Ape Escape and Brave Fencer Musashi Reviews

[Zera]

Greetings, folks! Today I am here for a double review - two Playstation One classics - Ape Escape and Brave Fencer Musashi.

I'd like to give special thanks to my Playstation 2 for its backwards compatibility. It's like two systems in one, unlike the Playstation 4!

Ape Escape, released in 1999 and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment, was the first PS game that required the Dualshock controller - with two analog sticks! In fact, much of the gameplay is based around this. It's a 3D platformer where you run, jump, and... catch monkeys. It's an odd premise, but it works quite well and ties in perfectly with the story.

Spike and his friend Jake are heading to the Professor's lab to see his newest invention, the time machine. Meanwhile, a white haired monkey from the circus named Specter somehow gets his hands on the Professor's unfinished Peak Point Helmet, which gives him incredible knowledge and power, and turns him into an evil genius. Specter and his army of monkeys hijack the time machine and are sent across time itself. Spike must travel to each period of time and use a stun club, time net, and other crazy gadgets to catch the monkeys before they change the course of history.

With the left stick you control Spike's movement and with the right stick you control the gadget he's currently using. For example, you can slash in any direction with the stun club by quickly tilting the right stick, or you can rotate it to do a spin attack. Even the minigames, which are unlocked by collecting hard-to-reach Specter Coins, make use of dual-analog control. The goal of each level is to catch a certain number of monkeys, but if you want total completion you will need to return to each level to catch the remaining monkeys with your new gadgets. There are 8 gadgets in total, and you can map them to the face buttons of the controller. Every gadget has one or two unique uses, and you will swap them frequently, Zelda style.

The graphics are nice, the music is great, the level design is good, and the gameplay is fun. My one complaint with this game is that the render distance is quite short, and you won't be able to see objects that are far away. This game is not available on Playstation Network, but used copies of the PS1 disc can be bought online. There is also a PSP remake with better graphics and worse voice acting, but this version only uses one analog stick, and I've heard that it doesn't control as well as the original. Ape Escape 2 and 3 were released on PS2, but I have no idea how good they are.

9/10 Awesome!

Brave Fencer Musashi, released in 1998 and developed by Squaresoft (Not Square Enix), was an attempt to make an adventure game for PS1 that could compete with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Talk about ambition! And... it's actually really good!

When the King and Queen of the Allucaneet Kingdom (pronounced "all you can eat") are absent, the Thirstquencher Empire attacks. Princess Fillet is called upon to use a large binchotite crystal to perform the Hero Summon Spell. The legendary hero Brave Fencer Musashi is summoned, except he's just a kid. In order to bring peace to the world and return home, Musashi must acquire Lumina, the sword of Luminescence, retrieve the Five Scrolls to restore its power, defeat the Crest Guardians to liberate the Crests, and rescue 36 people missing from the castle, including Princess Fillet.

On the field you can battle enemies in real-time combat using two swords, Fusion and Lumina. Fusion can assimilate enemies and grant their abilities to Musashi, Kirby style, many of which are required to solve puzzles. Lumina can perform special techniques if you have a specific scroll equipped. In addition to Hit Points (HP) which measure your not-deadness, you also need Bincho Points (BP) to perform special moves. By breaking Bincho Fields with people trapped inside, and catching nocturnal creatures called Minkus, you can increase your max HP and BP. Musashi also has a tiredness percentage, and his performance significantly diminishes if it goes above 70%. Like Ocarina of Time, BFM has a day-night system based on real time, but it is much more important in BFM. Sleeping speeds up time, slowly restores HP, and decreases tiredness, but BP slowly decreases over time no matter what. Certain stores open at certain times and close on certain days, and food items spoil over time (except cheese, which gets better over time). This game also has quite a bit of platforming, which is weird for a Squaresoft title.

The graphics are nice, the music is fantastic, the voice acting is cheesy, and the adventuring, platforming, and boss fights are a blast. Is this game better than Ocarina of Time?...No, but it's still one of the best PS1 games out there. And because Sony hates you, it is not available on PSN outside of Japan. There is a sequel on PS2 called Musashi: Samurai Legend, but it has met some very mixed reviews from critics, and some fans refuse to acknowledge its very existence. Make of that what you will.

9/10 Awesome!

Edited September 13, 2016 by Zera

[Zera]

Sorry for the double post, I meant to make an edit and hit the Quote button by mistake...Unless there's a way to delete this post...

Edited June 26, 2013 by Zera

[Esau of Isaac]

I used to play both of these all the time. BFM is just so addictive because there's so much you can do. It had a collectibility to it in that you had to hunt down all the members of the castle, and the leveling was fun as hell. All the powers you could get were great too. Everyone hated the sequel because it was absolutely nothing like the original. A cool thing about it is that while it only came on one disc, the jewel case for it was one of those double-size ones you'd see (like what FFVII and VIII had). In the back was a demo disc that showed a bunch of cool RPGs that were coming out. It had a demo of Front Mission 3 and the opening of Chrono Cross and Legend of Mana. That disc single-handedly got me to buy like four games. Such good memories.

Ape Escape was just revolutionary as hell. People today will take it for granted, but the presence of a game that made you use the analogue sticks was huge back then. It was crazy to have a game that took advantage of that technology and brought interesting gameplay to the table.

[Happy_Dingo]

I remember reading in a magazine about Ape Escape and thinking about how cool it looked.

"Beating up monkeys with a lightsaber? Sign me up!"

Sadly back then my library of video games was up to what my parents/ grandparents would buy me and asking for a PS1 AND an N64 was too much. N64 won and ever since then there's been an ocean of games (mostly RPGs) that I regretably missed out on. Not that I regretted the N64. I was rockin' Mario 64 and Paper Mario.

I'd only heard of Brave Fencer in passing so the review was nice and informative.

Those voices are full of cheese though XP.

[Elieson]

Ape escape OMG so much nostalgia I still play the PSX version (did just a few days ago)

I love how you literally used the right analog stick to do shit, and the X, O Etc to switch gear

Edited June 26, 2013 by Elieson

[Zera]

I'd only heard of Brave Fencer in passing so the review was nice and informative.

Glad you found the review useful!

Sadly back then my library of video games was up to what my parents/ grandparents would buy me and asking for a PS1 AND an N64 was too much. N64 won and ever since then there's been an ocean of games (mostly RPGs) that I regretably missed out on. Not that I regretted the N64. I was rockin' Mario 64 and Paper Mario.

Ironically, despite being a Nintendo fan, I never owned an N64. I have played Super Smash Bros. though. I also played the DS remake of Super Mario 64, but I couldn't beat the final boss because that game was built for an analog stick, not a d-pad. I wonder if the 3DS's circle pad would work better...

[Original Alear]

I used to play both of these all the time. BFM is just so addictive because there's so much you can do. It had a collectibility to it in that you had to hunt down all the members of the castle, and the leveling was fun as hell. All the powers you could get were great too. Everyone hated the sequel because it was absolutely nothing like the original. A cool thing about it is that while it only came on one disc, the jewel case for it was one of those double-size ones you'd see (like what FFVII and VIII had). In the back was a demo disc that showed a bunch of cool RPGs that were coming out. It had a demo of Front Mission 3 and the opening of Chrono Cross and Legend of Mana. That disc single-handedly got me to buy like four games. Such good memories.

Ape Escape was just revolutionary as hell. People today will take it for granted, but the presence of a game that made you use the analogue sticks was huge back then. It was crazy to have a game that took advantage of that technology and brought interesting gameplay to the table.

Wow. My copy of BFM just had a demo of FF8 (that was kinda hard cuz you couldn't level up for XATM20. But yes, demo discs were awesome.

I would've given BFM a 10 though.

[Zera]

I would've given BFM a 10 though.

I rate by modern day standards. I can cut some slack for "blocky" graphics and "clunky" controls because all PS1 games had those limitations, but the fact that I rated it a 9 is a testament to the endurance of its excellent design. This might also explain why The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D got lots of 9s from critics despite being intrinsically better than the original, which got lots of 10s.

I think I slightly prefer BFM to Ape Escape, but they get the same score because I only use whole numbers for rating. Just because you prefer one game over the other a tiny bit doesn't mean you have to give them different ratings. If you do, you will end up like IGN and many other critics and start using decimals. Is there really any objective difference between a 9.3 and a 9.4? Probably not. Because different people have different tastes, some will inevitably prefer the 9.3.

[deleted35362]

Brave Fencer Musashi? AMAZING game. Ocarina of Time...what? Better? No, that game is terrible.