21-07-2004 04:57									#1
	brigandine review(for playstation 1) Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

this is a little known playstation one game that is rarely if ever mentioned in game forums. i thought i'd give a review since i've been playing it quite a lot recently and deserves more word of mouth than it has(which is basically none). the game has a world map similar to romance of the three kingdoms and battles take place on a hex grid. the main gameplay is managing your monsters/army and fighting.

the game opens with a short movie...



then when you start the game you are immediately given a choice of which country you want to play. there are 5 regular countries and the evil esgares empire(you can play as the esgares empire by pressing R1+L2+Start).

you then select your difficulty level. i recommend easy for newbies because this game can be rather brutal(but not unfair). even at the easiest difficulty you will lose battles. if you started at hard or normal you might get frustrated and give up.

next the game will start each time with the opening scene which explains the reason for all the war going on. there is quite a bit of dialogue in the game and all of it is pretty funny(i think so anyways).

after this the story for each country is different and you are introduced to your main rune knight leaders. the game really begins now and you can manage your forces. first let's see the where you are going to fight...

here you can see each country has a different strategic position and some are very hard to defend while others are easier. some also have an easier time attacking while others must garrison many castles. in general red and green are fairly strong because they are the only country which allies(from what i know) every other country is always in a state of war with each other. in absolute terms purple(esgares empire) is much stronger than everyone else put has a fairly bad position in the center of the map. of course a human player probably would do fine with them but the ai can have some problems now and then. light blue is the worst by a fair margin but has a decent defensive position only needing to defend 2 castles(the map shows 3 but only 2 have connections to the enemy). the ai does a good job of exploiting your weaknesses and you should end up losing or retreating from battles more than a few times throughout the course of a game(assuming you don't lose).

let's take a look at an army(pic below). each unit is headed by a rune knight who has rune points which limit how many monsters he can control(to a maximum of 6). generally the best leaders have upwards of 350 rune points and are much stronger and useful in battle than weaker leaders. you can also see some units here(fairly high level ones too) and in general units are comparable to ogre battle or final fantasy tactics units with different abilities and strengths. that's not to say this game is too close to the ones i just mentioned but the same ideas apply.

armies need heavy ground units but the rest is up to you. usually a mixture of units works best(unlike some games) because there is a mild opposites gameplay strength/weaknesses going on(fire/water, good/evil, small units can dodge big units a lot, magic units are weak physically but can do big damage to strong physical units, etc). units and leaders level up every 10 levels(not always though) and each class will be able to evolve at least twice(3 times is max evolutions) within 30 levels(max levels for the game). higher level units are stronger and have more abilities but they also cost more(sometimes 2x more) so you will have less of them. it's a trade off if lower or higher units is better because higher level units are much harder to use but used correctly are devastating.

one good thing to mention is all the units are very well balanced. so units which are much weaker(example being ghouls who cost 15 rune points) but usually these units level up much quicker and all high level and evolved units are decent.

here is the leader of yellow who has quite funny dialogue throughout the game. he is also quite strong and starts the game over level 20(meaning he is almost fully evolved). each country starts with different level leaders and units. use your strong units well and don't let them die because once they are gone they are gone. leaders who die are wounded for a month but then can continue fighting without penalties.

abilities are quite important especially if used efficientantly. magic points cannot be restored in battle so use it wisely. hex means range of the ability/attack. gr(ground) and sk(sky) with circles mean this unit is good at attacking both ground and sky. triangles would mean bad.

this is just a short bio which each leader has.

stats of your country. the real important stat here is income. i suppose if you don't have enough cities/income to support your armies something bad will happen. i've never had problems with this yet.

battles usually involve one army attacking another at a defensive position(at harder difficulties the computer stops charging you on defense and plays smarter). here two armies are about to clash head on in one turn. certain terrain has natural bonuses and certain units do better in certain terrain(but are still useful in grass which is where most fighting occurs). one important aspect of battle is protecting and killing enemy leaders as that makes their whole unit retreat. after one unit is forced to retreat the rest of the leaders and their units usually follow and many times the computer will retreat before battle can begin because it won't like it's odds. if you kill a nation's leader all units must retreat but this is usually very hard as almost all nations have powerful leaders.

this is a battle which is almost over. you can see purple has a paralyzed enemy leader and a petrified golem. the other leaders retreated once the initiative turned against them but these guys are stuck because of their status ailments.

brigandine also features blocky 3d graphics which you will probably want to turn off after a few hours as it makes fighting much quicker. the graphics are fun to watch at first though.

the thing i didn't get pictures of i will mention briefly.

questing is also in the game but non-involved. each idle rune knight can do a quest(except your nation's leader) and it will either increase their stats, find a monster/item/equipment or injure them for a month. quests are interesting at first but boring after a while(press R1 + X to skip text really quick iirc) because they are repetitive stories which are semi-random and at the end of the story will change between endings with the resultant stuff i mentioned above. they are interesting enough to read once through.

the main story will advance as you play. the first time enemies meet in battle they will chat(very funny usually) and conquering nations will advance the story also, as will questing.

the game has simple music but i really like it. it's like an old school midi tune. the graphics as you can see are just passible but the gameplay really rocks. i'd say this game is worth getting if you are into strategy/tactical rpgs. brigandine also has a sequel in japanese but i know nothing about it(does anyone know anything?). this game does have a few flaws(mostly obviously ai stupidity) and if they were corrected it would be really an almost perfect game imo.

this is from a game i've almost beaten on hard.


is this the longest post ever(not in text but scrolling)?

	21-07-2004 22:09									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

A friend has the game and I played it for few turns. I enjoyed it even if I got my butt handed to me by my 2nd or 3rd battle. I would love to get my own copy so I can finish the game.

It reminds me of Gemfire for SNES, kinda.

	22-07-2004 07:45									#3
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

you should get it... it's really quite good. i'm pretty hard on most games put this one is really outstanding. there's not many games where i can manage to lose battles, i had thought i was going to win, AND have fun in the process. that is really what impresses me most about this game.

	23-07-2004 01:45									#4
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Seems interesting. I remember hearing of it in passing awhile back... I think it's pretty hard to find.