The Life of an Ex-Hardcore Gamer

You will get jump kicked in the face by a rabbit… Come on, do you need to know anything more than that when buying a game? Oh, you do? Then read on…

I guess I can’t blame you, especially when it comes to a game like Brave Story. That’s not to say that it’s a bad game, but it’s not a GREAT game, and it’s not a game for everyone.

When I started this review, I thought I was going to be doing something a bit more timely. When I saw the listing in the new releases on the Playstation Store a few weeks back, I was under the impression that it was a new PSP game released straight to the store. I don’t know why, I guess because I don’t usually follow RPGs that the name didn’t strike me as something I had heard before. Upon some more research though I realized that it was a game released a few years ago to some decent reviews, so I held off a bit to review it, and used that time to really get into the game and find out what it’s all about.

Brave Story is very much a standard JRPG. If you do not like JRPGs, then you can just stop reading now because you will not like this game. It has a story that deals with a main hero that you control that never talks, you have a fight as a group of 3 (Even when more people are in your party, forcing you to choose the “right combination”), you use menus to pick attack, spell, item. It’s all very generic in the sense that it doesn’t feel like anything new, but at the same time if you’re into that kind of game some fun can be had playing Brave Story. While it may be generic, what it does, it does right.

To get a bit more specific into the battle system, yes it’s items, attack, and spells (called Bravura), but there are also Unity Attacks which are double and triple team moves to do greater damage or have stronger effects on the enemy. It uses up the BP (Bravery Points, what this game has instead of the usual MP) for both (or all 3) characters, and you earn more by using certain characters together more. The more they work together, the more they learn, but also the less they would learn than if they were working with someone else instead. As for the Bravery Points, you can only get those back by using a normal attack on an enemy, there are no potions to drink to get them back like MP in other RPGs. Another little addition to make it slightly different than most (but not all) RPGs is the “Extra Attack.” If you use a normal attack on a weakened enemy and defeat them you have a great chance of doing a second extra attack for extra damage against another foe. Not all of this is exactly revolutionary, but you learn it all at a good pace that keep you feel like you can continually better your character, but without it taking a lot of time grinding to do so. I am normally not a huge fan of JRPGs, but the pacing of learning new abilities kept me going “ok, one more level, one more level.” There is also the ability to craft your own accessories in the game. As you travel you will find diagrams that let you know what materials you need to make them. You get these materials from battles against “Crazed” creatures which bigger and stronger versions of creatures you fight against. My only major complaint gameplay-wise is that I felt that the game could have been greatly enhanced by a map when you are in dungeons. You have one when outside of them in the over world map, but not in dungeons which can get a bit confusing at times. I can understand why they would do that, but at least map out where you have been already. Very minor and I obviously was able to get through it in the end.

Now, even though I’m not the biggest fan of JRPGs, I know that the main draw of an RPG for many people is not the gameplay, but the story. The story here is that you are a kid in the modern day real world who is an avid video game player. The game starts with you playing your PSP while ignoring your best friend (a female whom you can name whatever you’d like) and your dog Kratos (I’m sure another sign of how much of a video game fan you are). Kratos runs off, and your friend goes after him but mysteriously falls ill. She is in the hospital and the doctors do not give her much hope since they have no idea what is wrong with her. Queue the fantasy aspect of this game as you are warped into another world called Vision where you are considered what they call a Traveler. You are given a giant sword and told that you have to find the 5 gemstones to get back to the real world and grant your wish (which is, of course, to save your friend). As you get each gem, you get one more chance to go back to the real world briefly and see your friend and find out a bit more about what happened as well as making your sword larger and giving you more abilities. I won’t go into any detail further than that so as to avoid any spoilers. I found the story to be decent enough that I care to keep going, which I can’t say about other RPGs, but take that with a grain of salt since I have not played many in my day.

From what I have read, it is based on a manga so you may or may not recognize characters throughout if you have read it. I have enjoyed the story enough that I went out and bought the first volume so I can compare. Once I read that I will update the review to do so. Since it is based on a manga though, the developers have chosen to go with a cartoony look complete with “kapow” and other such sound effects written attacks and spells land. They usually look very good, that is until they zoom in way too much and the textures look very blurry. Not much of a big deal since it does not come up that often.

If the main game is not enough for you, there is also a bird fighting mini game that I have yet to spend a whole lot of time with. You can capture birds in the various dungeons and set them to fight other birds if you find someone holding them. You have no direct control over your birds, you basically just want to have as good of a bird as possible and hope their stats are more than the opponents. I did not really see much of a point to this so I have spent very little time doing so, but I may go back after beating the game just to see what I was missing.

I mentioned in the beginning of the review that this is a game that is now on PSN in the Playstation Store. You can download it either directly to your PSP’s memory card, or to your PS3 and then transfer it to your PSP (but it is not playable on PS3). It is only 147 MB to download and store, and will run you $14.99. Of course it is also still available on UMD but Amazon seemed to have it for $19.99 new and $16.79 used at the time of this writing, so it seems the download is the better deal if you are the type to not care about packaging. It does have a digital version of the manual if you care.

3 ½ stars out of 5 – A rather generic JRPG that benefits a bit from being portable since it’s easier to just grind some levels while watching TV. Normally would be 3 stars, but an extra ½ star for keeping me addicted enough to keep playing unlike most JRPGs, and having the portability factor.