Admittedly, you've probably heard of this week's forgotten game. It was one of the best (if not the best) action RPG titles on the PSOne, it's got a huge following in Japan, and it's (very, very, very) loosely based on the story of Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest samurai who ever lived.
Granted, Miyamoto Musashi never owned two magical swords, fought sentient plantlife, or destroyed a giant, steam-powered robot, but he definitely f*cking should have. And that's where Brave Fencer Musashi comes in.
Respect your samurai elders, and hit the jump for the lowdown.
Story:
The Allucaneet Kingdom is under attack by the Thirstquencher Empire. And before you ask, no -- I have no idea why the two nations have food-related names. But anyway, the evil Thirstquenchers are attacking the Allucaneet Kingdom. With evidently no army to speak of, Princess Fillet -- still not making the names up, I promise -- summons the legendary warrior Musashi to retrieve the magical sword Lumina (which he does within the first ten minutes of play) and defend Allucaneet Kingdom.
Then Fillet gets her stupid ass kidnapped by Rootrick, the Thirstquencher empire, and it's up to Musashi to get her back. Cliched? Yes. Boring? Absolutely. Yet there is one thing that is mildly cool about Brave Fencer Musashi's storyline, and that's the way the titular hero reacts to his having been summoned. He actually seems pretty pissed off that he was resurrected without his permission and essentially forced to save a world he has no knowledge of. He never outright refuses to save the world, but it's frequently obvious that Musashi is only doing \heroic things out of self-preservation (according to Fillet, if the Steamquenchers win, then Musashi dies...or something).
Gameplay:
One may be quick to liken Brave Fencer Musashi to Zelda, and though the comparison is warranted (they are, after all, both fantasy action RPGs where the main character uses a magical sword), it really doesn't show Musashi the respect it deserves. Musashi is definitely its own game, thanks mainly to the player's ability to absorb the powers of every enemy Musashi meets.
Basically, you hold R1 to charge up Fusion (one of your magical swords), and press square to throw it. When it hits an enemy, the player must tap square as fast as possible for Fusion to absorb the enemy and grant Musashi one of its special powers. It is absolutely necessary to absorb these powers throughout the game, as many puzzles and bosses require Musashi to use abilities beyond those of his own two swords.
For example, a player may need to keep a floor switch held down so he can run through a door. There are no blocks or weights in the room, and though the enemies are heavy enough to keep the switch pressed, they tend to move away from the switch almost immediately after touching it. To solve this problem, Musashi must absorb the "stun" ability from one of the bad guys, wait for an enemy to stand on the switch, and hit him with the stun attack to keep him stationary on that spot. The switch stays down, the door opens, and Musashi is on his way.
The player can only hold one special ability at a time, but they're extremely varied, ranging from a magic machine gun, to a throwing spear, to a shrink ray. Half the fun in Musashi consists of absorbing as many different enemies as you can, if only to experiment with their abilities.
And as if the inclusion of Mega Man-esque ability stealing wasn't enough to make Musashi stand on its own, the game also has several old-school action sequences in the game that usually involve a high-speed getaway of some sort. In the first twenty minutes of the game, you'll run down the side of a castle in an effort to escape a rolling stone head (pictured above). Later, you'll have to manuever a log down a raft at high speeds, avoiding obstacles and collecting coins. What's remarkable about Musashi is that, like a game such as Beyond Good and Evil, it effortlessly manages to blend several different genres of video gaming into one cohesive experience.
Why You Probably Haven't Played it:
As said earlier, there's a decent chance that you have, in fact, played Brave Fencer Musashi -- as the aptly named MusashiX2 just pointed out to me, BFM came with a demo for a much-anticipated, much higher-profile title (in this case FFVIII), thus making it the Crackdown of 1998. Except good. Not to mention it was developed by Square, which always meant "quality" on the PSOne, and it's an action RPG starring a character with bright purple hair, which always means "quality" no matter what system you're talking about.
That said, however, I personally know several PSOne owners who passed on this title simply because the Japanese-ness of the title distanced them ("Blah blah blah I don't know who Musashi is blah blah blah reading subtitles in foreign films makes my eyes hurt blah blah blah if my parents knew what they were creating I would have been third-trimester aborted blah blah blah"), or the game's cartoonish graphics made the game appear either shallow or easy, when Musashi is most assuredly neither of those things.
But, for those people, now is the time to redeem yourself. Now is the time to experience the beauty of this mildly dated multi-genre PSOne game. It goes for about 20 bucks on eBay (a bit expensive, compared to other forgotten games), but the experience is more than worth it.
awsome. this game is up there with alundra for the best action/rpg on the ps1. methinks it may show up on the psp this weekend. thanks for the reminder!
--this is the only square rpg i bothered getting more than 2 hrs into on the ps1. game rules!
theres that "squaresoft" logo i miss so much... ; ;
Isn't there a sequel on the PS2 that was released like a year ago because I remember seeing the anime intro to it
I HAD THIS GAME! Couldn't get past the steam machine thing though.
I was correct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musashi:_Samurai_Legend
Loved this game, definitely haven't forgotten it...
now i have for gotten the second game that was on PS2, i played it for like an hour and then was done with it... and totally forgot whatever they called it.
I just downloaded the soundtrack for this a couple of weeks ago!
Who forgot this game? Who needs an ass kicking?
@ Poetic : Yes, there was in 05 I think, but I never got around to playing it.
Best boss battle ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ZumJZVEzw
can we somehow bring squaresoft back...? >_>;
I have this game. It's sitting right next to me actually.
The frustrating part is that FOR SOME STUPID REASON, it won't run on my PSP. Otherwise I'd be playing it all the time because it's a freakin' amazing game.
I still remember collecting all of the action figures in the game. And how like two of them were completely random about how and when they showed up at the store and many people were pissed because they couldn't complete the collection.
And speaking of sequels. That PS2 game is HARDLY up to BFM calibur (is that how I spell that or am I just really jaded by Soul Calibur?). If you want a REAL sequel, play Threads of Fate for the PS1.
The same team made it after they made BFM and it has many of the same quirks and gameplay styles. There's two different characters to choose though. One who turns into enemies to progress and one who uses different magic abilities.
It'll bring fond memories, I promise.
I own both of the Musashi games, the "sequel" was horrible, and played horribly. God how I love the original.
This game was the shit.
I borrowed the Book of the Five Rings (written by Musashi) one time from the library but I never got around to reading it... Seeting Musashi's name again make me want to pick it up again sometime and read through it.
Yeah that sequel wasn't very good. I wasn't terrible, just not nearly as entertaining as the original, plus you couldn't collect and play with action figures in the sequel, that was one of my favorite parts of the fisrt game.
@Draith
Book of Five Rings is one of the best books I've ever read.
The book Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is also an amazing book thats a retelling of Musashi's legend. It's highly recommended.
Bought the game used a few months back for $12. Haven't played it yet though... haven't played many rpgs since the snes rpg era, maybe 2 or 3.
@Crunshii
The only solution I see is that one of us will have to go back in time and show Squaresoft what it will become in ten years. That should significantly alter our time period for the better.
Listening to the You Tube clips, the voice of the main character sounds a lot like Laharl from Disgaea. Interesting.
I actually 100%'d this game. You see this after the credits:
http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/6418/musashi2rw8.png
Chad, its the same actor.
@Mozgus
yeah... IMDB is beautiful now that they've started addign games to their listings..
Haha, Man I loved this game... the one line I'll always remember is at the beginning, "ya'll gonna get a lick'n" =P Haha, that cracked me up. Amazing game though, one of my favs.
I played this game in a store once and thought it was a good battle system, then I had to leave the store, and I never knew the name of the game...opportunity lost.
this game was the shit!
too bad i donated it to a hospital...
:(
i must comment because this is one of my favorite games of all time, and of course because it is where i got my username from.
Rev, you forgot that one of the reasons this unknown game sold well was because the FFXIII demo that came with it. that is probably one of the reasons a good amount of people know about it.
FFVIII* (we needz ze Editz)
Shit, got me there. I've added that info to the "why you probably haven't played it" section.
lol, yea.. prob if Squaresoft never made that expensivly-dumb (but f*k*ng awsome animation for its time) they would have never had to merge...
I thought that the purpose of these articles is to reveal games that time, and gamers, forgot. This game received a sequel not too long ago, and even had that not been the case, did anyone forget about this thing? Anybody?
I just played it a few weeks ago and found it a little easy but very enjoyable. Only wish people in the game would repeat mission-specific information more than once, I forgot what to do once after putting it down for a couple days and coming back to it.
Arg, I forgot to mention that some PSX emulators don't read the camera information correctly (in the beginning you have a section that looks near-isometric, but emulated it's from straight above), so if you'd like the play the game in a different manner try an emulator.
holy crap. mind esplode!! I totally bought this game to get the FF8 Demo but the game was so much fun. Oh musashi >.<
I fricking loved that game, but my little pea-brain mind at the time I had it couldn't comprehend where to get bread for the locked up dude, so I didn't get very far, and it got stolen.
I remeber playing this game on the Ps1 and having a blast going around and finding new sword attacks. Great pick.
Oh god, I loved this game SO MUCH
Man, I love this game so much.
i fucking LOVED this game. it introduced me to a whole world of things
if it hadn't have been for this game i never would have started playing final fantasy, and probably wouldn't be as passionate about videogames as i am today
holy shit
wow