Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia: videogiocare Risiko

Making Risiko a videogame fantasy. It may be strange but that's what Brigandine The Legend of Runersia does, find out in our review

“They make gods immense laps and then they come back ". The Vendictian quote goes well with the story of Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, the strategic title that we are going to put under the critical lens in this one review. Strengthened by an appreciated version already landed on Nintendo Switch last June 25, the developer Matrix Software and the publisher Happinet they also try the hit on PlayStation 4.



Curiously, however, despite the balance of hardware prowess, between the two consoles, is undoubtedly in favor of Sony's fixed, the game seemed to us technically more clumsy compared to the Switch counterpart. During the review we will dwell on this last point to try to clarify the ideas of those who may already have the title of Happinet in the ranks of their personal video game library and are wondering if it is worth buying the PS4 variant as well.

A gift to the old continent

It has been said of the immense laps. To Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia it certainly is. Not only because the title had already appeared some time ago at the window of Switch, as mentioned, but also and above all because the title is part of a blazoned IP which goes back directly to the glorious days of PlayStation, Sony's first gray monolith.

Right on the console of the electronics giant, in 1998, had debuted  Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena. If the name doesn't tell you anything there is a reason. Hearty Robin e Atlus, in fact, respectively developer and publisher of the strategy, had thought of releasing the title only for the Japanese and American markets. So it was that we Europeans stayed atdry, unaware of another of the pearls that the illustrious first iteration of PlayStation preferred to offer to the rest of the world.



The title was essentially a brilliant videogame reinterpretation of the board game par excellence, Risks. The playful system of the board game, which has always been sadly responsible for the breaking of historical emotional and friendly ties, entered as a contemporary warrior in the creative vision of Hearty Robin and emerged as novello fantasy. Essentially, the player had to fight his way to conquer the endless lands of Forsena, assuming control of one of the 6 nations available and subtracting bases from rival nations to the sound of turn-based invasions, fought on the shoulders of unfortunate centaurs, griffins, golems, unicorns and anything else that can be traced back to the packed repertoire of the fantastic.

Hence, basically, Happinet's is primarily a gift to the gamer community Europeans. Yes why Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, the object of ours review, allows us to rediscover a PlayStation classic of undisputed value, honored, at the time, by the joint consent of the public and critics. Of course, twenty-two years have passed in the meantime, the technical system is another, as is the narrative one. Basically, however, what really matters does not change: the concept halfway between Risk and Fire Emblem, the somewhat staid flow of shiftwork situations, the intimidating game system (for complexity) only in appearance and essence, to be honest, decidedly accessible.

Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia: videogiocare Risiko

When the technician crosses the narrative - Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia

The land of Runersia it was long ago one of the many pleasant locus related to the concept of heaven on earth. The lands were blessed with the favor of God of Mana who bestowed the precious resource in equal parts among the locals. Thanks to the latter, all creation prospered in health and abundance.



Nonetheless, what naturally happens in any narrative that has such an attack occurred: men were taken by the greed and from the irresistible and never satiated appetite of Where. They split into nations, six to be precise: Republic of Gyimole, Norzaleo Kingdom, United Islands of Mirelva, Shinobi Tribe, Holy Gustava Empire and the austere Mana Saleesia Theocracy. The leaders of some of these had received as a legacy from the God of Mana parts of the Brigandine, a mythical treasure in the form of legendary armor. Each of the nations aimed to wrest the other lands, Mana and Brigandine.

The one just outlined is the Legend of Runersia from which, moreover, Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, which we talk about in this one review, takes its name. The title leads you to experience first hand the pseudo-literary events of the myth pushing you, in essence, to forge the aforementioned myth yourself. In fact, you will have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the narrative dimension of Brigandine in the role of one of the you are rulers of the nations mentioned. We therefore start from one lore of undoubted attractiveness, written in great detail, magniloquente and credible albeit mythological, because it is effectively outlined in the round. We are talking about a narrative component born from the mind of Kenji Terada, the screenwriter, novelist and director of anime who dealt with the first three episodes of a certain videogame saga that bears the name of Final Fantasy. 


Although in this case the narration is the usual logical glue-contour and contextual to interspersing hours and hours of gameplay portions, the same is well thought out as well as well thought out are the rulers and their closest subjects. Each of these is secondary from the point of view of the game, but finished with the same care as the main counterparts.


Precisely because of this wealth of writing, at times, it perhaps leads to excessively verbose and unnecessary. What really matters, however, is that the technical sector it prevented us from fully enjoying the interweaving of Terada. However, we will talk about this in the penultimate paragraph of the review. It should be specified, for those who are not a fan of the Anglo-Saxon language, it should be specified that the only language available in addition to the varieties of Chinese and Japanese is English.  

Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia: videogiocare Risiko

From board game to video game - Brigandine The Legend of Runersia Review

We will see soon in the course of this review su Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia that the plant of gameplay of the title is hidden behind the apparent complexity of the facade and is, to the test of facts, on the contrary very enjoyable and immediate. As mentioned, your operations will mainly consist in trying to bring all the bases available on the game map back to the control of your army. Neither more nor less than what you would normally do in Risks in conclusion. In the board game, however, all the offensive variety available is embodied by plastickers mignon tanks you receive each turn based on the number and extent of controlled regions.

In Brigandine instead you will drive Knights of Mana and monsters. Everyone has certain moveset, statistics and skills in addition to the possibility of using the magic. There are also levels, degrees of evolution, affinity with different types of pitches and equipment. Every aspect of your units will progress as you use them in battle. In short, as in the case of the first Brigandine, the dry and minimal play system of Risiko was given depth and thickness. Sometimes, however, it must be said, (especially when the game difficulty is set to "Easy") All the nuances are lost by becoming a little tinsel fine to themselves without being able to really make a difference.

Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia: videogiocare Risiko

And the flicker? - Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia

Share Risk, however, there is still thebasic plant and it is certainly not cheap. Both battles in the strict sense (denominated "invasions") And the management phases are based on shift system. Each of your turns corresponds to a game season. The season consists of two steps: one of planning and one in which yes attacks. In the first you can summon and place monsters and Mana Knights on each base under your aegis. Each base has different types of monsters that can be summoned and these can only be obtained by spending the What which you will get at the beginning of each turn based on the number of bases controlled. Once you have summoned and moved your units on the map, move on to theattack. You will move your troops from one base to another adjacent enemy base to initiate the invasion.

The battle phase follows the setting of the many Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre and Disgaea that you may already be familiar with. Fromoverworld of the map you move straight to the battlefield sectioned with the classic motion grid. Each Mana Knight controls a handful of creatures. Eliminating the knight on duty will also get rid of the respective troop of creatures. The basic strategic approach is therefore to target the knights right away. Yes they have 12 overall shifts for each battle and wins the victory (and the base, consequently) the army that from time to time manages to eliminate more opponents. As always in the canons of the genre, each unit has specific ranges of movement which makes even the most apparently harmless ones useful. 

Do not be terrified by tutorial initials. These will bombard you by spreading on the screen an infinite number of suggestions, details and indications that are often excessive and bordering on notionalism. In itself the game system, in spite of pedantic tutorials, is fluid and much less intricate of what it would seem talking about. Also thanks to the very useful option of speed up animations fighting like any video on YouTube.

In short, everything turns out rather enjoyable and satisfying. In the long run, however, as it was said in this one recensione su Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, of the many features mixed in the gameplay some are missing to really do the difference. In short, it is missing the flicker and the vivacity to dismantle that bit of the basic staidness. In other words, the outcome of the Invasions will sometimes be predictable and reduced toordinary administration. Which in the long run can lead to everything being a bit repetitive. 

Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia: videogiocare Risiko

A scuola da Final Fantasy – Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia

Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, of which you are reading review, seems to have gone to school come on receive Final Fantasy. He not only inherited some of the bombast and narrative mythology from them but also the appearance visual. The 2D component of the title can be summarized in one word: stunning. The designers seem to have studied on textbooks designed by Yoshitaka Amano, Tetsuya Nomura and why not, too Yoji Shinkawa.

The illustrations of the various rulers and supporting actors are practically absurd. Every single artwork is a little in itself visual gem for technical realization and wealth of details. Everything is sparkling class, value and wonder. Formidable and beyond all expectations also i creature design. Even the most mundane and inflated like an undead or golem are surprising and pleasantly unusual. Some of the same unthinkable quality has also been lavished on the 3D models which are all things considered compelling but they struggle a bit to stand up to their two-dimensional counterparts. Ugly cue, however, for settings of battle. It is the plate of simple and indistinct expanses took power from the days of PSP.

Definitely succeeded audio component which is perfectly in line with the solemn and solemn standards of production. There are excellent arrangements and excellently orchestrated pieces. Valuable classical music it will accompany you for most of your gameplay sessions, leaving time to time to more rhythmic songs. All the work of the exceptional composer Tenpei Sato which counts on its assets productions of the caliber of The Maid: Tactics, numerous chapters of Disgaea and the 2000 reissue of the first Brigandine. The Japanese dubbing is also excellent.

It was then mentioned, in the paragraph on narrative, of theinconceivable bug which partially compromised our gaming experience. We did our test on PS4 fat. Punctually the on-screen dialogues came out later long and unnatural caricamentthe. In these screens, the background became completely black like the proverbial Internet Black screen of death. The 2D characters appeared inexplicably zoommati until they partially cover the screen with only a part of their body. Portions of the chat were struggling to get loaded which forced us to skipper all this repeatedly, irreparably compromising the general narrative enjoyment. We tested the title on our behalf (for counter-proof) Switch and everything went very well. In short, a huge pity

Review Brigandine The Legend of Runersia: videogiocare Risiko

The gem

Here we finally come to the conclusion of this discussion on the production of Matrix Software e Happinet. The title, as already shown at the Switch release, è convincing as a whole. It is a production perhaps of niche but all in all accessible to most. Undoubtedly the title is suitable for lovers of turn-based strategy fought on the usual grid fields to which the various Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem and Disgaea have made us addicted. Brigandine takes so much from those titles and even more from first historical chapter for PlayStation. From this he inherited, in full, the entire gaming system.

Compared to the other aforementioned strategic sagas, however, the gem here is having adapted once again Risks to the standards of a video game, a fantasy for more. The experiment is successful. In the long run, however, the idea of ​​being caught in a huge match of the popular game for tens and tens of hours could lead to a bit. repetitiveness. This is also due to the lack of particularly prominent features. The final grade that you read below weighs atrociously gross bug which prevented us from fully enjoying the narrative. Net of this, it remains a valid gameplay and satisfactory, one component sound level and a 2D realization to say little phenomenal that infuses the proverbial breath of life into a historic PlayStation classic we used to be unaware.

Thank you for taking the time to read this review su Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia. Stay tuned to techigames for all the news and curiosities from the world of gaming and beyond.

6.8 Who does not take risks ...

Points in favor

  • The perfect opportunity to discover a historic IP not released in Europe
  • Valid game system
  • Good depth
  • Phenomenal 2D component
  • Great dubbing and audio

Points against

  • Only English, Chinese and Japanese available
  • Some gameplay details are an end in themselves and don't stand out
  • In the long run it can be repetitive
  • Super flat battle scenarios
  • An absurd bug compromises the narrative component
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