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Nelson Schneider's Video Game Reviews (474)

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Assassin's Creed IV: Bl... 2.5/5
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands 3.5/5
Ratchet & Clank: Rift A... 4.5/5
Super Mario Bros. Wonder 4.5/5
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Catmaze 4.5/5
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Rayon Riddles - Rise of... 0.5/5
World to the West 4/5
MechWarrior 5: Mercenar... 4/5
Streets of Kamurocho 2.5/5
Aeon of Sands - The Tra... 2.5/5
Greak: Memories of Azur 3.5/5
Yaga 2.5/5
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Bug Fables: The Everlas... 4.5/5
Front Mission 1st Remake 1.5/5
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Bladed Fury 3.5/5
Ruzar - The Life Stone 3.5/5
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin 3.5/5
Mighty Switch Force! Co... 2.5/5
Aegis of Earth: Protono... 3/5
Torchlight III 2.5/5

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Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer   PlayStation 2 

Obviously Rushed    2/5 stars

“Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer” (“BSSD”) is the penultimate release from VIS Entertainment, a Scottish developer that released a total of 10 terrible games over the course of its existence. VIS filed for bankruptcy in 2005, selling off its intellectual properties to other developers. It was through another developer releasing a remake of “BSSD” on the Wii that I first learned about this title. Not knowing (nor caring) about the Xbox 360 version, I decided to go with the ‘original,’ intending to avoid tacked-on waggle-style motion controls. Some initial screens and information seemed promising and made “BSSD” seem like the Native American equivalent of “Okami,” in that it was an action/adventure title strongly steeped in a semi-exotic real-world mythology. Had I done more research ahead of time, I would not have purchased this game.

Presentation
“BSSD” has bipolar graphics. While the entire game is cartoony and exaggerated, this look only really works for the environments. The characters are all hideously distorted, with the titular Brave featuring more cheeks and chin than he can handle. Fortunately, character animations are better than their designs.

The sound is, overall, good. The soundtrack is pleasant and features mostly authentic-sounding drumbeats. The voiceacting isn’t as uniformly good as the music, however. While some of the characters, particularly the elderly mentor, Gray Bear, sound good, Brave himself has a very grating voice and poor delivery. There are also a couple of instanced in the game where the dialog is completely garbled… oops!

And the occasional sound errors aren’t the only technical problems with the game. It froze on my three different times, once randomly, once while loading, and once while transitioning to an in-game-engine cutscene. The other big technical flaw is the fact that the camera is quite horrible.

The biggest thing that struck me upon playing “BSSD,” however, was the fact that it looked nothing like the screens and preview images that made me decide to buy the game. Only after playing the game did I learn that those beautiful images were concept art for the game. While all of the concepts ARE represented in the final product, the transition from 2D concept art to 3D game resources did not go well.

Story
The story in “BSSD” is the high point of the game. But it starts off so slowly that many players probably wouldn’t continue through the introductory stage with its copious tutorials and rushed pacing. In this introductory stage, the player is introduced to a young Native American warrior-wannabe named Brave, his mentor, Gray Bear, and his supposed love interest, Meadow Flower. As Gray Bear sends Brave on fetch quest after fetch quest in a forest clearing, the story of the illustrious shaman, Spirit Dancer, begins to reveal itself. But Brave’s most pressing matter is to collect enough shiny, ability-granting rocks to become powerful enough to defeat an angry bear.

Once the sluggish intro ends, the trio returns to Red Tree Village, only to discover it under attack by the horrific demon known as the Wendigo, which had been sealed away (but of course not defeated) by spirit dancer a decade ago. Unsurprising events happen and Brave finds himself on a wild goose chase to find Spirit Dancer and recruit his aid in defeating the Wendigo once and for all.

Throughout the rest of the story, Brave briefly meets a variety of other characters, both friend and foe. His character development feels very forced across the short duration of the game (15 hours to complete with all secrets found) and his reactions to story events seem contrived. It plays out like a story written by a middle-schooler.

Gameplay
As I mentioned earlier, “BSSD” has terrible pacing. Sometimes it feels rushed, other times it feels sluggish. Part of the pacing issue stems, I think, from the fact that the game is crushingly linear. As Brave comes to the end of each stage, he must jump off an overhang to proceed to the next stage. These overhangs are low enough that he doesn’t die from the fall, but too high for him to climb back up. Thus I felt compelled to postpone advancing through the game in order to scour each stage for its limited number of secrets. The only way to revisit previous stages is to beat the game, then choose the stage from the newly-available stage select menu, which forces the player to replay the stage from the beginning.

The secrets are actually very disappointing. They come in the form of ‘Secret Totems’ that unlock pieces of the game’s concept art for viewing in a sub-menu. Finding the secrets, therefore, just rubs salt in the wound of how good this game could have been if it lived up to its concepts. In order to find Secret Totems, Brave must use his spirit vision to search for invisible animal tracks or birds (which look suspiciously like the Twitter bird with RSS Feed symbols shooting out of each side). Constantly switching to spirit vision is annoying and makes finding secrets feel like a tedious chore.

The basic gameplay in “BSSD” is by-the-books 3D platforming. Brave can jump with X, swing a weapon with Square, perform non-combat actions with O, and fire a ranged weapon with Triangle. Clicking the right analog stick switches to spirit vision mode. Brave must progress through semi-open/semi-linear stages, acquiring tools and performing tasks. At the end of each stage, he earns an eagle feather that increases his spirit gauge. However, the spirit gauge is mostly useless, as it just allows Brave to temporarily power-up his basic attacks for dealing with normal enemies (which are never really a problem). Brave’s life gauge never increases beyond what he starts with, but both it and the spirit gauge can be refilled by finding items hidden in bushes or dropped by slain enemies. However, Brave’s limited amount of life isn’t a problem either, as the game has no system of earning extra lives. Like Ratchet and Jak, Brave has unlimited lives.

All of the gameplay in “BSSD” sounds straight-forward; and it is. But it’s also rough and unpolished. The movement and jumping controls are sloppy and Brave’s shadow doesn’t help much in indicating where he will land, leading to numerous deaths via bottomless/lava/freezing pits. Brave’s default attack also has a stupidly short range reminiscent of the main character in “Lagoon” for the SNES. Also, most of the tools Brave finds in his travels can only be used in the stage in which they are found.

Of course, sloppy platforming isn’t the only type of gameplay included in “BSSD.” The game also features a number of terrible ‘vehicle’ levels that see Brave flying through rings on the back of a giant eagle (shades of “Superman 64”?!), riding raging rapids in a canoe that explodes if it touches a twig 4 times, or riding on the backs of a stampeding herd of bison while attempting to kill undead bison rustlers before the herd falls off a cliff. While these are all good ideas, the implementation is imprecise, sloppy, and frustrating.

Overall
“Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer” is a thorough disappointment and could serve as the poster child for ‘shovelware.’ While the developers obviously had a vision for an incredible-looking, polished game with an engaging narrative, that is exactly the opposite of what they actually made. Even at the bargain-basement prices this game goes for used, it’s not worth the time to sit through it, even for fans of the genre.

Presentation: 2.5/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 2/5

 

 


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