Name: Brave Fencer Musashiden (88.00% in 5 votes)
Type: RPG
Platform: PSX
Company: SquareSoft Japan
Release date: 1998
Reviewed by: Tamahome
Brave Fencer Musashiden is the newest square ARPG released. It is a single CD, but the game comes with a playable demo of Final Fantasy 8. Many people would buy the game just to get their hands on the demo. At first, I thought the game looked kinda dump. The graphics of the game was not amazing, and the characters are done in poor polygon. As I play the game more and more, it gets better. The plot, the music and the gameplay started to entertain me.
Brave Fencer Musashiden is about how Musashi, a legendary hero was summoned to the world to protect the city and the princess. Musashi was sent on his first quest after the intro the get the legendary weapon which sealed the evil demon, Reygund. After getting the sword, he confronted an enemy and the princess was captured in that scene. After fighting the giant robot boss, Musashi was sent by the noblemen to fetch the 5 magical runes and rescue the princess. Thus the quest of Musashi begins. (On another note, Musashi appears as a kid, because the princess is only a beginner in her summoning career, so Musashi is not a full grown hero.)
The game contains a lot of puzzle as well as exploring to do. You can use Musashi's katana to abosrb enemy's abilities which is needed to past certain levels. He can also get different powerups which would allow him to climb walls and create earthquakes and so on. After getting the runes, the Reygund will gain the power of that rune. Musashi will be able to create earthquakes with the Reygund after getting the Earth Rune.
Here are the ratings I give to this game:
Gameplay: 8/10 -- The gameplay is easy in the sense that the enemies are not extremely strong, but the fact that the keep regenerating in the most frustrating puzzles will make it hard. The game is set in a 3D environment so moving will take some getting use to. This game supports analog and using the dual shock pad will make the game easier. The dual shock pad will shake whenever the earth shakes in the game, so it is kinda cool for those of you with the dual shock pad.
Music: 7/10 -- The music tends to get repetitive, but it has a nice groove to it. I haven't heard too many tracks of the game yet, but the main theme is very good.
Graphics: 8/10 -- The characters needs some imrpovement, but apart from that, the game is not bad. The backgrounds are done nicely, as well as the environment in the villages and castle. Close up the character looks worse than the ones in Xenogears though.
Story: 7/10 -- The idea of summoning a hero to protect a country has been used before in a lot of anime, namely, Magic knight Rayearth, Fushigi Yuugi and so forth. The funny thing about the story is that Musashi dresses in anicent Japanese Sumarai oufit while the other characters in the games dresses like people in mideval europe.
Overall: 7/10 -- This game is a good action game, but it does not deserve a higher score than 7, because it does not really resemble an RPG. You can only use Musashi throughout the game so I would really call this more of a action puzzle game. Sure, there are interactions between different characters, but there aren't enough to keep the story flowing at a reasonable pace. Overall this game is very good, and for those of you who got the game because of the final fantasy 8 demo, you haven't missed out. it is a good game.
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