Brave Fencer Musashi (Playstation)

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Brave Fencer Musashi
(Playstation)

Why is this game on a Pokemon page? Because it's based off the legend of the samurai Musashi and Kojirou (whom our favorite members of the Rocket-Dan are named after). The legend goes that Kojirou challenged Musashi Miyamoto (who's a male in the legend) to a duel. Kojirou showed up promptly with his best swords, while Musashi drifts to the battle site asleep on a raft. The raft hits the land and jostles Musashi so that he awakens to the sight of Kojirou charging at him. With his cat-like reflexes, Musashi dodges Kojirou's attack and bashes him on the head with his wooden sword, instantly killing him.

Brave Fencer Musashi is Square's answer to The Legend of Zelda. There are plenty of dungeons with puzzles not unlike those that might appear in a Zelda game to keep you stumped. OK, the puzzles aren't that hard to figure out-it's a game for little kids. Musashi and Kojirou are little bratty kids in this game (they were adults in the legend) and the puzzles are little more than figuring out how where to move a block or using a specific talent.

The plot of the game is that Princess Fillet has been kidnapped (how original!) by the Thirstquincher Empire from Alucaneet Palace. The people at the palace summon the anchient hero Musashi to save their princess, and thus your journey begins. In order to beat the Thirstquincher Empire and save the princess, you must power up one of your swords, Lumina, by releasing five seals. There's the earth, fire, water, wind, and sky seals to be released (the real Musashi the legend's based off of wrote a book which told the five elements to be earth, fire, wind, water, and emptiness). After uncovering each seal, you gain an additional ability to help you on your quest: the earth scroll enables you to cause earthquakes, the water scroll lets you walk on water and shoot water to put fires out, the sky scroll lets you levitate, etc. Just like some areas in Zelda aren't accessible until after you have a specific tool, certain areas of Brave Fencer Musashi are inaccessible without the proper elemental scroll.

Musashi's other sword, the sword of Fusion, enables Musashi to assimilate enemies' abilities. For example, at the very beginning of the game, you must cut down a rope holding a bell in the air. But it's too far away to cut with your swords. What do you do? You find an enemy that has a gun-firing ability, and assimilate its "shot" ability. Now you can shoot bullets at the rope and cut the bell down, enabling you to advance.

The game is divided into six chapters: the first chapter is an introductory chapter, and then for every element you have, there is a seperate chapter for each one. The second chapter is the Earth Chapter, the third is the Water Chapter, and so on.

Time passes like in Zelda 64. The days go through a 24-hour cycle as well as a Monday-Sunday cycle. Most of the stores in the town are only open during the day, so you can't buy any supplies when it's midnight. In addition, some stores aren't open on certain days, so you'll have to time your trips to the store. In addition, Musashi gets tired as the journey progresses. Musashi has a tiredness meter which indicates how tired he is. If he gets 70% tired or more, his performance starts to decline (at first he'll slow down, but if it gets to 100%, he'll fall asleep). The only way to stop sleepiness is to sleep (hold down the R1 button and press Triangle). This may sound boring, but it's actually a neat idea which makes the game even more fun to play. When you're sleeping, time passes very quickly so waiting for the next day takes less than a minute.

Yes, this is a dubbed RPG, and almost EVERY line of dialogue is dubbed by the voice "talent." Almost every stereotypical role is represented by the voice actors: Musashi is a brat, the Princess is a valley girl, Rootrick is a hillbilly, the head of the Thirstquincher Empire sounds Russian, the librarian sounds very effeminite, etc. Luckily, there is a way to bypass most of the dubbing, so the game is bearable.

Translation-wise, the game is strange. Square completely ruined the legend by trivializing the fight between Musashi and Kojirou. When you first meet Kojirou (who was summoned by the Princess) he yells at Musashi for giving him his scar (when Mushashi gave Kojirou that fatal blow in the legend). However, the US game tells us that Kojirou got the scar by tripping and falling! The legendary battle is completely trivialized and sounds very immature. Earlier in the game, the shopkeeper of a bar gets drunk, but in the US game he "gets tired from all the soda pop." The game has been toned down for US audiences. Then again, one of the clues for getting to fortress deep into the woods is to "think about the game shogi." How would a little kid know that shogi is Japanese chess?

Overall, the game is very fun and is a worthy purchase. The ending stinks, but the rest of the game is great. The final battle with Topo is fun! Anyway, you should be able to find the game in most electronic stores.

Left: Musashi Center: Kojirou Right: the Princess

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