Release Dates
Japan: July 16, 1998
North America: October 31, 1998
Europe: ...wait, Wikipedia says Europe never got this. Is that true? If so, what a shame!
Platforms: PS1
Developer: Squaresoft
Brave Fencer Musashi is a PS1 Action RPG that was unlike anything I had played at the time. It featured sword-based combat, hilarious voiceovers, wonderful characters, day/night cycles, 3D environments, a fatigue system, and one of the most memorable stories I've had the pleasure of playing through. This game was seriously in a league of its own and has, unfortunately, been forgotten by the masses (mostly Square Enix).
Here's what Brave Fencer did great:
The Hero
Some backstory: Long ago, the Allucaneet Kingdom was under constant attack by a fiend known as "The Wizard of Darkness", who used his powers to throw an unrelenting barrage of terror on Allucaneet's residents. After seasons of darkness and sorrow…finally, a hero appeared! This hero was known as Musashi, and he was here to save the day! Musashi fought the evil wizard and ultimately won. With the help of his mighty sword (Lumina) Musashi sealed away the wizard and kept evil at bay.
Fast forward to present day in the Allucaneet Kingdom. The evil Thirstquencher Empire has suddenly attacked, kidnapping several residents of the Allucaneet Kingdom. Princess Fillet has been tasked with performing the "Hero Summon" (the summon needed to bring back Musashi) but is surprised to find out that he's....not what they were expecting.
Turns out Musashi is a loud-mouthed, arrogant, and smart-alecky youngster. Seeing as he's the guy you're controlling the whole game, you'd think this would be a problem. Thankfully, Musashi is also quick-to-defend, loveable, and an overall stand-up guy.
He's not at all what the Kingdom was expecting...but he's all they've got! After a quick meet-and-greet with the remaining palace members, Musashi is given a task: save the kingdom from the Thirstquencher Empire. In order to do this, he'll need to 1) Retrieve Lumina 2) Save the kidnapped Allucaneet palace members and 3) Obtain the 5 scrolls of legend.
(There's more to do than that but I don't want to spoil too much)
The Gameplay
BFM is unlike any other JRPG because of its action elements. You've got two swords at your disposal: Lumina and Fusion. Lumina is a heavy-hitting red sword that's necessary to take down the harder enemies and bosses in the game. Fusion is a smaller blue sword that can smack away little baddies, but it's also got an amazing power.
Fusion can be used to copy the abilities of your enemies. It's kind of like Kirby, except you're taking one very specific power from an enemy. For example, let's say you're stuck on a path with spiky thorn bushes blocking your way. Obviously you can't walk through it because you'll hurt yourself, so what do you do? Look for bad guys, take their powers, and experiment! BFM did a great job of making you look at enemy abilities and seeing how it could be used for traversal and combat.
In the case of the thorny bushes, Musashi could learn the "Hop" ability from a flower enemy and hop right across the dangerous terrain.
The Palace Rescuees
The palace members of Allucaneet have been kidnapped and encased in Bincho Fields (these green cage-thingies) by the Thirsquencher Empire! It's up to you to find where they've been taken and free them from their prison. Freeing each palace member slowly opened up the Kingdom's shops and vendors, making it possible to advance the story, craft special accessories, and restore your health (among many other things).
Finding every Palace member was an absolute blast, especially knowing that each member saved helped you get stronger and learn new abilities. Seeing sections of the castle open up again with new palace members made the experience of finding these people all the more enjoyable.
The Characters / Localization
This is how you make characters and bad guys. Each one was memorable because of their voice actor and written dialogue. The localization and VA team deserve all the praise in the world for bringing these characters to life. And even though this is a Squaresoft game, you'd never know it with how campy and goofy everybody is. It's like the entire team chose to have fun with the script and went all out, making for some of the most cheerful and likeable allies/villains. Enough cannot be said about how much I adore the people that help/hinder Musashi in his journey.
The Music
BFM's soundtrack was composed by Tsuyoshi Sekito who is known for a lot of collab work for yuge games like Chrono Trigger, Dawn of Mana, The Last Remnant, and Kingdom Hearts BBS. He did a fantastic job with this OST and I've listed a few personal favorites. They range anywhere from heroic to haunting, and they've been in my head for almost 20 years now.
The Musashi Legend
The Treachery of the...
The White Cloud in the Sky
Infiltration into Soda Fountain
Allucaneet Palace
The Bosses
I want to avoid spoiling too much so I've only taken a few screencaps of just a few moments from the game that stand out to me.
These are just a handful of the many bosses you'll come across in the game. Along with the crest guardians and the Thirstquencher Empire, you'll also be fighting against bitter rivals from days past and steam punk monstrosities that require all of Musashi's abilities (including jetpacking!)
So, that's why you'd probably love Brave Fencer Musashi. With that said, there are a few things that you might not love.
The Minigames
BFM does a great job at keeping things fresh and exciting. It's the type of action RPG that doesn't want to get into a routine, which is great. But some of the breaks in between dungeon crawling can be a little obtuse. Now, I love most everything about this game but I can understand why people would get annoyed with the minigames that are basically necessary to advance the story. You'll have to stop a steam generator from blowing up the town, survive a tunnel ride with a bug-kart, and even go rafting through a waterfall (among many other events)! Again, I liked them, but you might not.
The Platforming
Musashi's controls take a while to get used to. His jump doesn't arc in the nicest way and it's actually rather short (because he's a little turd n' all) which makes for somewhat frustrating platforming sections early on. As the game progress, however, Musashi learns abilities that let him double jump, jet pack around, and even climb walls (take that BotW!), which makes the platforming much more enjoyable.
The Voice Acting
I love the voice acting in this game because it it's so overly goofy and exaggerated but I can totally understand why some people would find it annoying. Honestly, I was thrown off by it at first but I ended up loving how everyone sounded by the end of the game (even Rootrick).
The Vambees
Seriously fuck these zombie vampire blood sucking auto-kill douchebags. The music, the noise they make, the fact that you're basically dead if they grab you. Fuuuuuuck them.
So, that's about it! I absolutely adore this game through and through and I feel like I could go on and on about how great this game is but I'll stop here. There's so much more to the game that I feel I haven't talked enough about. It's truly a shame that Square never released this outside of the PS1. If anyone at Square is reading this: For the love of God, please…at least release this on the PS Store. I would be forever grateful. To the rest of you Era-ers/ Reset-lers/ Reset-lamites (have we figured out what we're calling each other?), if you have the good fortune of buying this classic ARPG and you still have a PS1/PS2 lying around, you won't be disappointed! Happy Halloween, everyone!
