Brandish (1991)

Brandish, for SNES

Rating: 7.5/10; Good

Recommended for any fan of action rpgs, provided you take the time to get used to the controls.

Brandish is a top down action rpg that takes place in a massive dungeon with over 40 floors. You start at the bottom and have to dungeon crawl to the top, along the way fighting monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles and meeting npcs who have decided to settle down and run shops.

The game has some similarities to Ys and Zelda, but the structure feels more like a 1st person dungeon crawler, only you never get party members. Imagine a game like Shin Megami Tensei or Wizardry with the camera moved to a bird's eye view, but with attacks, blocking, magic and jumps done in real time with a single button press. The camera perspective changes when the character turns, allowing you to view every surface, which is important for interacting with things and noticing weak walls, traps and loot that would otherwise be hidden due to the view angle. This camera style can be disorienting but there is a compass on the top of the screen and an excellent auto map accessible by pressing start; far more than many games of this era had! The default controls have strafing left and right bound to holding "L" or "R" then pressing left and right on the D pad, while just pressing left or right turns the character. There is an option to switch those buttons and I found the alternative controls more intuitive. Another important feature in the options is game speed, which you can change at any time. Fast is great for getting around quickly but can make combat far more challenging, especially against the more difficult enemies that can easily kill you if you don't time your movement and attacks to avoid damage. Middle is a balanced way to play while Slow is like playing in slow motion, making combat largely trivial.

There is 1 button for attacking with your equipped sword (and blocking if no enemies are in range), 1 for jumping, 1 for looting (examine if you hold "L" or "R") and the last button for using a selected inventory item. The game has a very interesting way of using items because it will use whatever item the cursor is over, and it will remember that outside the inventory screen. This is how you use magic and potions in combat, or you could use it to switch between 2 weapons. The only thing is that the game does not pause in the inventory so you may not be able to survive if you open it in combat. You will definitely not survive digging around in the boxes of holding you get that expand your inventory. There are a variety of useful potions and items, all of which can be examined to see what exactly they do. Well except the multitude of keys you will find; you are on your own to find out what they unlock. Each magic spell takes up an inventory slot and there are a variety of nukes, buffs and support like heal and warp. Mana regenerates fairly quickly, though not so quickly that you can kill everything with magic. Alternating between magic and melee is a lot of fun, and the game encourages use of both by including enemies that are strong or even immune to one or the other. Most swords have a limited number of uses that is clearly visible on the icon. Selling value depends on number of uses remaining and using a sword until it breaks turns it into an almost worthless broken sword. If you are not careful with rationing your weapons you can run out and have to buy more from shops. However there are unbreakable swords to find, which I interpret to be enchanted, and you can always use your fists. There are really more weapons and supplies to be found than you need, unless you deliberately waste them.

Character progression works in 2 ways. Xp gained from killing monsters goes towards levels that improve health and mana. Your 3 attributes of strength, knowledge and magic resist increase by hitting enemies in melee, hurting monsters with magic, and being hurt by magic, respectively. Most enemies infinitely respawn so you can grind as much as you want. The challenge from enemies leaves a bit to be desired though, mainly because you can rest at any time to recover health, even to the point of leaving boss rooms mid boss fight. On top of this their AI is poor, with most enemies wandering around aimlessly. Sometimes they will chase you a bit and even sometimes they can wander a short distance to interrupt your rest, which could potentially result in death since your defense is 0 while sleeping. Most games that allow resting in dangerous environments feature random encounters that make resting a risk vs reward prospect. The only real risk of death in this game comes from traps, playing on Fast speed, and failing to grind magic resist. Even traps can often be rendered irrelevant by resting. Stepped on an arrow trap? No problem just rest on the switch to recover that health. Pits are different because you can't rest, use items or even access the inventory to change items while inside the pit. Most of my deaths were pit or boulder trap related. The game really encourages a slow and methodical play style, even going as far as checking the map or rotating the camera after every step to make sure you don't miss anything, fall down an invisible pit or be hopelessly lost from the invisible spinners and teleporters. Most of the puzzles involve navigating mazes and traps, while others are more like logic puzzles and probably the most challenging aspect of the game.

Don't play Brandish for the story because what little there is could be removed entirely without changing the game at all. There is a woman after you for reasons that are not very clear. Maybe the protagonist did something wrong but he is silent with no personality whatsoever. The whole blank slate player insert protagonist does not work so well with this very specific backstory. It does not even feel like she is chasing you because she only shows up at scripted points regardless of how much time you spend dicking around. The appeal of Brandish comes first and foremost from the dungeon crawling; explore, solve and conquer each floor.

Pro

• Good automap
• Fun magic with regenerating mana
• Well crafted dungeon crawling

Con

• Lack of minimap
• Confusing default camera controls
• Limited inventory
• Messages for stat ups and out of mp block view of your hp
• Can’t access inventory or use items while in a pit
• Rest anywhere and retreat from most bosses without penalty
• Some annoying puzzles
• Some spells are only for sale at shops near the beginning, and backtracking is very tedious
• The being chased by bounty hunter plot is irrelevant to the gameplay

Beat. Something about this game is vaguely familiar. I may have rented it as a kid, or at least seen it on the store shelf. When I loaded the game to get a feel of what type of game it is and how well it works on my emulator, I was immediately put off by the camera controls. Before I started playing for real I checked out a couple walkthroughs for basic info and they pointed out the option to change the camera controls to rotate so the D pad moves you in the direction pressed while L and R turn your facing. That works for me and I did not have trouble navigating. I used fists for most of the early game rather than the breakable swords. In fact I ended up selling most of the swords except for the 2 strongest types, which I used up in the final dungeon. I even had a huge stack of hardening potions that would have given me many more uses of the muramasa, but I found the unbreakable muramasa before I was even down to my last blade. I played more like a mage, killing with fire magic whenever possible. I never bought ice, barrier or heal. I found thunder but as a point blank area spell I did not find it useful; if I have to be that close I might as well sword them. I used the walkthrough to keep tabs on loot I missed, plan out what to buy by looking at future loot lists, and help with some of the puzzles. That is how I found out about the secret warp spell at the beginning, and at that point I was getting annoyed with the limited inventory. So I backtracked the few floors back to the beginning just to get that spell. It was extremely useful for getting around, selling loot and bypassing puzzles and traps. I later bought quake and stop magic. Quake never came in handy and by the end game I was killing everything with fire, or stop + sword if fire did not work. I found the double spell and used it on the hydra boss, who was laughably easy with my max magic resist. I never got a chance to use it on the final boss because I was chugging healing potions. I did not buy any weapons, armor or consumables, other than a few early sledgehammers which were probably not necessary. I had almost 300 healing potions by the end of the game and had barely used any before the final boss. No need when you can run and rest.

Ended at level 71 with 83 arm strength (went to 90 during the final boss fight), 83 knowledge, 99 magic resist (I grinded that periodically and it did not take too long), 850k gold and the best equipment.

I enjoyed the game and especially liked the sense of dungeon exploration. Some of the puzzles were a little obtuse or annoying, and the combat was fun, especially when you slow the game down rather than zip around on the high speed setting. The biggest problem I seen was lack of dungeon crawling challenge. Sure I died a fair bit to powerful monsters and being a little too careless around traps, but the whole rest anywhere to recover health makes it too easy. Especially considering the amount of healing potions and money I had; would have given those far more value if I had to rely on them to recover after foolishly falling into a pit.

7.5/10