Brandish

 I played Brandish!

This game was developed by Nihon Falcom in 1991 for various Japanese computers. In 1994 it got ported to 16-bit consoles, and the SNES version was given an English translation and was released in America in 1995. ...Europe did not get this game at all. 

I played the English SNES version on emulator.

I was interested in Brandish because it's a classic action-RPG by Nihon Falcom, the developers of Ys. And I sure love Ys!

So let's see what else they've got for me!

Brandish is a dungeon-crawling action-RPG. The game starts with Varik and his arch-rival Alexis having a confrontation, when suddenly they both fall into a gigantic underground realm - the sunken ruins of an ancient kingdom known as Berimya, which was once protected by a dragon, but fell to an evil king around 1000 years ago. In the Dragon's dying breath, it cursed the king and the kingdom, sinking it deep into the earth, buried for eternity.

Varik must now find his way out of the huge maze, and throughout the journey he will occasionally meet with Alexis who is also trying to escape. 

Despite Varik being the playable hero, Alexis is the character prominently featured on the cover artwork of most versions of Brandish. ...even though you barely see her within the game itself. 

Every time you meet up with Alexis, a funny scene plays out where she says, "There you are! Now is the time for my revenge!" and then she accidentally triggers a trap door and disappears down a hole. ...this happens like three or four times throughout the adventure, it's pretty good.

At the end of the game, you end up helping Alexis fend off a monster, and when you beat the final boss and escape to the surface, she no longer wants to kill Varik. Happy ending I guess.

...It seems the names 'Varik' and 'Alexis' were made up by the localisation team for this English SNES version. In every other version of Brandish, and all of its sequels, the two characters are named Ares and Dela. ...To be honest, I do like the localised names better, but if I ever play Brandish's sequels, I guess I'll have to get used to the canon names. 

There isn't much story in Brandish beyond this, so let's talk about the gameplay!

...

Brandish is a top-down dungeon-crawling RPG.

This game's most notable feature, especially compared to all other RPGs on the SNES, is the camera perspective system.

This is a rather oldschool-feeling, tile-based game that plays on a grid. You are always looking at Varik from behind, and whenever you turn left or right, rather than Varik's sprite changing to face left or right, the view of the entire world rotates instead. This can be quite disorienting when you first start playing, especially because it is not a smooth camera motion - the view instantly snaps 90 degrees each time you press left or right. This definitely takes some getting used to. And, I would also say it makes for a game that might be difficult to follow if you're watching someone else play.

The very first room in the game does seem to be intentionally designed to allow players to get used to this unusual camera setup - it's a uniquely-shaped room where each side looks distinct, with treasure chests on both the north and south ends. You start the game facing north, and the southern treasure chest is not initially visible because it is obscured by the southern wall. Once you rotate yourself to face south, then you'll be able to see it. ...the thing about this camera perspective system is that it allows them to hide items and switches and other things behind walls and pillars like this. It's an important part of the dungeon layout design of the game. 

It seems like they wanted to create a game with a slightly more 3D sense of space than what was normally seen at the time. It works, but it does take some adjustment to not get disoriented every time you turn left or right. Thankfully there is a compass on screen at all times to tell you where you're currently facing. And you can bring up a map of the current dungeon floor at any time, which is incredibly helpful in navigating. You uncover the map as you explore, so you can easily tell where you haven't been yet.

...this camera system makes Brandish feel like a weird cross between a regular top-down JRPG and an oldschool first-person dungeon crawler. It kind of plays exactly like a first-person dungeon crawler, except it's not first-person. 

I feel like someone who struggles with keeping a 3D map in their mind might not be able to get on well with this game.

...

The controls are another thing that take a bit of getting used to. Up moves you forward one tile, and down makes you walk backwards one tile. Left and right rotate the view of the world left or right. If you hold L or R, then left and right make you strafe without turning, which is useful if you are navigating a maze and don't want to lose your place visually. ...but it is funny seeing Varik walk sideways and backwards when you do this. He's always facing forwards, and there literally aren't any graphics in the game for Varik facing left, right, or downwards at all. In fact, you never actually ever get a good look at Varik's face at any point. He's a mysterious fellow indeed.

Learning this control scheme is essential for fighting against the various monsters who roam the mazes. Positioning yourself so that you can properly face yourself towards the enemies is important. As you play through the game, it does become second nature eventually, but I certainly did struggle to get to grips with it at first.

To fight enemies, you need to press the A button. Normally, this just makes Varik hold out his shield, so at first you might be confused at which button actually attacks. But if you press A while an enemy is nearby, then Varik will attack in front of him. It's things like this that might make the game feel a little unintuitive compared to something like The Legend of Zelda where you just have a sword button that makes you swing the sword, simple as that. 

Your weapon has a limited number of hits it can take before it breaks. You will find a steady supply of new weapons as you explore the dungeons, and if you really do run out of weapons, you can always punch enemies. There are also potions of hardness that can be used to add more durability to your currently-equipped weapon.

As a prize for defeating certain bosses, you will find unbreakable versions of the swords that last forever. They will be weaker than what you find lying around at the point you get them in, but they are certainly better than your fist! 

I do wonder if the unbreakable weapons somewhat undermine the weapon durability system. After getting one, I kind of didn't really bother switching weapons all that often any more, unless I was up against a tough boss who demanded maximum attack power from me. So I ended up with a huuuge surplus of spare weapons that I kept finding and not using. ...instead, these weapons are good for selling to shops for extra cash.

You can hold out your shield with the A button. If an enemy shoots projectiles, you can block them by holding A. And there are a couple of areas with arrow traps where quick thinking with the shield will save you.

Varik will also automatically hold out his shield when an enemy is right in front of him, which will block enemy melee attacks. If your shield is strong enough, it can completely negate the damage, which can keep you safe as you find moments in between enemy attacks to swing your weapon. The combat system is a bit more nuanced than it first appears if you actually pay attention to your enemies' behaviours and aren't just mashing the button.

That being said... mashing the button is not always a bad way of doing things even if you do end up taking a lot of damage. And that's because this game lets you rest and heal your HP at pretty much any time.

If you press L+R, the screen goes dark, and you begin refilling your HP. However, if an enemy interrupts your rest, you take a huge amount of damage - very often it's enough to be fatal, unless it was like a low level bat or something, in which case it still hits for a huge chunk of damage.

You have to be careful when resting to recover HP. Make sure you do it in a safe area free of enemies, otherwise you'll get interrupted and die. But once you know how to heal safely, it makes the game rather easygoing. It quite literally is free healing at any time.

The risk from resting scales in difficulty quite naturally - at the start of the adventure, resting will restore your health pretty much instantly. But as you level up more, you gain more total HP, so resting to full health will take longer, which means you're vulnerable for longer. It makes resting more risky the further into the game you are. 

Though it isn't ever truly risky, because dying isn't even a huge deal. You can save your game at any point, and even if you forget to save, the game autosaves every time you change floor. Going upstairs, going downstairs, and even when falling into a pit trap and landing on the floor below, it will always autosave. Pretty cool for an old game.

As you kill enemies, you gain experience, though annoyingly the SNES version doesn't actually show your EXP value anywhere in the menus. It just happens behind the scenes, it seems. When you level up, you become stronger. 

In addition to your EXP level, there are three other things you can level up - every time you land a hit with your sword, you train your "arm strength", which makes your sword attacks stronger. Every time you land a hit with a magic spell, you train your "knowledge", which makes your magic spells stronger. And every time you get hit by an enemy's magic attack, you train your "magic endurance", which reduces damage from enemy magic. Wearing armour does nothing for magic defence. 

I think this is a fun little system. It encourages you to use both swords and magic evenly, which is certainly helpful when you come across heavily armoured foes who are weak to magic, and magical foes who are immune to it.

Varik also has the ability to jump by pressing the B button. He will jump forward, passing over one tile, and will land on the next one. This is primarily used to jump over pits, traps, and other obstacles, but it can actually be used to jump over enemies too, if you've been cornered and need to reposition. Jumping is also faster than walking forwards, and there are a few moments in the game where you need to outrun a boulder (indiana jones style), where continuously jumping to go faster is the way to do it.

The Y button is used to interact with the tile in front of you. By default it is a hand cursor, but if you hold L or R, then the cursor changes into a magnifying lens. The hand cursor is used to take items from the floor, open doors, and activate levers. The magnifying lens cursor is used to examine objects, read signs, and get item descriptions.

...this game has the kind of controls that might make more sense when you consider that Brandish was originally designed to be played with a mouse on a computer. They did a great job making everything fit onto a SNES controller, but compared to other games that were designed for the SNES controller to begin with, Brandish can feel very clunky. Despite all of this, it is very possible to get used to it and be able to play smoothly. Once you're in the groove, it plays quite nicely. But it takes some work to reach that point. And I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players who try this game for the first time will be immediately put off by it and not want to play.

...

This game takes place entirely within the labyrinths of Berimya. Each floor has a staircase upwards that leads to the next floor. There are four main areas you explore in order: Ruins, Tower, Cave, Fortress. (and there's a mini-area called the Dark Zone in between the Caves and the Fortress)

Each area has around 10 floors, give or take, for a total of 45 floors to traverse through in order to reach the top.

Halfway through the Ruins early on, there's a "Worship Room" that contains a small sculpture, depicting the entirety of Berimya as seen from outside, which is there to give you an idea about how this is all supposed to make sense from a worldbuilding point of view: The Ruins of the kingdom lie at the bottom, and a huge Tower rises from the middle of the ruins. The Tower rises straight up into a huge mound of earth that contains the Caves. Atop this mound of earth sits a gigantic green dragon, who watches over the kingdom below. 

When you eventually reach the final area, the Fortress, Varik notices how fleshy and squelchy the walls have become... the Fortress seems to take place within the innards of some gigantic creature... this is either the body of the Dragon itself, or it might also be the evil king from the intro cutscene, who was said to be transformed into a monster by the Dragon's curse or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. It might also just be a particularly fleshy cave and not actually a creature's innards?? The game didn't really explain it.

...

Exploring the floors in this game is very much like an old-school dungeon-crawler. Each floor has passages to traverse, items on the floor, enemies to kill, and traps to avoid. There are also the occasional shops where you can buy and sell equipment and items.

Your map fills in automatically as you explore, but annoyingly, it only fills in the tiles you stand on and the tiles directly adjacent to them, and no more than that. That means that, if you want to fill in as much of the map as you possibly can without it being full of gaps, you need to be annoyingly meticulous and make sure you stand in each corner of every room. And even when you fill in every possible space, the map will still be full of gaps, because there are bits and pieces behind walls and over water etc that you can't ever get close enough to fill in. ... It's rather annoying. 

.... after the ending credits, the game shows you a map completion percentage, and it seems that it only considers floors that are possible to reach, so actually achieving 100% map completion according to the game is perfectly doable, even if the map doesn't really look complete.

In order to progress through each floor, all you need to do is find a path to the stairs that go up.

There are all sorts of things you might need to do to solve each floor: hit switches to open passageways, bash open breakable walls that may be hard to spot, find keys to open locked doors, defeat all the monsters in the room, solve teleporter mazes, solve riddles, figure out the correct path from a maze of dead-ends... you know how these sorts of dungeon games go, right?

Every floor is a maze, but the layouts are distinct and varied enough so that it doesn't feel repetitive. Each floor has a unique gimmick or at least a distinct personality that makes it memorable. When I return to a previous floor and open my map, I can definitely remember "oh right, that was the floor where such and such happened". It's a great thing that the game does not feel too repetitive, as that can sometimes be a real problem with this type of game.

The entire game is fully backtrackable. There are never any floors that are locked permanently after leaving them, so you can return to any part of the game any time you like. Sometimes it can be useful to backtrack, as you might want to revisit a shop on a previous floor. 

The most useful things shops sell are the armour upgrades and the magic spells. These tend to be the most expensive items they sell, but they are certainly very useful if you can afford them. Enemies do not drop money in this game - the only way to get money is to sell items you obtain from treasure chests or find lying around. This kind of means that there is a finite amount of gold in the game... but this should never actually become a problem, because there is definitely plenty enough to buy everything important.

When you buy a magic spell, it sits in the inventory and can be used by equipping it. Magic never runs out, so you only need to buy one of each spell. Magic costs MP, which recovers slowly over time.

The most useful magic is Fire, which shoots a projectile forwards. It's an incredibly strong and useful attack, and once you get it, it'll be indispensable for the entire rest of the game. 

I would say the next most useful magic is the Warp spell. It costs 100% of your MP bar to cast, but it allows you to teleport to any already-explored tile on the current floor. It is such a huge timesaver if you ever need to backtrack to previous floors.

...I suspect that the presence of the Warp spell is probably the reason why the map only fills in the tiles you step on. ...they don't want you to be able to warp to any part of the floor you haven't been to.

I also like the Healing spell. Despite the fact that you can rest at any time by pressing L+R, the Healing spell is actually incredibly good. It doesn't just instantly heal you, rather it casts a regeneration effect on Varik that lasts for a good while. So you can cast Heal and then fight an enemy, and every time you get hit, you are immediately already recovering the HP back. It's super cool. You can also use it to negate the damage from the poisonous swampy tiles that are prevalent in the Fortress.

...

Overall, I really really enjoyed my time with Brandish. I found myself compelled to keep playing, because I wanted to see what was on the next floor. It was strangely addictive. 

The adventure was nicely-paced. It's not a short game, but it doesn't feel like it drags on either. I spent around 20 hours on my playthrough, which I felt was the perfect length for a game like this.

As far as dungeon-crawlers go, Brandish is very easygoing. You can heal at any time, you can see your map at any time, and the game just showers you with spare weapons and other treasures, so the resource management is not difficult either. And you can save anywhere, so there aren't really any harsh penalties for dying either.

If it wasn't for the extremely weird perspective system, or the unusual janky controls, I would actually heartily recommend Brandish as a great beginner's dungeon-crawler. It's a game that I think any RPG fan could finish without too much issue, as long as they are willing to adapt to the controls.

...Though it's definitely a game for people who really like exploring dungeon mazes, first and foremost. Because visually it's a bit bland and confusing, and it's light on plot and worldbuilding. RPG fans who prefer their games to have a deeper story aren't going to find that in Brandish.

...

just a few more miscellaneous thoughts about the game, I guess...

...This game has a rather silly inventory trap. There are two types of potion, H. Potion for health, and M. Potion for magic. However, you will also often find bottles of "H. Poison" and "M. Poison". These do the opposite, and deplete your health or magic... You need to pay attention to what you're actually drinking, because the Poison items look identical to the Potion items, and their names look similar at a glance.

You can stack certain items together into one inventory slot in order to save space, however if you accidentally put a stack of Poison into a stack of Potions, they will "cancel each other out" and you will lose them all. It's funny that you have to worry about this. It's a trap that only affects players who aren't paying enough attention.

There were a few puzzles in this game that I didn't like. I even had to look up the solution to one puzzle because it was so obtuse. There was a room full of buttons on the floor, and the hint was "You must be able to see Southeast from the far door." ...there wasn't anything located southeast in this room. ...It was completely baffling, and nothing I tried made any sense. ... ... ...It turns out, the solution was to press the buttons in a certain pattern so that the pressed buttons spell out the letters "S" and "E" on the floor.   .... absolutely insane. I would have never even considered that as a solution. ...

But there were also a few puzzles that I really did like! One that stood out to me was a floor switch that is supposed to open a door, but when you step on it, nothing happens. A sign has a hint that it requires a lot of force to press this switch. If you go up one floor, you can fall down a hole and land on the switch, but still nothing happens. What you need to do is go up two floors, find the exact right hole, which perfectly aligns with the previous hole that will then land on the switch. And the door opens because apparently the force from landing from two floors up is what it takes. I enjoy when the game asks me to think about how the dungeon connects together like this.

In the Tower, there are two items that cannot be picked up. They are positioned right next to a pit. You can stand on the tile with the item, but in order to pick up items in this game, you need to be in front of it, and it's not possible to stand in front of these because they're right next to a pit. ... It's a rather bizarre thing. I checked guides and walkthroughs, and yeah. These items really are completely impossible to pick up. Weird.

...

Around one year ago, there was a release for a version of the game called Brandish Renewal on the Nintendo Switch, under the "EGGCONSOLE" series of old emulated Japan-exclusive games. ... however this version has unfortunately been de-listed from the eShop. No-one can buy it any more. ...I guess I can consider myself lucky, because I did manage to buy it before it went away.

It's basically an emulated port of an updated NEC PC-9801 version of Brandish, and it doesn't have an English translation, even though I bought it from the English eShop. The game remains entirely in Japanese.

This was a version that used a mouse cursor, but annoyingly, since it's on Switch 1 (and was never updated for Switch 2), there's no way to use a real mouse here. Instead they mapped the left and right sticks to dragging the mouse cursor around the screen. It's awkward, but it does function. Interestingly, this version of the game displays your inventory and minimap on-screen at all times, which is really cool, but in exchange, the screen space for the main view of the game is quite limited compared to the SNES version.

Aside from this, I was quite surprised when I realised just how faithful the SNES version was when I had a look at this version. Every dungeon floor layout was brought over one-to-one, with absolutely no level design differences at all. Pretty cool. Normally I would expect to see some weird inexplicable layout differences between versions for a game like this.

The Renewal version does have a few interesting differences compared to the SNES version - the pit traps in the Dark Zone are visible here, which makes navigating a whole lot simpler in this area. And you can actually see what dropped items look like on the ground now - on the SNES version, items just appear as a generic pouch icon. ...........and with this, I could finally see what the two un-pickup-able items in the Tower were. They are a leather armor and an invisibility potion. Wow, nothing special at all. ....and yeah, they are still impossible to pick up in this version too.

The Renewal version also adds a little casino slot machine minigame, which I guess serves to fix the problem of there otherwise being a finite amount of gold in the game. I guess. It reminded me of the Pokémon Red / Blue slot machine. Like, it played pretty much literally exactly like that one.

... The Renewal version also keeps a tally of how many times you use the Rest command. Every time you rest, the screen goes dark, and you see an ominous red tally which counts how often you rest. It doesn't do anything at all, aside from making me self-conscious about how often I use this feature.

I think, overall, I prefer the SNES version, but it was nice to be able to check out what the game originally looked like before it got ported! I hope that the developers of the EGGCONSOLE series can get it back on the eShop at some point. I read somewhere that the reason it got delisted is because it used a version of MS-DOS to emulate the game, and apparently, they didn't have the proper license from Microsoft to use MS-DOS for this purpose?? Or something like that?? Whatever it is, it seems to be a legal issue.

I also briefly tried out a TurboGrafx-16 CD version on emulator just to have a look. It's pretty bad. Definitely the worst version of the game that exists. The controls are even jankier due to the TG-16 only having two buttons compared to the SNES's 6. Absolutely not recommended. I didn't play past the first room because it didn't seem worth my time.

There also exists a PSP remake titled Brandish: Dark Revenant. This was released in Japan in 2009, and... in 2015, it got on official English version. Since nobody was making PSP discs in 2015, this translated edition was digital-only. And yes, they used the names Ares and Dela for this, making them the canon official names outside of Japan for the first time, completely retconning Varik and Alexis. Oh well.

By the way, in the crossover fighting game "Ys vs Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga", one of the unlockable characters is Dela from Brandish! That's pretty cool. I still wasn't too keen on that game, but it's nice to see that Brandish has a bit of presence like that.

Uh. anyway. That's all. I like this game. I may play Brandish 2 pretty soon too.