Brave Fencer Musashiden - Retroview

I May Be Small But I Can Kick YOUR Butt!

By: ASV

Review Breakdown
Battle System	8
Interface	4
Music/Sound	7
Originality	7
Plot	7
Localization	8
Replay Value	5
Visuals	6
Difficulty	Easy
Time to Complete	10-25 hours
Overall
Criteria

   When Brave Fencer Mushashiden came out in 1997 - just opposite Parasite Eve - I fairly well ignored it as another crappy splinter game coming from some hidden back-office SquareSoft crew. But, as the years dragged on and I continually noticed it vanishing from used-game store shelves and bins, it occured to me that I might be missing out on something great; much like my years-long detestation of the idea of Chrono Trigger. Let me just say that for a brand-new copy and only $15 down, I got a really awesome deal.

   Outwardly, BFM's battle system is highly reminiscent of Secret of Mana and Zelda... Except for two major differences.
First - and hardest to explain properly - is the built-in power of your first sword, Fusion. Basically, by charging up the sword and throwing it like a spear, you can gain the special powers of your foes. These can be anything from shooting telekinetic bullets to using Fusion as a pogo-stick. Unfortunately, you can only 'assimilate' one of these skills at a time and as soon as you harpoon the next enemy and drain his skill away, the one you had previously is lost until you 'assimilate' it again.
Secondly, your other sword (the one that the first chapter of the game revolves around), Lumina, occasionally gains elemental powers that have various effects on either terrain, enemies, or both simultaneously.

   There are two types of battles in BFM, common monsters that you can either fight or just choose to run around (not suggested by me) and boss battles. Boss creatures often need to be fought in a peculiar way to be destroyed. A good example is the second boss creature, Skullpion. Four townsfolk help you in your battle by passing a basket of either bombs, rocks, or antidote herbs over the pit you fight in. In order to actually remove life from the creatures health meter, you need to inflict a fairly severe amount of damage to his hide - which deflects even your most powerful sword attacks. You do this by using the 'earthquake' function of the Earth Scroll Lumina-sword and making the basket wobble its' contents out onto the creature.

Tip-Toe-Through-The-'Tulips'?

   The menu system is sorta hard to use because it's made up of several different small menus inside a sub-screen. You can only work with one menu at a time and it's easy to get frustrated trying to maneuver from the Lumina-Scroll menu to the Option menu if you haven't selected and finalized a choice in the former, first. Essentially, you have to constantly make sure that you complete each task you set out on and not stop in the middle unless you just want to do things over again.

   Musically, the game reminds me of a really serialized anime... Something that the Cartoon Network might have in stock. Most of the songs are good (although more than a few are tacky and dischordant - on purpose) but it's the sound effects that are truly the marvel of this game. A good deal of the dialogue is voice acted (a preview of the PSX2, mayhap?) which is something I haven't come across very often in the 32bit generation of gaming. Admittedly, some of the translation is a little over dramatized but the sound follows the text to the letter.

   The plot is pretty simple, really. Musashi gets summoned from his world to aid the despairing kingdom of Allucaneet (pronounced like all-you-can-eat... the game is chock-full of terrible puns like this) by collecting the equipment of the legendary Brave Fencer Musashi. Along the way you deal with the menace of an age-old Necromancer and the idiotic denizens of the Thirstquencer Empire (AGAIN with the puns!).

Gundam Models? I Think Not!

   In terms of the localization, it's well done - if very slap-stick. The mere fact that the audio dialogue actually follows the printed text is a plus and in much the same manner as Chrono Cross, most of the characters have some sort of odd accent to their speech patterns. The one really awesome thing about this game is SquareSoft's total stick-with-the-moteif attitude when they actually translated such great phrases as Princess Fillet (ugh... I'm being 'pun'ished  >;)  ) calling Musashi, "You... little turd!"

   BFM is short enough that it would be a fairly simple matter to run through it on occasion. There's a single drawback to this plan; after you beat it the first time, there's nothing new to discover. All the enemies are always in the same spot; and Bincho Fields are in the same places; all of everything that you did before will be identical to the last time. The one obvious reason to replay a game in this situation is to see how much time you can cut off your clock. But... In my opinion, that's not a particularly good reason.

   A good comparison point for BFM graphically would be Parasite Eve or FFVII. They all came out around the same time (probably why I ignored BFM and PE for so long...) so you can see some striking similarities between them all. The 3D modeling could use some help but you can't ask for everything and actually get it, can you?

Doctor Jones, I Presume?

   Bosses, bosses, bosses. Everything of even the vagueist and most remote difficulty in the game revolves around boss fights. On the average you should always expect to die at least once fighting each boss. And - as should be fairly easy to expect - the further into the game that you get, the tougher the bosses become. Good luck!

   As I mentioned above, the game is fairly short and without a whole lot of exploration to do, you can't easily get lost. As a matter of fact, the explorable area is so small that you can get to anywhere in a matter of minutes. And, while during the timed portions of the game that is an especially good thing, it makes your options fairly small, indeed.

   Although BFM is by-no-means spectacular, it's a nice change of pace from the usual humdrum of the AT system RPGs. No offense to Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy, but sometimes it's more fun to roam around the forest aimlessly and not get sucked into fighting every random slug-beast that crosses your path...