Those Brave Story covers

[Charlie]

My first experience with XSEED was when I bought Brave Story for PSP. Over here in Canada, packaging has to be labelled in both English and French. It's rather annoying when some distributors have to delay their shipment due to the additional prints.

Anyways, I loved how the box art for Brave Story was horizontal, unlike most PSP games that are vertical. The problem was that the initial print for the Canadian box art were on some poor quality paper. It basically looked like a print out from a regular inkjet printer. XSEED heard the complaints from their Canadian fans and they actually sent out cover sheets to replace the crummy originals for free.

Cheers to XSEED for keeping up with the quality. All of my bilingual XSEED games have the same quality cover prints as their American counterparts.

[Hero]

yeah that horizontal boxart was neat

the art itself was nothing special but the fact that it was horizontal was pretty friggin cool

[Wyrdwad]

Actually, since Brave Story was released long before I got my job at XSEED (but I'm a HUGE fan of it, regardless!), I'm going to nerd out on this topic, and say that I *really love* XSEED's cover art for Brave Story PSP. The reason? I played the game in Japanese before it was ever even announced for an English release, and the Japanese cover art basically put Wataru and his party front and center -- the cast from the Brave Story novel and anime. The game cast? They were there, I think, but they were basically shown as background characters.

Essentially, the Japanese box art existed so that fans of the anime would impulse-buy the game.

The American cover art, on the other hand, showed the actual MAIN CAST OF THE GAME -- the people you were actually PLAYING as -- and was eye-catching due to its horizontal orientation. When I saw it, I realized that XSEED knew what they were doing, and I was thrilled: one of the best games I'd yet played on my PSP was not only coming to North America, but it was coming out in STYLE, and it looked fantastic!

So yeah... reverting to a point in time when I was not an XSEED employee, I too would like to say, XSEED, you guys rock -- Brave Story was awesome. (:

-Tom

[Dust]

I said it before and I'll say it again Brave Story was right alongside Popolocrois as my favorite PSP title (until Trails). The cover art was pretty unique. It really made the game stand out. After reading Tom's post I'm really glad they didn't do the more "traditional" style of cover. Anyway yeah, love it, check out the novel, etc :)

[brightsuzaku]

......... Dangit, now I want this game. You did an excellent job selling it to me through mere words! Amaaazing~ :O

[Wyrdwad]

Oh, you've never played it? You definitely need to, then! (: It's an amazing game, and it complements the novel really well (and yes, the novel is available in English too, and yes, the translator of the novel worked with the game's translators to ensure that all the nomenclature and such is consistent). It's actually pretty cool how the two work together, as the game takes place AT THE SAME TIME as the novel, but stars a different cast of characters and features a totally unique plotline that only OCCASIONALLY intersects with the novel's. It's a neat way to expand upon the world Miyuki Miyabe wrote, and it makes for an excellent old-school-style RPG (with a really addictive battle system!).

-Tom

[brightsuzaku]

Do you like, hang out in elevators and pitch games? Because I swear, you could get VERY wealthy just doing that.... I'm sold!

[Wyrdwad]

(gasp) HOW DID YOU KNOW?! ;)

-Tom

[WoottWinds]

Brave Story is a phenomenal game. Anyone that hasn't already played it should pick up the book first though, as Tom said above, it ties in with the game perfectly and is in my opinion an absolutely fantastic read. The book itself feels so much like reading an actual RPG, and it's really cool to then actually see the world and familiar locations on screen once you play through the game.

Tom, is the anime a retelling of the book or something slightly different (like the game)? I remember hearing about the series' existence but haven't had the chance to see it or find out what it's about yet. I'd love to hunt it down if it's good.

[Wyrdwad]

I'd say avoid the anime -- it's just a single movie, and it tried to cram the entire 820-page book into 110 minutes.

Oh, and it cut out anything that would be too disturbing for the kiddies, so in a way, it was kind of... Disneyfied? ;)

It's an *OK* movie, and its soundtrack is quite excellent... but it definitely feels very half-hearted compared to the book, and perhaps even a bit confusing (if you haven't read the book, a lot of what happens in the movie comes across as random and unexplained).

The novel IS a fantastic read, though. I like to tell people it's kind of like a Japanese take on The Chronicles of Narnia, but MUCH, MUCH DARKER.

My favorite part of the book is actually the first 230 or so pages, as I think Miyabe paints a really vivid picture of what life is like in Japan for poor little Wataru...

-Tom

P.S. I've only read the first volume of the manga, which is ALSO available in English, but it seemed pretty cool. It's basically an alternate retelling of Wataru's story, and to say it's DIFFERENT from the book would be a huuuuuge understatement! I could tell that even from the first volume, where the mute, paraplegic girl from the book is portrayed basically as a very talkative ninja. ;)

[macirex]

The game looks kinda generic... I´ve read the manga and is quite fantastic!

[WoottWinds]

The anime is just a single movie!? The book would've made a possibly fantastic single season anime series, but to try and shove all that in a 110 minute movie was a poor choice. That's a huge shame. I'll still see if I can find it for curiosities sake, but I was imagining something very different.

I always tell people about the book and try to describe it (unsuccessfully), but "a very dark Japanese take on Chronicles of Narnia" is pretty dang on the nose. I'll have to remember that!

When I was reading reviews before I bought it, I kept seeing things like "you have to get past the first section of the book placed in Japan until you get to the actual exciting majority of the story", but I LOVED Wataru's home life plot. It was extremely well done, very dark yet painfully real, and honestly completely unexpected as I had definitely underestimated its "Children's Book" labeling. I couldn't put it down after I had started as the entire thing was so freakishly captivating, and I definitely consider it one of my absolute favorite reads.

Thanks for letting me know about the manga, I'll have to seek it out. I could always use more Brave Story in my life and I enjoy out-there retellings!

[Wyrdwad]

The game looks kinda generic... I´ve read the manga and is quite fantastic!

Well, the story of the game certainly isn't going to be blowing you away with incredible plot twists or anything, but that's also not the point. The story of the game is basically a fable: it's designed to teach a lesson through a series of events, while at the same time thoroughly develop a likable cast of characters. And in that respect, it succeeds admirably.

It also has a really, really fun (and surprisingly deep) battle system. And it gains serious points for style -- I mean, it's got bunny rabbits who roundhouse kick you in bullet time, comic book-style BIFFs and BAMs, and enemies who get killed by being HURLED INTO THE BACKGROUND, WHERE THEY EXPLODE. How can you go wrong? ;)

-Tom

[Ventara]

Once again I'm reminded of my backlog. I only played it for a few minutes before my ADD mind had to find something new to do. I'm definitely planning on going back to finish this (as I say with most of my games in my backlog, but I mean it with this).

And there was a time that Wyrdwad wasn't an XSEED employee?! I thought he was simply born there and was trained to work by teaching him Japanese/English and making him play Falcom games all day long.

[Alkaiser]

enemies who get killed by being HURLED INTO THE BACKGROUND, WHERE THEY EXPLODE.
Grabbing this next weekend, then.

[Mutagene]

I think I got around halfway through the game before I dropped it for some unknown reason... I'll have to pick it up again soon, after I have more room in my backlog.

I think I still have a gif of the Matrix bunny somewhere on my harddrive, I'll have to upload it sometime.

[Wheels]

Well, the story of the game certainly isn't going to be blowing you away with incredible plot twists or anything, but that's also not the point. The story of the game is basically a fable: it's designed to teach a lesson through a series of events, while at the same time thoroughly develop a likable cast of characters. And in that respect, it succeeds admirably.

It also has a really, really fun (and surprisingly deep) battle system. And it gains serious points for style -- I mean, it's got bunny rabbits who roundhouse kick you in bullet time, comic book-style BIFFs and BAMs, and enemies who get killed by being HURLED INTO THE BACKGROUND, WHERE THEY EXPLODE. How can you go wrong? ;)

-Tom

I think you just got a bunch of people to go pick this up (I'm going to check it out on PSN now)

[AngrySalesMonkey]

Phew, I saw the topic header and thought this was going to be slamming us for the horrible quality print job our Canadian distributor at the time did on their bilingual units, but glad to see that the TC remembers that we tried to make amends.

That bilingual requirement in Quebec absolutely kills us since our English manuals are always meaty full-color affairs, and it's very expensive when creating another set of French manuals at a low quantity run. We could have gone the route of many others and just included an 8-12 page black&white manual that covers English, French, and Spanish, but that just wouldn't be our style so please don't hold it against us that we had to stop providing bilingual packaging for the time being. I know a lot of stores in Quebec won't stock it if it's not bilingual, but hopefully Amazon.ca and VGP will still ship there.

[nunuu]

I'd just like to say that, from what I can remember, Brave Story has very pretty graphics! It was the first game on the PSP that WOWED me. (And yes, I didn't play many other PSP games back then! :P)

Never did get very far in it because it starts off so ... sloooowwww ....

I was always tempted to get those pudgy bird figures (http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-8x-49-en-70-25r0.html) from Play Asia but now they're out of print. And to think they were on sale for the longest time too. :((