupidly easy. Fun, but not in the least bit challenging. Matter of fact, the last boss I had no problems with at all. Which leads me to this...

Characters: pros and ants. You are the hero (obviously) in which you name yourself. You have no character at all since this game decides to not give your character any dialog at all. There are about 4 to 5 other side characters that help you on your quest. All of them put together have as much character as a side character in a bad B adventure film. Nevertheless, at least it's something. The antagonists have zero development. Unfortunately there is not much to say about them. You have a giant roach. A giant killer floating robot. A troll, and the Demon King. The Demon King you would think would have some major dialog to build on how evil he is, but no. This really bothered me as a good RPG would have strong development.

Overall the game fails as an action RPG. It does have its moments of being fun and slightly addicting but the game goes way to fast and just when you are starting to somewhat enjoy playing the game it ends. And it has a terrible ending by the way... If you want a fun action RPG I suggest one of the Zelda games or one of the early Ys games.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/31/09

Game Release: Brain Lord (US, August 1994)