Retro Review - Brave Fencer Musashi

SquareSoft, undoubtedly one of the most important videogame developers of all time, under its label there is a large number of titles that today are considered classics and cult games by a large number of people around the world. It is indisputable the impact it has had on the video game industry, so much so that, after more than 20 years, many of its video games remain in the collective memory of its fans and in turn, served and still serve as inspiration for many other video game developers. One of those great games that belongs to SquareSoft, is one that really is an excellent game, full of action and many humorous moments.

Brave Fencer Musashi, tells us the story of, as his name indicates Musashi, a legendary warrior who for more than 100 years saved his kingdom at the hands of the evil "Wizard of Darkness", after Musashi defeated this powerful magician, thanks to the "Lumina" sword, the kingdom was at peace for 150 years, until the current events of the game. In the present era and after 150 years, the kingdom is again in danger, but this time who is threatening the peace of the inhabitants of the kingdom is the "Empire Thirstquencher", therefore, again will need the help of our former hero Musashi.

To bring him back, they perform a kind of ritual by which Musashi is going to be invoked again, the princess of the kingdom is the one in charge by means of her magical powers to bring back our protagonist. After the whole invocation process was done "correctly" Musashi appears on stage, but everyone is totally surprised to see it, as it is not at all what they expected. Musashi appears to the sight of all, but he is a child and in fact, a child a little badly educated, something that leave everyone even more surprised, but as they are against the clock, due to the attack that the kingdom is suffering, they decide to indicate why it was invoked again, Musashi, understands the situation and goes in search of the sword "Lumina". After some moments of fighting against the army of the empire, our protagonist obtains the legendary sword, but when returning to the castle, the princess has been kidnapped and now our mission becomes a little more difficult, because not only must we save the kingdom, we must also save the princess and some inhabitants who were also kidnapped.

But to achieve all this, Musashi will have to look for the "Five Scrolls", which are scrolls that each have an elemental power, in such a way that the legendary sword Lumina can absorb these powers, but it is not going to be an easy task at all and during our adventure we will live many moments and situations of high danger, but at the same time, this is a game that its strong point is the humor, reason why we will also live great moments and amusing situations.

Brave Fencer Musashi is a game entirely in 3D and although it is a pretty old 3D, it really doesn't look so bad and this is due to its artistic style and the color palette used both in its characters as well as in its scenarios. The artistic style of this game has certain similarities with that of an anime, well, exactly has the characteristic style of an anime, with colorful characters, both in their clothes, as in their hair color, in addition to having big eyes, especially Musashi, our main character, which presents an artistic style "chibi" that is characterized by having a small body, but with a big head and eyes, thus giving it a pretty comical design that fits very much with the humorous style of the game.

Both the characters and the scenarios present a high level of color, being a game quite striking to the eye, especially the scenarios that are quite large, varied and with good details to see. Being a game of the old but beloved PS1, the polygons are going to be a total part of this game, but because of its artistic style so characteristic and curious, it really looks great, besides that in terms of animation, the characters present a great level of fluidity of movement, something that is of great importance in a game of this genre. Brave Fencer Musashi is a very particular game as far as its graphic aspect is concerned and I think it hasn't aged badly at all, despite all the years that have passed.

We are talking about a game that has under its seal to the same SquareSoft and for any knowledge of the subject knows that this developer, if in several aspects highlighted, in addition to creating excellent games, which today are remembered as the best of their generation, was for its excellent level of musical composition. And it is that of all the video games that I have had the pleasure of playing that have in them the seal of SquareSoft have never let me down in this aspect. Without a doubt one of the best characteristics that this company had (although after their union with Enix, they knew how to maintain the high musical quality), is its sonorous aspect and Brave Fencer Musashi is not an exception in this, since in this game we are going to find a good amount of melodies excellently composed and at the level of Square.

Brave Fencer Musashi is an Action RPG, so the action is going to be a big part of this video game. Being a game of the genre Action RPG we enemies appear directly on screen, we will have total control over our protagonist so that we can defeat our enemies in the way that makes us easier or we can also avoid them if we want to avoid combat.

We will have a skill that we will use throughout our adventure, and that is that Musashi has the ability to "steal" the skills of enemies, this ability is of great importance throughout the game, as well as giving us certain advantages when fighting with some enemies, this will also allow us to overcome certain obstacles that we can only complete with the use of some skill.

With the legendary Lumina sword we are going to be able to absorb the powers that have the Scrolls that we go finding during our adventure, these scrolls have the abilities of the elements, in such a way that this is going to help us to defeat certain enemies and final bosses that are weak to certain elements. In addition to this, Musashi has stats such as strength and speed that increase with the number of enemies we defeat or also as we move around the stage, this increases our experience and therefore increase the stats of our character.

As all Action RPG we are going to find the typical shop where we can buy items to cure us the life or the magic power, also there are the typical NPC that are going to give us information that helps us to direct us to certain important places of the game, as well as information that helps us to complete some objective.

Brave Fencer Musashi is truly a jewel of the video game, a SquareSoft title that won't disappoint at all and that gives great moments of fun from start to finish.