Brave Fencer Musashi Reviews

Brave Fencer is Squaresoft second action rpg but it really is Squaresoft first truly action rpg. At a glance this game appears to be more of a kiddies action rpg but that's probably due to the fact that Squaresoft is trying to appeal to the mainstream fans than your average action rpgers. Let's face it, there aren't that many kids out there willing to sit through a major puzzle solving game like Alundra these days. Which kinda explain why Brave Fencer is easy compare to Alundra. Is Brave Fencer a good action rpg game? Hmm...

In the Kingdom of Allucaneet, the King and Queen has decided to leave for a vacation leaving their daughter, Princess Fillet and her servants behind in charge of Allucaneet Castle. The evil Thirstquencher Empire has decided to use this moment to invade the Allucaneet Kingdom. With the Kingdom in choas and people of the Allucaneet Kingdom being turned into crystal, Princess Fillet decided to summon the legendary hero, Brave Fencer Musashi from another world. Having vow to save the Allucaneet Kingdom and stop the Thirstquencher Empire before returning to his home world, Musashi heads off on his quest.
The quest itself is straightforward where Musashi must visit and solve the 5 elemental dungeons to gain the fire, earth, sky, wind, and water scrolls needed to enter the final dungeon. Just your typical action rpg stuff here.
Overrall, the story is more of a light-hearted warm action comedy rpg story than an in-depth one. Again this is to appeal to the younger gamers than anything else.

Brave Fencer have many characters throughout the game. From villagers to people who'd Musashi rescued, to the main supporting casts. Unfortunately there's a real lack of character developement here. We, the gamers, don't really get to know much about Musashi, himself, and where he came from. Or anything else about his supporting cast too. Kojiro, Musashi rival, appears in the game wanting to challenge Musashi to a sword fight. Why? Who knows? There's no real purpose to have Kojiro in the game at all and this applies to some of the other characters as well.

The world of Brave Fencer is a fully 3-D world with short de-formed polygons. The colors in this game are pretty good. The background graphics are pretty good too. But unfortunetly the polygons characters figures aren't so good. They are short and somewhat de-formed. Musashi has a short and small body with a giant size ugly looking head. All the characters are small short polygons. They look more like sprites but in 3-D instead. I guess Squaresoft wanted the characters to look cute and cartoony but really, they don't look cute and cartoony at all. Overrall the graphics aren't bad mind you but it could've been done better.

Brave Fencer feature quite a number of tunes. Lets face it, almost every single Squaresoft game has an abundance of tunes and Brave Fencer is no different. Though the tunes aren't as good as an FF game, but nevertheless it's pretty good in it's on way.
The voice over aren't too bad. They're average at best. Nothing that can hurt the game but nothing that can help it either.

The gameplay is pretty easy. A great beginner's action rpg. Now besides the usual save the princess, solve the puzzles, and defeat a boss. There are a few things that I should mention. Using your regular elemental attacks isn't the only thing you can do. You can absorb and steal enemies magic and techniques. This is call assimilate. It is require for you to learn and use assimilate properly throughout the game. Afterall, some puzzles absolutely require you to assimilate an enemy skill inorder to solve the puzzles. You are also require to find and rescue numerous members of the Allucaneet Palace staff. This isn't an absolute requirement but it is nice to do though to get a complete game. Some rescued members will even teach you good combo attacks so it's a good idea to rescue them. Another thing I will add is that you can collect toys. What do these toys do? Nothing really. They are nice to have though as a collection. Overrall, the gameplay is decent Nothing that will turn you on or off.

Hmm. I don't recall any mini games or anything extra in the game besides the collecting of toys in the game. Well you can go and play your free FF8 demo that was included in the game. LOL. Once you finished the game the first time around, you get a chance to replay the last chapter again just to finish collecting all the toys you missed in the first game. Overrall nothing much in terms of extra or replay value.

Final words, Brave Fencer is pretty much a beginners rpg. It's a great warm up before tackling the harder action rpgs like the Alundra series.