Overlooked: Brave Story
In this recurring feature, we here in the castle share some games that we enjoyed that you might not even have known existed. Now, personally, I love me a good RPG, and I felt like giving my PSP a little love, so when GameStop had a sale recently, I picked up a copy of Brave Story: New Traveler. It had some decent reviews online, so I took a chance. Turns out there was nothing to worry about. Sure, it's an extremely traditional turn-based RPG, but it makes up for it with good looks and a great personality.
Details after the jump!
As expected, you play a young boy tasked with saving the world with the help of your ragtag group of allies that you accumulate during your travels, but Brave Story adds one little twist by having you be a young boy from the real world transported to the world of Vision. There, he must complete his mission in order to save the life of his friend in the real world who is dying of a mysterious illness. And of course, there are some twists along the way, though none of them are particularly Earth-shattering.
Graphics are impressive, whether in the overhead map view or in close-up battle mode. I particularly liked the use of comic-book-style sound effects during attacks in battle. Another nice touch was that instead of collecting gold off of dead monsters (Where did they keep those gold pieces anyway? Better not to ask!), you collect pieces of them (wings, horns, etc) that you can use to forge stat-boosting accessories. Gold comes after you reach a certain level and can collect bounties on the monsters that you've killed during your travels. It's such a logical way to earn gold from monsters that I can't believe I've never seen it before.
The main quest is sizable enough, but there are also tons of side-quests available in the various towns scattered around Vision. I did quite a few of them, but I still feel like there were more to be had. Some get you special items, and others are focused around one of the supporting cast, granting them special abilities. There's also a cockfighting mini-game, although they call it Goalfinch fighting. You can collect birds with a net and battle them against the teams owned by various people around Vision. Kind of like Pokémon, except you don't actually do anything. And since all you do is watch, I didn't really bother with it too often.
There's a fun sense of humor throughout that makes the game a lot of fun to play. Sure, there's the required doses of angst here and there, but they always know when to lighten the mood a bit. Brave Story turned out to be a nice little diamond in the rough. A solid, entertaining RPG with excellent graphics and sound, and a decent storyline. If you like RPGs and own a PSP, you might want to check this one out!
Wootini
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 29 August 2008
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: brave story: new traveler, overlooked, psp, rpg
Thanks for the recommendation, Wootini. I'm still enjoying Jeanne d'Arc and need to continue Silent Hill: Origins, but I may look into Brave Story sometime later. Oh gawd, and The Force Unleashed is coming to X360 and Fable 2 next month. AAACCHH! Overwhelming! o_0
I think this game got overlooked by many because of its ridiculous original retail price of $39.99. I'm just not willing to pay that for a PSP game, especially an unknown.
When it came down to $20 in the Gamestop sale, I jumped on it as well, although I've yet to play it.
This is one of those games that makes GameFly worth the money...it was a lot of fun, but I wouldn't want to pay a lot for it or play it again. There's tons of these games out there for DS and PSP and if you play a lot, GameFly saves you tons of money.
I own this game and It's pretty good. It has really pretty graphics although the voices may be a little annoying sometimes. Worth trying it.
(at least it is not like Blade Dancer...oh God I hate that game)
This is based on a book! I wondered if the fact that it was an RPG-style game called Brave Story was coincidental, but when it mentioned that the world was called Vision, I knew it was the same. Although it appears to have a different plot from the novel.
I believe the original novel (entitled simply "Brave Story") is by Miyuki Miyabe (though I probably spelled her name wrong). It reads rather like an RPG (8 magical gems, new powers with each gem, et cetra), actually. I actually found the "real world" motivation for the hero's quest more interesting than the fantasy world stuff... Though the world did seem like it'd be a cool place to explore.