Westerners like to think that they have the monopoly on large-scale multimedia blitzkriegs. Take the Harry Potter phenomenon, for example; what started out as a single book has expanded to a video game legacy as well as a film series. In some respects, then, the comparison between J. K. Rowling's heroic Potter and Miyuki Miyabe's iron-willed protagonist, Wataru Mitani, doesn't seem too off-base: both are now stars of not only the big screen, but their 'first stage' of the screening room of the mind's eye. Naturally, the game industry has given fans of both series the chance to step into the heroes' shoes-- but, without a doubt, the land of Vision has received a much better digital treatment than Hogwarts' School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.
Brave Story: New Traveler, based ever-so-gently on the novel by the aforementioned Miyabe, places players not in the role of the book and manga's protagonist, but in the role of a second Traveler from our world-- a young boy by the name of Tatsuya. Self-absorbed and somewhat of a game freak, Tatsuya's story begins in a park where his friend, Miki, is being ignored by him. Moments later, Miki falls ill with no explanation. Tatsuya blames himself, and is desperate to have his friend recover, when he hears a voice calling his name-- a voice showing him the Porta Nectere, the doorway to the land of Vision. In Vision, the voice says, the power to change your fate lies with the Goddess of Destiny. As Tatsuya, then, you take up the Brave's Sword and search the land of Vision for the Tower of Destiny, to have his wish granted by the Goddess.
Vision is lovingly rendered in static-camera 3-D, and Tatsuya's quest takes the shape of a very familiar console RPG. In order to gain access to the Tower of Destiny, Tatsuya must first find five gemstones, which will complete the transformation of his sword into the fabled Demon's Bane. The gemstones increase his power and give him access to new skills (called, appropriately enough, Bravura abilities). Along the way, he's joined by many allies, some even from the book's version of the tale. First among these is the pushy half-catgirl Yuno (trust me when I say she's only half-catgirl... the actual explanation is too involved for this review and sort of icky to think about), and shortly thereafter, the burly and brusque waterkin Sogreth.
Brave Story doesn't exactly break too much new ground in terms of its gameplay. The battle system is turn-based and quite firmly entrenched in tradition; there's little in the way of difficulty early on, and the dungeons often have fairly unsophisticated puzzles. Moreover, some elements which seemed to have died out from the genre-- specifically, invisible random encounters-- are present here. That said, when the game does borrow from 21st-century genre conventions, it picks good ones to pilfer. Characters can join forces for Unity attacks, their Brave Points (analogous to MP) recharge with normal attacks, and enemies do not drop bare money, but rather trinkets which can be sold. The game offers a limited crafting system in the form of accessories, and there are a couple of minigames revolving around the catching of small canary-like birds. The most glaring problem, actually, is a general lack of difficulty; most of the bosses in the game can be overcome by simple leveling and an extremely light application of basic, old-hat strategy. To be a bit too brutally honest, this is basically your choice of Wild ARMs or one of the more traditional Final Fantasy games, skinned with the Brave Story license-- but that hardly does justice to the amazing end result.
What makes the game work, however, is that this is no half-assed application of a sure-shot moneywinner. Brave Story is still a sadly overlooked property on this side of the Pacific, and as such the game needs to really stand out to make a name for itself. I honestly found myself quite impressed with the attention to detail not just in the worldbuilding and the visuals, but also in the little things which made me, as a fan of the book, smile and feel more welcome. Monsters of the same species in battle can often have different appearances-- more than that, the monsters often have access to the same basic battle strategies as you do; for example, a group of four wasp-like enemies can use their own Unity attack called Swarm. Even outside of combat, there's a consistency with the book that is almost unheard of in the frame of reference of a licensed game... this may have something to do with the fact that the book's translator, Alexander Smith, assisted XSeed with their localization.
It's quite rare these days to find a game that is unwilling to take some risks with its formula. It's even rarer when a game that does stay within that conforming path manages to not only thrive inside it, but to fully exceed one's expectations from it. Make no mistake, this is a dyed-in-the-wool mid-generation PS1 RPG with no aspirations to being anything more. But it does what it does astonishingly well, so much so that it becomes much greater than the sum of its parts. With fantastic graphics, a moving score, an immaculate translation, and a warmth and charm sorely lacking in many of today's titles, this is one tale I don't mind hearing over and over again. This is the right way to do a traditional console RPG.
