I can't remember why I played this game.

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Video_Game_King

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Edited By Video_Game_King

Brave Fencer Musashi

( Can somebody tell me why I bothered playing this game?) Honestly, I can't remember. It's not like this sort of thing happens often; give me any game, and I can tell you why I wanted to play it. Riddick gets by on recommendation, Phantom Brave is a strategy RPG, and everybody has been humping my upcoming Golden Sun, especially AgentJ. Especially especially AgentJ. But when it comes to Brave Fencer Musashi, I struggle to recall any sort of motivation for playing this game.
 
It can't be the story, as I had no clue what the story was. I knew Square made the game, but that's hardly a reason to play this game, given how simple the story is. Let me set the scene: there's a small village that borders a castle, located in a kingdom where everything is named after food. This kingdom is in trouble, I think (the game manages to avoid this until the ending), so the princess of this kingdom summons a hero from another dimension. In enters Musashi, and out exits the princess. Within the first hour of gameplay, she somehow manages to get her ass captured. At least Zelda waited until you finished a few dungeons before even looking like she was being captured.
 
Yet I can't be too mad at the story, primarily because it has a sense of humor about it. Oh, wait, I can be too mad at it, because it's more humorless than many pictures you'll find on the Internet. BFM's idea of humor, from what I could glean, is giving characters weird accents/dialects. There'z a Russian emperor vith a German accent, a steward who speaks in extremely flawed Middle English (example: "Have you foundeth the princess?"), about three Valley Girls, and an Of Mice and Men couple where the George has a stupid f-f-f-f-fucking stutter for some reason. Also, keep in mind that all of these characters come with kinda mediocre voice acting, transforming annoying text into grating voice work.
 
You'll be calling him a little turd more than this old fart ever will.
You'll be calling him a little turd more than this old fart ever will.
So what about the gameplay? I certainly had to have beaten it for that, right? After all, people have likened it to Zelda, one of the best video game series out there! Well, I've already eliminated that reason, since both the combat and puzzle elements of the game are too basic to be any good. Musashi only has a few of his own abilities, and most of the puzzles they're used in are for a brief period of time after you've acquired them. Of course, Musashi isn't limited to these abilities; he can also absorb abilities from his enemies by throwing his sword at them like an idiot. It sounds like a good idea on paper, but like everything else, Square managed to fuck this up, too. You aren't able to store these abilities for later use, so not only must you go through the same mini-game with enemies again and again to get an ability, but many activate immediately upon grabbing them. The problem comes when you realize that some enemies give you harmful abilities, and the only way you can tell is AFTER YOU'VE ABSORBED IT. 
 
So story and Zelda elements are out, so what the hell is left? Oh, wait, Zelda had exploration elements, and Musashi is completely lacking in that, too, isn't it? Musashi's world is an incredibly small one with few dungeons or surrounding areas. Aside from actually continuing the game, the only reason to explore any of this world is to find Bincho fields. When you see one, you're supposed to whack it with your sword, and BP upgrades pour forth from it like a magical pinata. I thought this was a good feature that had proper motivation until I found out that they're easy to find and bosses give you better BP upgrades with better regularity. (If you'll allow me to go off on a tangent, the bosses suck; they're mostly variations on "hit this guy for a chance to hit this guy.") Why am I saying this, though? The game outright forces you to collect certain Bincho fields at certain times in the game, so I can't complain about their superfluity too much.
 
So we've eliminated all possible focuses this game could possibly have, so what does it focus on? Time! Seriously, that's the big feature of this game: a runnig clock. Shops are only open for so long, certain events only occur at certain times of the day (or week), and you have to sleep at an inn regularly to stay at peak performance. Wait, what was the last one? Sleeping? I actually have to sleep in this game? Well, apparently, I do, because otherwise, my 2 foot tall hero will slow down and eventually collapse mid-battle. Sure, you can manually sleep without an inn, but it wastes BP for some reason, meaning you'll still have to visit an inn. It all feels like a gimmicky way to artifically lengthen the game, but even in that regard, it still doesn't work due to the brevity of the game. There are only six chapters in the entire game, and they don't last too long; I'll admit that I rushed through it, but I don't find any difficulty in beating it in a week. 
 
Why does everything about this game disappoint? It was made by Square, so a lot of what it did should be fantastic! But instead, we have a mediocre plot with more holes than SpongeBob on a shooting range (he knows what he did), a leveling system with absolutely no connection to anything you do in the game, and a bunch of "main" gameplay features that nobody ever bothered to flesh out. Again, we come to the main question: why did I play this? I can't remember, so I'll give it the Misanthropy Award for Probably Trusting the Recommendations of Others. It's not the first time such a thing has happened.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Bad plot, bad dialogue, bad plot twists, moving on...
  • It's sort of like Zelda if you downgraded everything to an embarrassingly basic level.
  • Why did they make such a mediocre time aspect the main focus of the entire game?
 
 
 
 
Some of you may find this video a bit shocking, but honestly, what do you expect from those damn reddies?
 
 
 

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3

( After the mediocrity that was Brave Fencer Musashi, I needed something that was good.) That was when Yoshi's Island came to mind. I remember calling it Manbearpig in an earlier review (because I was an idiot), but I also remember it calling fun and creative. So I played through it again, and found that it's still the awesome adventure it was a few years ago.
 
Part of that may be that it hasn't changed at all since the last time I played it. The stork still drops the Mario brothers from his precariously held pouch and straight into my explanation of the story. Luigi gets captured by Bowser's forces due to his utter lack of importance, while the more popular Mario lands in the relative safety of the Yoshi clan. They decide that it's best to take this thing to safety. How? Well, they're idiots, but their relay system would have been a good plan. I ended the sentence that way because the major part of their plan involves transporting the baby through incredibly dangerous caverns and forests, the coup de grace being the end location: BOWSER'S CASTLE. It's like trying storing your ice sculpture collection in your friend's sauna.
 
In fact, the running theme I've noticed in this game is just how stupid the Yoshis seem to be. For example, has anybody noticed how they're willing to throw their own eggs at anything they perceive as a threat to a wailing, shit-squirting annoyance of a game character? Of course, they're idiots, so unless you want them trying to juggle the eggs with their puny mutant hands, you're going to have to aim for them. Fortunately, this is very easy to do: just point at what you want dead, and fire away! Good thing it's easy to pull off, as this is the main feature of the game: eating enemies to fire at other enemies. However, unlike in the previous game, it isn't just used for killing things.
 
Another great aspect of this game is how creative it can be. No two levels play exactly alike, and each one has you doing anything ranging from getting Yoshi high out of his stupid mind to giving Yoshi the finger as Baby Mario downs an entire can of Red Bull and starts bouncing off the walls. However, while most creative games seem to die off at about the halfway mark, Yoshi's Island keeps the creativity going. The only flaw with this alone may be that it's too creative at time, giving us things that either feel gimmicky or illogical. Aside from the paradoxical Baby Mario invincibility, you also have a few gimmicky vehicle portions. I can see the purpose of the helicopter, but everything else feels like it was just crammed into the game for the sake of creativity. They don't feel natural, even when you discount the fact that Yoshi has suddenly become a reptilian Transformer, and they're certainly not fun. These vehicles feel more like a way from Point A to B than anything that comes naturally during the game.
Not all our wishes can come true...
Not all our wishes can come true...
 
Just like the creativity, gimmicky features are also a major portion of the game. For example, points have returned from the previous game, yet they have somehow become more useless. You earn these points by collecting flowers, starts, and red coins, but you don't know how many points you have until the end of the level. Not that it matters, though; the only motivation to get a high score is that 100%ing the game gets you a few new levels. It doesn't need them, though, as the game is long enough as it is. Sure, there are only six worlds and eight levels in each, but these levels are quite long, but oddly fast paced; I was breezing through levels while paradoxically wondering when they'd end.
 
Let's see, I've covered the story, Yoshi stupidity, the main gameplay features...what have I left out? Hmm....what else is-oh, right! The music. Here it is, enjoy. Wait, no, that's not what I wanted to say. I meant the graphics! How could I forget that? Seriously, how could I forget them, they're one of the most important aspects of the game! Early on, somebody decided that Yoshi's Island should feel like a storybook, and later, they turned out to be completely right. The colorful, crayon-drawn graphics lend a unique charm to the game that nothing at the time could replicate. Another part of that charm is all the Mode-7 effects it pulls off; it does everything from simple rotation to level distortion and 3D effects. Hell, it's even used for some of the stupidly easy boss battles, like Whack-a-Mole-esque Raven boss thing. Because I can't think of any way to follow that sentence, I'll give this game the Of Course He's Annoying Award, and announce the score of....of.... 9.0? Holy shit, this is the... wait, it's only the second game to get such a score? Oh well, fuck it :P.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Fine, Baby Mario's annoying, but perhaps he'd cry less if Yoshi wasn't stupid enough to drag him along everywhere.
  • Everything about this game is creative and well-executed. Everything.
  • It has lots of charm, but it doesn't rely on it to be a good game.
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Video_Game_King

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#1  Edited By Video_Game_King

Brave Fencer Musashi

( Can somebody tell me why I bothered playing this game?) Honestly, I can't remember. It's not like this sort of thing happens often; give me any game, and I can tell you why I wanted to play it. Riddick gets by on recommendation, Phantom Brave is a strategy RPG, and everybody has been humping my upcoming Golden Sun, especially AgentJ. Especially especially AgentJ. But when it comes to Brave Fencer Musashi, I struggle to recall any sort of motivation for playing this game.
 
It can't be the story, as I had no clue what the story was. I knew Square made the game, but that's hardly a reason to play this game, given how simple the story is. Let me set the scene: there's a small village that borders a castle, located in a kingdom where everything is named after food. This kingdom is in trouble, I think (the game manages to avoid this until the ending), so the princess of this kingdom summons a hero from another dimension. In enters Musashi, and out exits the princess. Within the first hour of gameplay, she somehow manages to get her ass captured. At least Zelda waited until you finished a few dungeons before even looking like she was being captured.
 
Yet I can't be too mad at the story, primarily because it has a sense of humor about it. Oh, wait, I can be too mad at it, because it's more humorless than many pictures you'll find on the Internet. BFM's idea of humor, from what I could glean, is giving characters weird accents/dialects. There'z a Russian emperor vith a German accent, a steward who speaks in extremely flawed Middle English (example: "Have you foundeth the princess?"), about three Valley Girls, and an Of Mice and Men couple where the George has a stupid f-f-f-f-fucking stutter for some reason. Also, keep in mind that all of these characters come with kinda mediocre voice acting, transforming annoying text into grating voice work.
 
You'll be calling him a little turd more than this old fart ever will.
You'll be calling him a little turd more than this old fart ever will.
So what about the gameplay? I certainly had to have beaten it for that, right? After all, people have likened it to Zelda, one of the best video game series out there! Well, I've already eliminated that reason, since both the combat and puzzle elements of the game are too basic to be any good. Musashi only has a few of his own abilities, and most of the puzzles they're used in are for a brief period of time after you've acquired them. Of course, Musashi isn't limited to these abilities; he can also absorb abilities from his enemies by throwing his sword at them like an idiot. It sounds like a good idea on paper, but like everything else, Square managed to fuck this up, too. You aren't able to store these abilities for later use, so not only must you go through the same mini-game with enemies again and again to get an ability, but many activate immediately upon grabbing them. The problem comes when you realize that some enemies give you harmful abilities, and the only way you can tell is AFTER YOU'VE ABSORBED IT. 
 
So story and Zelda elements are out, so what the hell is left? Oh, wait, Zelda had exploration elements, and Musashi is completely lacking in that, too, isn't it? Musashi's world is an incredibly small one with few dungeons or surrounding areas. Aside from actually continuing the game, the only reason to explore any of this world is to find Bincho fields. When you see one, you're supposed to whack it with your sword, and BP upgrades pour forth from it like a magical pinata. I thought this was a good feature that had proper motivation until I found out that they're easy to find and bosses give you better BP upgrades with better regularity. (If you'll allow me to go off on a tangent, the bosses suck; they're mostly variations on "hit this guy for a chance to hit this guy.") Why am I saying this, though? The game outright forces you to collect certain Bincho fields at certain times in the game, so I can't complain about their superfluity too much.
 
So we've eliminated all possible focuses this game could possibly have, so what does it focus on? Time! Seriously, that's the big feature of this game: a runnig clock. Shops are only open for so long, certain events only occur at certain times of the day (or week), and you have to sleep at an inn regularly to stay at peak performance. Wait, what was the last one? Sleeping? I actually have to sleep in this game? Well, apparently, I do, because otherwise, my 2 foot tall hero will slow down and eventually collapse mid-battle. Sure, you can manually sleep without an inn, but it wastes BP for some reason, meaning you'll still have to visit an inn. It all feels like a gimmicky way to artifically lengthen the game, but even in that regard, it still doesn't work due to the brevity of the game. There are only six chapters in the entire game, and they don't last too long; I'll admit that I rushed through it, but I don't find any difficulty in beating it in a week. 
 
Why does everything about this game disappoint? It was made by Square, so a lot of what it did should be fantastic! But instead, we have a mediocre plot with more holes than SpongeBob on a shooting range (he knows what he did), a leveling system with absolutely no connection to anything you do in the game, and a bunch of "main" gameplay features that nobody ever bothered to flesh out. Again, we come to the main question: why did I play this? I can't remember, so I'll give it the Misanthropy Award for Probably Trusting the Recommendations of Others. It's not the first time such a thing has happened.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Bad plot, bad dialogue, bad plot twists, moving on...
  • It's sort of like Zelda if you downgraded everything to an embarrassingly basic level.
  • Why did they make such a mediocre time aspect the main focus of the entire game?
 
 
 
 
Some of you may find this video a bit shocking, but honestly, what do you expect from those damn reddies?
 
 
 

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3

( After the mediocrity that was Brave Fencer Musashi, I needed something that was good.) That was when Yoshi's Island came to mind. I remember calling it Manbearpig in an earlier review (because I was an idiot), but I also remember it calling fun and creative. So I played through it again, and found that it's still the awesome adventure it was a few years ago.
 
Part of that may be that it hasn't changed at all since the last time I played it. The stork still drops the Mario brothers from his precariously held pouch and straight into my explanation of the story. Luigi gets captured by Bowser's forces due to his utter lack of importance, while the more popular Mario lands in the relative safety of the Yoshi clan. They decide that it's best to take this thing to safety. How? Well, they're idiots, but their relay system would have been a good plan. I ended the sentence that way because the major part of their plan involves transporting the baby through incredibly dangerous caverns and forests, the coup de grace being the end location: BOWSER'S CASTLE. It's like trying storing your ice sculpture collection in your friend's sauna.
 
In fact, the running theme I've noticed in this game is just how stupid the Yoshis seem to be. For example, has anybody noticed how they're willing to throw their own eggs at anything they perceive as a threat to a wailing, shit-squirting annoyance of a game character? Of course, they're idiots, so unless you want them trying to juggle the eggs with their puny mutant hands, you're going to have to aim for them. Fortunately, this is very easy to do: just point at what you want dead, and fire away! Good thing it's easy to pull off, as this is the main feature of the game: eating enemies to fire at other enemies. However, unlike in the previous game, it isn't just used for killing things.
 
Another great aspect of this game is how creative it can be. No two levels play exactly alike, and each one has you doing anything ranging from getting Yoshi high out of his stupid mind to giving Yoshi the finger as Baby Mario downs an entire can of Red Bull and starts bouncing off the walls. However, while most creative games seem to die off at about the halfway mark, Yoshi's Island keeps the creativity going. The only flaw with this alone may be that it's too creative at time, giving us things that either feel gimmicky or illogical. Aside from the paradoxical Baby Mario invincibility, you also have a few gimmicky vehicle portions. I can see the purpose of the helicopter, but everything else feels like it was just crammed into the game for the sake of creativity. They don't feel natural, even when you discount the fact that Yoshi has suddenly become a reptilian Transformer, and they're certainly not fun. These vehicles feel more like a way from Point A to B than anything that comes naturally during the game.
Not all our wishes can come true...
Not all our wishes can come true...
 
Just like the creativity, gimmicky features are also a major portion of the game. For example, points have returned from the previous game, yet they have somehow become more useless. You earn these points by collecting flowers, starts, and red coins, but you don't know how many points you have until the end of the level. Not that it matters, though; the only motivation to get a high score is that 100%ing the game gets you a few new levels. It doesn't need them, though, as the game is long enough as it is. Sure, there are only six worlds and eight levels in each, but these levels are quite long, but oddly fast paced; I was breezing through levels while paradoxically wondering when they'd end.
 
Let's see, I've covered the story, Yoshi stupidity, the main gameplay features...what have I left out? Hmm....what else is-oh, right! The music. Here it is, enjoy. Wait, no, that's not what I wanted to say. I meant the graphics! How could I forget that? Seriously, how could I forget them, they're one of the most important aspects of the game! Early on, somebody decided that Yoshi's Island should feel like a storybook, and later, they turned out to be completely right. The colorful, crayon-drawn graphics lend a unique charm to the game that nothing at the time could replicate. Another part of that charm is all the Mode-7 effects it pulls off; it does everything from simple rotation to level distortion and 3D effects. Hell, it's even used for some of the stupidly easy boss battles, like Whack-a-Mole-esque Raven boss thing. Because I can't think of any way to follow that sentence, I'll give this game the Of Course He's Annoying Award, and announce the score of....of.... 9.0? Holy shit, this is the... wait, it's only the second game to get such a score? Oh well, fuck it :P.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Fine, Baby Mario's annoying, but perhaps he'd cry less if Yoshi wasn't stupid enough to drag him along everywhere.
  • Everything about this game is creative and well-executed. Everything.
  • It has lots of charm, but it doesn't rely on it to be a good game.
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Coltonio7

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#2  Edited By Coltonio7

Oh my god, I loved Musashi.
 
Not appreciating the shit-talking, but I can totally see where you're coming from.

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Video_Game_King

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#3  Edited By Video_Game_King
@Coltonio7: 
 
That's not shit-talking. THIS is shit-talking :P.