Screw the Mystical Ninja, We Have Musashi!

Legends of Long Ago

About 150 years ago, the Allucaneet Kingdom and the Thirstquencher Empire were at peace. Suddenly, an evil manifests itself in the Thirstquencher Empire and almost destroys the place. A brave warrior named Musashi was summoned via the Hero Summon spell. After a long and grueling battle, Musashi used Lumina, the Sword of Luminescence to split the evil into five scrolls. Peace was regained in the kingdoms. Recently, however, the Thirstquencher empire attacks the Allucaneet Kingdom while the King and Queen were away. At a desperate time, the daughter, Princess Fillet used the Hero Summon to summon Musashi once again...Only to find a little boy. Questioning whether or not it is him, they tell him that he cannot go home until the Five Scrolls are found.

Sleep little one, Sleep...

Musashi is one the few RPGs around that has a day night cycle. This is an important thing, as stores aren't open during certain days or times. Looking at the clock can also dictate major game events. As time passes, Musashi gradually gets tired. If you don't rest him, he'll end up sluggish. Eventually, he'll even fall asleep. By either taking naps on the field, or sleeping in an inn or his room, Musashi loses tiredness and can go a little further. Careful though, because enemies aren't above getting in cheap shots whenever you're dozing. Sleeping is also a good way to pass time. It passes by eight times faster, when you catching some Zs.

The World of Allucaneet

Musashi is divided into a few areas, never really far from Grillin' Village, which is the only town in the game. One area you'll make frequent visits to is Twinpeak Mountain. Or you'll have to make you way through the Solomnent Forest, leading to Steamwood, and the mazelike Mysterious Woods. The key here is that each area is restricted at first. As more items are found, they grant more of the area to be explored, until you have total freedom of the areas, like in Zelda. Freeing up the Five Crests also contributes to opening areas.

Search and Rescue

Scattered throughout the kingdom are 35 residents of the castle. Rescuing them can provide valuable clues, and cool techniques. Moreover, sometimes until you rescue certain people, you can't progress, so it pays to look high and low and maybe left and right to find everyone. Not enough? Well finding them gives Musashi a 5 BP max bonus and can restore all his BP to full. Also lurking about are 13 Minku. These nocturnal animals contain longevity berries, good for increasing Max Hp by 25, however, they are particularly tough to find. Pink pellets are the clue...

Cloud and Crono...Musashi Got 'em Both Beat.

One thing that hard to not to notice about Musashi are his two gigantic swords. The long samurai sword is called Fusion and enables Musashi to pull off one his coolest moves: Assimilation. Through this technique, he can acquire enemies' special moves. This is handy for solving many of the game's puzzles. Early on there will a river and no way to cross it. However an nearby enemy possesses the Bullet ability, useful for knocking down objects. Sure you could come and try to lure him but, you could also steal his abilities and use them for yourself and knock the logs down across the stream. Watch out for these abilities, they consume his source of power, Bincho Points (BPs). The huge Cloudlike sword is called Lumina and grants Musashi the ability to assimilate the power of the five scrolls. These give him even more abilities, such as the ability to create earthquakes and to walk on water. As if the swords by themselves didn't make him powerful enough, he can learn to use them together in special techniques. They're gained from rescuees and require commands like Square, Square, X to be inputted to use them. But they don't cost him anything.

Artistic talent

The best way to describe Musashi's art design is to say that Goemon meets Final Fantasy Tactics. It takes Goemon's weird character designs and mixes it with Tactics' noseless faces. The end result is funny nontheless and different. But let's not forget, this is Square we're talking about. A common sight are special effects (especially attacking with Fusion and Lumina, which leave lightsaber like trails.) Bosses in particular, are the best of show, usually leaving a wake of destruction to exploit the graphic potential of the PS.

However, sometimes, things get a little too simplistic. Character models leave a little to be desired, often using simple polygons to construct them and lacking the fine details to really give them that anime feel the game aspires to, although Musashi is a strange little sight to behold. Talk about artistic license, the hair is either inspired by Cloud's weird locks or Toriyama's been doing some moonlighting. Or maybe both, but needless to say, Musashi gets noticed. The surrounding scenery is however, pedigree Square. All of the environments exude a certain lushness whether it be high lofty mountains or dark barely lit forests.

Sonic Superiority

Musashi features extensive voice acting. Similar to the chatty Sega CD game Popful Mail, BFM has lots of oportunities where dialog is conveyed in voice. Suprisingly, its very good acting, considering the audience it was meant for. Musashi's character is energetic, a little egotistic and well Musashi. Fillet's character is typical valley girl. And a bossy one no less. You get the point, the characters play their parts well, on par even with WD...

The music is also well done. Not legendary like Final Fantasy or Zelda, it's still catchy, though forgetable. It's atmosheric as it changes with the day, sounding adventurous and energetic during the afternoon and losing that energy as the day wanes onward.

Respond...Now!

Musashi controls well with the Dual analog controller, although the range for him to walk is a little to small for my tastes. This is a good thing since they're plenty of platforming opportunities and precise control is what one needs for those perilous situations.One small gripe is that there is no way to rotate the scenery, sometimes things get in the way, not all the time, but every once so often. Usually the camera acts right, rotating when the situation calls for it so the view of Musashi is mostly clear.

Demand It Now

You have to like BFM because it isn't one type of game. It's part RPG, adventure, action, platform and even riding. You really have to like it because it integrates its elements so well, it feels like one complete game. Unfortunately, like so many RPGs it's also hard to recommend replaying it. But if you find it cheap, and can't afford FFVIII, buy this: It has a FFVIII demo included, if you didn't know that already.