Snes - Brandish Review

Brandish is a top-down real-time dungeon role-playing game. It has a sequel on the SNES. You play the swordsman Varik attempting to escape from the ruins which you fell into. This is a classic puzzle-action which I would recommend to anyone.

Gameplay and interface: 9.5/10

Brandish has a slightly different way of playing the game than other action roley-playing game's. Rather than moving your character around the screen, you are following from behind your character and the entire environment swings around when you turn left or right. It does take time to used to this method of playing the game. This is probably the only bad part about the gameplay. However, once you've gotten past this, the gameplay turns out to be fairly simple.

Attacking means pressing the A button while the equipment button is the X button. If you would rather strafe than turn around, simply press the shoulder L or R buttons, a an extremely useful tactic for dodging enemies. You press the Y button to activate the hand icon allowing you to pick stuff up in front of you. If you hold down the L or R buttons with the Y button you'll be able to examine things such as plaques as well as the ground in front of you. The options and map menu is accessed by pressing the select button and from here you can change the speed of the game, colour and other things including saving the game. The map is fairly useful mapping all the important features such as the doors. Finally, you can also jump and cast magic. Jumping uses the B button while you must equip a magic spell to the X button and from there press the attack button. It is a slower paced game than other similar games but that ensures the game is fair.

You do increase in level in the game but do so by performing actions. For example, if you keep casting magic again and again your magic ability will increase, if you want to increase in magical defense you actually have to take magical damage. All in all it sort of makes make more sense. You have to either find spells or purchase them however. You'll also have to use items such as the hammer to knock down walls and the steel balls to check for pits. There are even special dimensional boxes which will increase your inventory which is helpful.

One problem with the gameplay is that once you pass a level, there isn't really anyway to return back to the previous areas without having to trudge through the fairly large levels unless you have a special warp magic spell. Unfortunately, this costs a huge amount of money which you do not have at the beginning of the game. I think it would have been better if there had been some sort of warp gate which would have allowed you to warp to any area you have already passed.

Storyline: 3.5/5

The story of Brandish involves a kingdom that was protected by a dragon. However, the king decided to use the dragon's power to take over the world and the dragon laid a curse on the kingdom, sending it deep into the earth overnight. Now there is a huge crack where the city used to be. You the swordsman Varik and the female magician Alexis who is trying to kill you, are now at the edge of that crack of no return when both of you fall in. As you travel through the levels, she'll constantly appear now and then again to annoy you, always just ahead of you.

All in all, the survival horror meets fantasy story line is fairly interesting. Each level will have plaques and sometimes people that will fit in with the level design. For example, when passing through the first levels which are ruins, you will read plaques concerning the pride of the people and the curse now laid on them. There really isn't much to go on since this primarily a puzzle game rather than an rpg. There are no long paragraphs of dialogue or anything even close when you talk to the in-game characters, just a few sentences summarising the pain, fear and despair they feel. There are also a few creepy moments within the game itself which add to the loneliness to this game. I wish there were more opportunities to interact and find out more about the history and storyline actually, it seems a shame that the potential for an interesting world was wasted.

Graphics: 3.5/5

The graphics are fair although not particularly great. Enemies do move around and they attack but there is nothing particularly exciting about them.

Level design: 4.5/5

I must say that the level design is probably one of the best I have ever seen. Each level is carefully crafted to suit the particular theme of the area and most contain secrets. There are a huge number of levels too ranging from ruins to the tower and beyond. You certainly may get frustrated by the puzzles but few are the same so you won't get tired of the puzzles.

Unfortunately, there are few problems with the level design. First there is no way to easily return back to already visited levels aside from using the warp magic spell. Secondly, there are too many pit traps which deposit you to a lower pit level in the beginning missions forcing you to head for the stairs again to restart the level again. You can avoid this problem by throwing steel balls at the floor but there aren't enough steel balls for the many pits at the beginning although fortunately, as you progress, the pits merely damage you rather than drop you to another place.

Music and Sound: 3/5

The music and sound aren't particularly amazing. There are a number of good tracks but there aren't a lot of music tracks to begin so it gets fairly repetitive after a while.

For: Good level design.

Against: May get repetitive after a while. Graphics and sound are mediocre.