Brave Story: New Traveler

"Be Brave and Give This Game a Try"

Even though the PSP and DS are the current havens for RPGs, it's often hard to find a game on either system that really feels like it's worth your time to fully experience. I'm sort of speaking from experience, since I've been playing a lot of mediocre RPGs on both systems, and I'm finding most of them to be average at best. However, I was finally able to find a PSP RPG that I really enjoyed and that game was Brave Story: New Traveler.

Brave Story: New Traveler is a standard, turn based RPG on the PSP that was made by Xseed games. It follows the adventures of a young boy named Tatsuya. The game starts out as Tatsuya and his friend Miki are hanging out in a park, and Tatsuya is ignoring her and playing his PSP. (You know, just like we all do when girls approach us in real life) As Miki begs to get Tatsuya's attention, she walks away and doesn't come back. Tatsuya goes to look for her and finds that she has been stricken with a terrible illness that has left her bed ridden in a hospital. As Tatsuya heads to the roof of the hospital to think about things, he hears a celestial voice that speaks to him and tells him that he can save his friend Miki if he goes to the Land of Vision and becomes a Traveler. If he becomes a Traveler in Vision and completes a quest of obtaining 5 specific gemstones, the Goddess of Destiny will grant his wish, and he will be able to cure Miki.

Apparently, none of this seems bizarre to Tatsuya, so instead of contemplating his choices, he walks into the light and ventures into the World of Vision to save his friend Miki. This is how the game starts, and it's quite an interesting start to the game since it doesn't follow the stereotypical setup for an RPG game. However, once you get into the Land of Vision, things will seem very familiar to anyone that has played a JRPG before. Tatsuya will run around towns and dungeons, getting new companions and fighting random battles over and over.

Despite the game being rather formulaic overall, there are a few cool things that make the game stand out a bit from other JRPGs on the PSP. First off, Brave Story is an incredible looking game. It's probably running neck and neck with God of War: Chains of Olympus as the best looking PSP game I've seen so far. I'd say it looks better than a lot of PS2 games I've seen as well. Yes Brave Story looks good, and get this, there are hardly any loading times while playing the game. You will have your initial loading times, but once the game starts, you will seamlessly go from exploring, to battles, to the world map, to in-game cut scenes. It's really impressive for a PSP game, given some of the horrible load times I've experienced.

Brave Story also has a remarkable, and expansive sound track, an interesting story that culminates to a rather tense final confrontation, and some unique battle features that make the standard turned based formula feel fresh for a little while. I was very impressed with almost all aspects of the game, but Brave Story doesn't really break much new ground. If you enjoy good, well made JRPGs, then you will no doubt enjoy the classic gameplay that Brave Story has.

Graphics 9/10

Brave Story truly is a treat for the eyes. The graphics during the battles are incredibly detailed and house some impressive spell effects. The character models are very well done, and the cut scenes are mostly done with the in-game character models.

There are many different races in the Land of Vision. Kitkins, which resemble cat-type people, Waterkins, which resemble lizard-type people, Beastkins, which resemble beast-like creatures, and there are many more races as well. Each of the different races are given their own graphical style which adds to their distinction among the many NPCs in the Land of Vision. It makes things kind of interesting since you will not be running into the same NPCs over and over again.

You will first notice the detail in the character models when you come across your first party member named Yuno. She is a Kitkin that you meet early on, and during the in-game cut scenes, you will notice little details like her unkempt hair, and her ears twitching as she talks. It's just refreshing to see Xseed putting so much effort into little details when constructing the races in Brave Story.

As the battles rage on, the game is constantly zooming in on the action and giving you close up views of the action every time one of your characters or the enemies performs an action. While most games falter when the battles switch to close-up shots of the action, this is when Brave Story looks the best. Seeing a close-up of Meladee (a character in your party) step back, and release a tornado like attack that hits multiple enemies looks fantastic, and each and every attack in the game is worth seeing at least once IMO.

The enemy designs are just as good, and despite some of them getting re-used from time to time, there is a pretty good variety of enemies. Each enemy has a wide array of attacks and almost all of them can inflict some kind of status ailment on your party.

If there is one downside to the graphics in Brave Story, it would be the lack of detail in the dungeons and the world map. These areas can often seem somewhat bland in comparison, and the dungeons can get confusing since all of the passages look the same.

All things considered, this is one fantastic looking PSP game, one of the best I've ever seen.

Sounds and Music 8/10

Another great part of the Brave Story experience. The track listing is quite large, and almost every single dungeon and town has its own distinct music. I'm so used to games re-using music in towns that I was quite shocked later on in the game when I was still hearing new music in the dungeons and towns.

In the options menu, you have the ability to turn the character voices to either Japanese or English. This only affects the battle cries for your party members and the very few cut scenes that are voiced, which is only a few. Yes there is a lack of voice acting in Brave Story outside of the battles, but the small amount of voice acting is well done.

The in-battle voices are a mixed bag. I chose to use the English voices and I was surprised at how well they turned out for most of my teammates. I especially liked Yuno's voice and Tatsuya's voice. Some of the other characters are inconsistent. It almost sounds like some of the other characters were voiced with multiple voice actors and they just threw all of them together.

The sounds and music is another high quality part of Brave Story, but I think it could have benefited from a little more voice acting and some consistency in the voice acting of certain characters.

Story 8/10

The story is rather gripping in the beginning, but things slow down a bit around the middle of the game. Don't let this discourage you. Things pick up big time in the later parts of the game, and you will come across some shocking revelations as the game goes on.

The main character is Tatsuya, and he befriends Yuno shortly after arriving in Vision. He will also get four other characters in his party. Meladee, who is the leader of the Highlanders, and quite a strong fighter and healer. Sogreth, who is a Waterkin lizard-man. Ropple, who is a patronizing mage that can talk anyone into a corner. Finally, your party is rounded out with Leynart, who is the leader of the Knights of Stengel, and he brandishes a lance. It's quite a diverse cast of characters and each one had their own special charm that made me like them a little bit.

The main quest follows Tatsuya and his friends as they attempt to find the hidden gemstones and meet with the Goddess of Destiny so that Tatsuya can have his wish granted. The story is entertaining for the most part, and the characters in your party (especially Yuno) make sure that things never get boring. Each dungeon section is often broken up with some exploring and a good bit of story, so there is a pretty good balance of activities in the game.

Brave Story has some great moment when it comes to the story. Some of them will make you laugh, and sometimes you will feel deep sorrow for the characters, but it's enjoyable almost every step of the way. One enemy character in particular was extremely to my liking.

If there was one thing that I thought was odd about the story, it would be the lack of explanation on certain things. There are certain times in the game when a character or two will pop into your party for a short while, and then leave once a certain task is over. However, after they leave, you will never see them again and the game never explains who they are, what happened to them, or why they helped you in the first place. It's a small gripe for such a decent story, but I feel it's worth mentioning.

Gameplay 9/10
Brave Story is an old school, turn based RPG, and even though it's tried and tested gameplay, it just manages to be a lot of fun. You can have three characters in your active party, and you can have up to three characters to swap in and out of your party at any time outside of battle. The combination of characters becomes important when you take the Unity attacks into consideration.

Unity attacks are team attacks that function very much like the team attacks in Chrono Trigger. As each character fights battles together, they form bonds between each other, which will allow them to cast Unity attacks. These are high powered attacks that use up some of your Brave Power, which is synonymous with magic points. Brave Power goes down as you use Unity attacks and Bravura Skills. Bravura Skills are just like regular skills and magics in other games. When you do standard attacks, you will slowly regain BP in accordance with the amount of damage you do to the enemy. Cultivating new Bravura skills is as simple as going up levels, and there is no complex magic system to figure out.

If there is one clever new thing that Brave Story adds to the existing turn based formula, it would have to be the Extra Attacks. Each enemy model has two states. A regular state, and a weakened state. It's very easy to tell when an enemy is in a weakened state. If you do a standard attack on a weakened enemy, and the damage is high enough, your character will spin around and redistribute the rest of the damage to another enemy via an EX Attack. It's pretty satisfying when it happens. It's also a nice, strategic way to fight your battles. Instead of attacking one enemy at a time until they fall, you can just as easily take all of the enemies down into the weakened state and clean them up with your EX Attacks. It's a neat feature that I would like to see in other games.

Brave Story also has the unique feature of being able to Craze your enemies. Almost all of the enemy types have the ability to be Crazed, which means they will go hyper and become much stronger. Certain enemies will Craze according to certain conditions. Some will Craze if you use Bravura attacks against them, others may Craze once you have killed all of the other enemies, and some will Craze when you use Unity attacks on them. It adds a little bit more to the standard random battles, and sometimes forces you to fight strategically and use certain attacks to avoid Crazing the enemies. It's kind of invigorating to know that almost any random battle can turn into a min-boss fight, but it does not happen very frequently, so it's not overly annoying.

There really is a lot to talk about with Brave Story in the gameplay department, but I think this is a great game to discover things on your own.

Longevity and Re-Playability 8/10

The main quest in Brave Story can take anywhere from 25-35 hours, depending on how many side quests you choose to do. There are seven pages of side quests available to you, an accessory crafting aspect to the game, a bird fighting mini-game that can net you a bunch of new items, and a few other things that can keep you occupied for a long time.

On the down side, the main quest is very linear, and pretty much forces you to go to your next destination. Once you get the ability to travel anywhere, all of the side quests open up to you, and you can accomplish them however you want to.

Conclusion

Brave Story really surprised me. I was expecting a mediocre RPG with nothing special, but I found myself wrapped up in the story and the compelling gameplay before I knew what hit me. I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a good PSP RPG to play. It's quite an underrated gem, and the best PSP RPG I have played yet.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/01/09

Game Release: Brave Story: New Traveler (US, 07/31/07)