A look back at: Brave Fencer Musashi

And here I was thinking that Great Greed was the only one game I would play with satirical food names being applied.

So yeah, I mentioned Brave Fencer Musashi quite a bit when talking about Threads of Fate. Both are definitely action RPGs with their own nuances. However, I liked the way Brave Fencer Musashi played a lot more. Two swords, both with different advantages and disadvantages, as well as powerups in a number of ways. Either it's Legendary Armor stuff which I don't care much for since those are equips, or those other ways of reaching areas such as Crest Magic used by Lumina or the rather interesting concept of taking enemy abilities by throwing and assimilating them, a la Kirby or Megaman. Not to mention the combo moves. Unfortunately jumping takes a precedence for this game, and there are even special gameplay moments that almost feel like quick-time events. One very interesting mechanic this game has is tiredness, which actually almost balances the abilities that Musashi is capable of doing. Since he's a lazy oaf, he can just fall flat on any surface and sleep, regaining some of his combative abilities in the process. Quite cool!

Well as I said, they just had to make things food-based. The main town and kingdom just so happens to be named Allucaneet (read: all you can eat). Though we have a cool contrast here. The evil empire? Named Thirstquencher. So it's food vs. drink, wow. Only there's not a whole lot of character depth overall. You break bincho fields which contain some of the food-themed NPCs, and there are only three villains with drink names (the Leader's Force people don't actually count). Though the villains can be quite comical overall. Ben is just the Kronk-like big guy while Ed seems like a threat but his stammering and demeanor show he's not serious at all. Bubbles and Gingerale pretty much are at odds with each other. Fuhrer Flatski at least seems decent despite just being a traditional Fuhrer (they just HAD to use that term though) but he naturally gets flattened at the end. Capriccola/Jon was probably the most well-done character. Musashi, and later on Kojiro, are from a different place altogether, yet one is hellbent on the other and the other one is just tasked by the Kingdom to do their tasks. Of course, with ONE of the swords having to have something sealed inside it, it really does end up cliche. The different side-plots were good though. But this whole plot was quite fun to go through as was the gameplay and so far as far as Playstation action RPGs go this one isn't one to miss.