Brain Lord

"An exercise in frustration, not thinking."

Brain Lord should be required study for all game designers on how *not* to create puzzles in an RPG.

Given the title, one would think that Brain Lord demands the player think his/her way through its various puzzles and mazes. However, the reality is that there are too many experiences in pure frustration in which you need to guess your way around in order to advance. Enjoy roaming around repetitive terrain with no indication whatsoever on how to get where you need to go? Like walking around completely dark mazes, able to see your objective but not finding any way to get there? Brain Lord is for you.

Think? Often times the only thing I found myself thinking was how badly I wanted to hammer the game cartridge into a thousand pieces.

When there were *actual* puzzles to solve I found the game enjoyable. Generally speaking the dungeons are well designed, and the addition of fairy "helpers"was a nice touch. Of course, I also found them to be a necessity.

Graphically Brain Lord is OK - it doesn't take full advantage of the SNES' capabilities, but is a step up from NES-era graphics. The music is decent enough, but gets tiring when you've been stuck somewhere for 25 minutes. Sound effects are iffy; the spells are OK, but the cries enemies make when struck are poor - imagine a really annoying bird squawking and you've got the general idea. The high pitched "scream" your character makes as he plummets to his death belies his studly status a bit, too. Unfortunately, you'll be hearing these sounds quite throughout the course of the game.

Re-playability was non-existent for me, as there are no extra areas to be found and by the time I got to the end I just wanted it to be over. I cannot imagine why anyone who makes it to the end of this game would want to endure it again.

I really wanted to like this game, but I'm afraid it was only pure stubbornness (and a desire to justify the hours of my life I'd already sunken into it) that enabled me to fight my frustration and get to the end. Quite simply, Brain Lord doesn't offer enough to compensate for the aggravation encountered while playing it.

At one point, while wondering around cluelessly, I came upon a plaque on the wall which read:

"Powerless human...When you're surrounded by my Dark Zone, there is only despair..."

I could not have agreed more.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/06