Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena

The Good
Before you crucify me, those guys Mike Tyson clobbered were called contenders too - Tactics is the superior game. But the fun factor of the two are comparable.

Let's Get Started:

LET'S TALK GAME PLAY

• I am in love with the core concept of this game - armies of monsters fighting armies of monsters. That is the core appeal and it is done so well.
• The 'Rune Aura' idea of needing to keep your troops inside of the leaders influence is nuanced and brings new strategy.
• The blend and scope of possible actions is well thought out. The magical abilities of the Rune Knights, the dragon's breath weapon, nothing feels forced or contrived.
• By far my favourite is the level construct every troop gains experience, gains levels, evolves into a higher form. The Rune Knights change classes, they grow and evolve from level 1 Fighters to level 20 Paladins capable of changing the face of battle.
• Sending Knights out on quests is a really fun thing to do most of the time - it's like gambling. What will they bring back? A sword? A potion to turn your Arch Angel into a Lucifer?

LET'S TALK GRAPHICS

• Record of Lodoss War, The Legend of Crystania, and Rune Soldier. These classic anime share much in common with the visual style and theme of Brigandine. Well, the 2D portion of Brigandine. I love the classic well-lit anime style, the pastel colours, and the red-paint blood.
• All of the Rune Knights have distinct character portraits, with the main cast (perhaps 4-5 per faction) having separate 'emotion' pictures.
• On the field, all of the monsters have a super-deformed (the cute kind) look to them.
• The terrain is well made, villages, rivers, bridges, forests, the 2D over-map corresponds to the 3D render scenes.
• The cut scenes and paintings are print-worthy.

LET'S TALK SOUND

• Industry standard SFX with the exception of the 'death scream' for Knights, which was cool. I have more to say on sound below.
• The music in Brigandine never reaches the Nobuo Uematsu or Yasonori Misuda; level but it does have touching themes, it is likeable. All of the playable factions have a different set of themes. This was a small developer, and for them an ambitious score.

LET'S TALK STORY

• It's no Final Fantasy Tactics, with sweeping machinations and religious explorations - but Brigandine does have philosophical musings and character exposition set to the drums of war. There are conflicts, betrayals, loves, humour, and sacrifice on all sides of the map. Oftimes these events only occur if two persons are in the same place at the same time, which is actually unlikely given the nature of the game, so the replay value is quite high.
• There aren't 'Good Guys' and 'Bad Guys' in this game, which is something I love Japanese games for, because truly there aren't 'Good Guys' or 'Bad Guys' in any grand war. You've got to give props to the Japanese for finding a way to create honest conflict and memorable characters without demonizing or making someone unsympathetic. The six playable nations run the spectrum of ideologies
  • Pacifist Theocracy (Leonia)
  • Conservative Meritocracy (Caerleon)
  • Vengeful Imperialist (New Alkemia)
  • Expansive Diarchy (Norgard)
  • Aggressive Fascism (Estregares)
  • Insane Autocracy (Iscalio)

The Bad
I really do love this game, writing this is giving me the serious urge to play it, but if you can't see something for the faults you're not qualified to review it!

LET'S TALK GAME PLAY

• First thing I do is turn the 3D battle scenes off. If you're new I recommend having them on at first just to see the cool animations and new monster attacks, but they turn a 20 minute skirmish into a 1 hour skirmish and get old fast.
• Second thing I do is lament the fact that I'm not playing Brigandine+ which was Japan only. There are no animations for the monsters melee attacks on the over-map. They just vibrate at one another. Brigandine+ had awesome biting slashing attacks that would have added so much here.
• Sending Knights out on quests is the only way to get new weapons, armour, and other goodies you'll have to find for yourself. Unfortunately you can't afford to send the good Knights out to do this, they need to defend the front. Which means you send guys like Ivan. Let me tell you about Ivan, Ivan is a mage, useless first tier guy. Can't carry a dragon and a lizard man at the same time unless you use him for a few battles. So I send Ivan on quests. Not all quests turn out rewards. Sometimes Ivan gets lost, sometimes he gets tricked by a rabbit (yes, seriously), sometimes he gets in a staring contest with a giant and loses, but more often than not Ivan sticks a limb inside of a statues mouth to try to retrieve something shiny he saw inside. And the mouth closes on his arm, wounding him for a month. Ivan once did this same thing FOUR TIMES in a row. If it had been five times I wonder what he'd have to stick in there.

LET'S TALK GRAPHICS

• This game came out 1 year before Metal Gear : Solid. Hearty Robin isn't Konami, I understand, but the 3D graphics actually detract from the game play. That's all I have to complain about.

LET'S TALK SOUND

• The battle music will eventually annoy you to the point where you boot a CD on the stereo or computer and just mute the game. So now you've got it on mute and have disabled the 3D graphics. Are you getting the impression of how strong the draw of the game-play aspect is?

LET'S TALK STORY

• The opening acts of all campaigns are very well done, you have other national leaders dropping by to threaten or forge alliances, you meet the characters, but once all of the 'bumping-into' is over the story falls silent for a time, except when it is someone’s birthday. This central arc could have been bolstered with date-timed events.

The Bottom Line
The memories and feelings we take away from games are what's really important. I was damn proud of myself the first time I beat Brigandine, and I'll tell you why:

Whole campaign, I lost one (1) troop on my primary force. I had named every single Griffon, Fairy, Lizard-man, Dragon and Ghoul on the field, and I gave a shit about every one of them.

Command and Conquer can't do that for you. Final Fantasy Tactics - yeah, you get attached, but it's a different kind of game. You just hire those guys, you have to summon these monsters and nourish them to strength. The sheer pride and job you feel from raising a shuffling mindless Zombie to Ghoul status, then to Vampire, and finally to the regal Vampire Lord and his ability to raise your opponents dead dragon as a dark dragon zombie is awesome.

When end-game comes and you have a trimmed down force of only the best - wiping out hordes of enemies with Bahamuts, Arch Angels, Lucifers, Liliths, and Vampire lords, you feel good.

Seeing the human characters evolve is also great, although every side starts off with a level 20+ character, carefully grooming the lower-level starters is a real treat as you discover class combinations you didn't know existed. I once turned a level 1 fist-fighter into a Ryu-Monk who could do a Hadoken. Awesome.

So how would I describe this game to you? Look it up on ebay, I saw an unopened copy going for $500.00. And it sold. I've had 2 copies, and I'm praying I don't wear this one out. You can download a rom of Brigandine+ in Japanese, and even find a patch for menus in Engrish. But the real thing is pricey.