"A light RPG which provides entertainment but not necessarily originality"

Brave Story: New Traveler is a turn-based RPG created for the Sony PSP. While playing through it, players will find themselves battling their way through a monster-infested fantasy world, ripe with one dungeon crawling experience after the next.

Graphics:
The graphics in this game are somewhat all over the spectrum. In towns and dungeons, you get a top-down view of your character, comparable to an upgraded Pokemon game. The buildings and scenery are all more than acceptable for a PSP game, in fact, quite a step up from scenery in the original Playstation RPGs, but the tiny figure representing your character feels too small, and could easily stand to be more defined. Between towns and dungeons you're taken to a world map, which, admittedly, does a good job at not looking like a world map. Enough trees and mountains are added in to remove the regular ugliness experienced with world maps in RPGs, so most RPG fans will find this to be an improvement. The battle graphics are where this game shines. Characters are on an average looking battlefield, but fully defined with custom equipment. Every skill has a unique animation, and many of them go into a slow-motion side-shot to add to the effect. Comical onomatopoeias flash on the screen such as "boom!" to give a cartoony feel to the battle, although this adds to the battles rather than subtract.
Graphics rating: 7/10

Sound
There is little to be said for the sound in the game. There is only a handful of instances where actual voice-acting takes place, in most scenarios chat-boxes do the work. The rest of the game attempts to theme the music based on what's going on--there's soothing music at the inns, upbeat music during battles and so on. The music is nothing spectacular, but cannot be criticized as poor, especially when compared to other RPGs of this time.
Sound rating: 8/10

Gamplay:
As one may expect in a turn-based RPG the gameplay can get repetitive. Random battles are more common in this game than in others, which many people won't mind, as that's a large part of RPGs. The problem lies in the dungeon crawling: the dungeons in this game lack any sort of map, and it's as if the developers went WAY out of their way to make the dungeons frustrating and tedious. Some gamers will remember how frustrating the old Zelda games would be--you'd choose one route out of three possible routes in a dungeon, only to be confronted with another three routes next screen. Dungeons in Brave Story: New Traveler are essentially the same; you bite your tongue and take one path, reminding yourself to go back and check the other paths after, only to be confronted with another frustrating decision. When paired with a random encounter every 5 seconds of walking, one can easily backtrack without realizing it and get disoriented.
Gameplay rating: 6/10

Story:
Surprisingly, Brave Story: New Traveler offers more than your average RPG in terms of story. You play as a young boy named Tatsuya, whose friend is in a coma in the hospital. Tatsuya must travel to the world of Vision--a fantasy world where guns and machinery are replaced by swords and magic. Throughout the game, you learn more about the situation in Vision, traveling from town to town and dungeon to dungeon. Your mission? Make acquaintances and grow stronger, the eventual goal to meet with the Goddess, who will grant your wish and heal your sick friend.
Story rating: 7/10

Overall:
Most RPG fans will enjoy this game as it's a definitely a quality-made game that can hold its own in the gaming world. Although not truly remarkable in any one area, this game doesn't severely lack in any field, and will, at absolute minimum, entertain the gamer while he or she plays through, without taking much effort on the gamer's part. Basically, it's a good purchase if you're looking for something light to do when you're bored.
Overall rating: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/07