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Being a college student, the idea of portable gaming is extremely attractive. I chose a PSP over a DS because I prefer story and graphics over “innovative gameplay”, and RPG’s are my poison of choice.

One of the first games I picked up was Xseed Games’ “Brave Story: New Traveler”. This is a JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game) rated E, which took me about 20 hours to beat, which is a decent length for a hand-held dungeon crawler.

Graphically, the game is solid, especially for a hand-held. Predominantly this is because there are very few cutscenes, and there is not a huge leap from in-game graphics to FMV’s. There are some variations to characters in terms of equipping armor, but most of that comes towards the end of the game, and is not all that significant. Characters limp and slump when they are low on health, their character icon changes, and the camera changes angles enough to keep battles entertaining.

The soundtrack is certainly listen-able. It avoids the death-pit of over-repetitive music, even if it is not on the grand scale of say, Nobuo Uematsu.

Gameplay is very straightforward; You move the main character around towns and dungeons, using X to talk to people or check items. Standard staples of any RPG. The random encounter battle system is turn-based and focuses on the special abilities (Bravura) of the individual characters, as well as combo attacks called Unity Skills, both of which make most random encounters fast paced.

Additionally, the Unity Skills are visually entertaining. They rang from the epically stunning “Blazing Blades” to the mildly perverse “Quite Staring!”. There is certainly some strategy involved in determining which enemy to target first and using characters who can exploit an enemy’s weakness. Other than that, it is predominantly aim and fire.

A few boss fights drag on, but not to the point of frustration. Having the enemies (visually) droop when their health is low also keep the battles from getting dry. An important distinction from many other RPG’s, is that instead of focusing on Mana being depleted when using skills, the Bravura system replenishes a percentage of your BP (Bravura Points) based on damage dealt. This means that even if you are using a BP expensive skill, if you do enough damage with it, you may actually gain BP! This also means that you almost never need to use items in order to perform a certain ability.

Another great aspect of the game is that, even though your party is limited to three people, you have the option of six characters to combine in any order. This allows for experimentation, especially with the Unity Skills, though you will likely choose a core group to focus on leveling.

The story, while painfully generic, is not as clichéd as it could have been.

You play a 15 year old boy who is transported to the world of Vision in order to save a girl in a coma. Vision itself is defined and changed by the Traveler’s who enter it. There, it is determined that you are a Traveler, and thus need to collect all five gemstones to turn your Traveler’s Sword into the Demon’s Bane. Then travel to the Tower of Destiny, where the benevolent Goddess will grant you your wish. In your case, that your friend will get better.

Admittedly, it is a flimsy premise, though there are aspects of mystery to it. Complicating your quest is the interference of another Traveler, Rei, whom you are led to believe is responsible for your friend’s state. From fighting and interacting with him, you realize there is more going on in Vision than meets the eye (see, it’s a pun, Vision, eyes? OK, I’m done).

Despite all this, my only real problem with the story is how rushed it feels at the end. It seems like there is a sudden PLOT TWIST, where you expect to see the words “Please insert Disc 2” or some other indication that you are actually only halfway through the game, when in fact you have just finished. It simply feels like there should have been more. The script has several moments of cleverness, especially considering that most of it is done via text. The emotions and attitudes come across well, even though the dialogue is hamstrung by how extremely straightforward the story is. There are plenty of side quests to participate in, but very little in the way of motivation to go out of your way to complete them.

Finally, there are the characters. As with most JRPG’s, you are an intrepid nameless (or rather, self-named) silent protagonist, who amazingly pulls off looking like an even younger version of Sora from “Kingdom Hearts”. The rest of the characters are pulled right from RPG StereotypeLand, though they are less irritating than some. You are joined by a cat-girl… yes, she has a tail and ears and serves as the resident “cute and flirty” factor, a lizard Warrior (I’m not kidding, he wields a two-handed axe and is not the brightest), a dual-wielding female Knight who looks like a pirate, an arrogant gnome of a Mage, and a Lancer with giant goat horns and full armor.

The strength of the game comes predominantly from its accessibility. Even people who are not usually fans of RPG’s would find it easy to pick up and play, and the story clips along at a rapid pace, requiring very little grinding.

If you can get over the yiff-tastic fanservice in the form of a rather ridiculously armored cat-girl, or if all it takes to win you over is the sheer awesomeness of riding a dragon, I would say this game can be a great rental. I’m glad to have played it, but I will probably never pop it in my PSP again.

Tags: Brave Story: New Traveler, dragon, JRPG, psp, rpg

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Game Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.